'We're deep into it'

Dirty Marmalade release new EP XIX:XI

Dirty Marmalade are biding their time. Proudly rooted in Cavan’s sodden landscape, Donny McAvenue and Emil Kapusta are busy writing and releasing tracks in their own inimitable style, but they know that ultimately the band’s future lies abroad.

There’s no higher compliment to pay their new EP ‘XIX:XI’ than to say that even at this early stage they have created their own sound. It’s authentically them.

The title track of XIX:XI begins with a Donny’s downbeat refrain that someone’s “killed my buzz” over Emil’s impossibly funky bassline, before an off the wall solo jinks about wildly yet is executed with complete control. Next a Ronnie Scott’s vibe takes hold as Emil plays a concise drum solo, before the bassline worms takes centre stage again and worms off all over the place and then all of a sudden we’re back where we belonged in that buzz-kill refrain.

It’s really great, but maybe not everyone’s cup of progressive jazz-rock madness.

The pair are probably at their most accessible on the conventional indie pop song ‘Why Else’ where Donny’s guitar sound brings to mind the early years of The Cure and The Smiths.

“I have a chorus pedal which sounds so good that I can’t not use it on the guitar for everything,” he confesses.

But in discussing influences, Donny and Emil are just a likely to name-check a Japanese jazz trumpet player, or even more surprisingly a hip hop artist. At one stage Emil recalls how they “bonded together” over a 1970s jazz album by the Ahmad Jamal Trio. These are not your typical Cavan or, even Irish indie musicians.

Dirty Marmalade’s sound is simultaneously familiar and also like absolutely nothing else. Don’t expect to tap your foot along as you’re listening to it on an Irish radio station any time soon. You’ll likely have to seek them out.

As such, if the band are to come close to reaching their potential, realistically they’ve got to leave. This is nothing they don’t already know.

“This the challenge of our life,” admits Donny.

“We’re trying to figure that out,” drummer Emil chimes in before Donny adds: “It’s always funny to hear somebody say it.”

XIX:XI was recorded thanks to an emerging artist award from Cavan Arts last year.

“In that way we are very grateful for a lot of the stuff we get in Cavan. We’re very much from Cavan, and the reason that we’re here is - it’s a little bit of the comfort, but it’s also just our circumstance, and because we grew up here.”

The EP is an appetiser for their debut album, also funded by the Arts Council, likely to be released in Spring titled ‘Hills of Breffni’.

“It is about our experience growing up in Cavan and living in Cavan and the types of characters we’ve met,” says Donny.

Marmalade continue to eye up a Dublin indie scene that has so far been immune to their sonic charms.

“That’s what you have to do to make it happen, that’s the challenge, the journey we’re on,” asserts Donny understanding that in the longer term they’ll have to travel beyond the capital.

“We want to do more recording - we have our first album done now and want to put that out and we want to record another one, and some of our own music too - part of the Dirty Marmalade brand, and then we are going to pack up and head somewhere in a year or two - London or wherever we can be appreciated a bit more.”

Unknowns

They’re observe they are of being “stuck in the middle of a period” in which decisions on getting a manager, a booking agent, a record company, grabbing some column inches, or how to even release their music all remain unknowns. It’s a lot of unknowns.

On the other side of the Marmalade scale they have one ‘known’ that outweighs everything else: complete, unwavering faith in, and commitment to, the music they’re making and the friendship that sustains it.

“We’ve been best friends since we were teenagers - we hung around all the time, messing about in Cavan town,” recalls Donny of their origin story.

“We started a band with two other lads and were out of control I would nearly say, having too much craic.

“As we got a bit older we went our separate ways - we both went on a dark path in our own ways, with mental health, but then we reconciled in December 2019 and around Covid time started writing music again.

“We bonded over a lot of other stuff, like spirituality that really inspired the music,” says Donny candidly.

At one point in the free-wheeling chat Donny concedes of their sound: “Dirty Marmalade - I don’t know where it comes from.”

Emil however doesn’t look just to musical references to explain the Marmalade sound.

“I would say Donny and I are so comfortable with our friendship when we make music, it just happens, it’s a kind of an extension of us in a way.

“It’s like we’re just making conversation in music. We’ll be talking about really weird and silly things and I feel that the music is as well, it’s weird and silly versions of ourselves,” he says hence their daft alter egos - Donny as Lil Phynott, a play on that Irish rock legend of similar hair status, and Emil as Mildly Foolish.

Emil expands more on their sound: “It’s more like trying to create a little bit of tension or suspense within the first couple of seconds within a song, to try to resolve that some how.

“It’s mostly inspired by hip hop - all of that music changes quite often and the sections are often based around hooks - I would say that’s a melodic inspiration.”

Trust

Given they are a two-piece at heart, to play live they have to recruit a bassist. As such they have chopped and changed bass players over the years. The pair had actually chatted through why they haven’t already recruited a third Marmalader just the night before, so it was fresh in their minds.

“We’re very much deep into,” Donny pauses to carefully consider his words, “I would say religion and spirituality. We’re very close.”

Emil harmonises: “We’re quite weird as people, very weird.”

Without dropping a beat Donny continues: “Trust is very important to us, if we have another person in the band we have to really get to know them and understand them before we fully accept them.

“It’s like having a relationship with a girl - you have to really trust her to be in the relationship for a long time, but we haven’t been fortunate enough to meet someone who is just like-minded as us and willing to give as much to this project.”

They are thrilled by Belturbet bassist Aaron McCann (“He’s a ridiculously good bass player”) who has slotted in lately.

“When we meet more musicians, and we’re creating a bigger, I’d almost say family of people who we really trust and are helping the band, we will include them - we will embrace them fully,” Donny promises.

Donny candidly speaks of what the band means to them.

“We have fully committed to the sacrifice of making this the purpose of our lives, so we’re deep into it.

“If we don’t get the attention we want now, we’re just going to keep working on this endlessly. The second album will get us there, or some of our own things - it’s all part of a bigger brand in our minds. But you have to learn through doing.”

While they probably come across quite intense, the pair are really good company and insist that having craic is central to the band’s ethos. When you discover that their merchandise ideas include releasing their own ‘Dirty Marmalade’ flavour of vape juice, you know they’re entertainers at heart.

Donny insists their gigs is all about ensuring the crowd has “a good time”.

Emil has been pushing for their live shows to be a place where everyone can be themselves.

“That is the place where you feel comfortable to be yourself. If it’s not anywhere else. That’s the place to let loose and be free - that’s what music is all about, bringing people together, allowing them to express themselves for who they are.”