A Quick Q&A With Milk.
Three singles in and already making a splash with a contagious blend of low-key indie inspired guitar, subtle RnB influenced drum beats and catchy lyricism, are Irish four-piece Milk. As they begin to make a name for themselves back home and abroad, Isadora Lynch got the lowdown on their upcoming release '1, the EP'...
Despite the intimate themes of the record, you’ve mentioned that ‘1, the EP’ was largely written over messenger services like WhatsApp. Was this move forced by Coronavirus or was it a conscious decision pre-pandemic?
Mark: It was never something we consciously thought about or did on purpose. None of us lived very close to each other when we first started so it just felt like sending songs over WhatsApp and discussing them in our group chat made the most sense.
Conor G: It was never a conscious decision. It’s how we’ve always worked since Mark and I started writing songs together in 2017. It’s always been easiest for us and now with the pandemic it doesn’t feel any different, whereas it’s probably been a struggle for some bands that are used to writing in a more conventional way.
Morgan: When we got used to writing this way, I found it to be a really useful tool. it doesn’t matter where in the world we may be, we can just throw our ideas at one another at any time and have the others discuss and expand upon them when it suits them. It means that we spend a lot more time helping each other to create than we would if we were bound to a system of writing in the same room.
The EP is themed around relationships and intimacy, and ‘Drama Queen’ discusses a dysfunctional relationship close to breaking down. Are these difficult subjects to tackle when songwriting or does the process feel cathartic?
Mark: Not really I’ve always gone into writing songs with the idea that it’s just for me and no one else will hear it unless I want them too. It’s definitely cathartic, all art is. At first I would worry about releasing songs and wonder if someone I mention in a song would hear it and not like it. I’ve just always gone into writing with the idea of ‘whatever I’m feeling will just get worse if I don’t tackle it’, writing is just my way of tackling these things.
Milk. is described as free from the ‘confines of genre’. With such a wide musical scope to explore, was it difficult to nail down concepts for the EP or has the vision always been clear?
Mark: We evolved a lot as a band while recording this EP. It was a very important process for us when it came to our sound because we hadn’t set anything in stone and had no prior releases. We all have varied music tastes and listen to literally everything so i think we natural incorporate everything we love into our music when writing. A big part of our sound comes down to working with our producer Adam. He made the songs exactly how we wanted and was a huge help for us in the journey of defining our sound.
Conor G: The EP certainly evolved sonically the deeper we got into recording it, but there was always a rough outline of what we wanted.
Morgan: We always have a pretty clear idea of the sonic direction we want things to take. We embrace the idea of getting rid of genre, it’s never been daunting for us.
Your sound has been compared to electropop artists like The 1975 and Pale Waves who’ve blown up in recent years. Were these bands and their success influential to finding the band’s sound?
Mark: Their sound was definitely an inspiration for us. Any artist that pushes the limits and progresses music the way these bands have is a huge inspiration for us. We’re always looking to create something new and exciting so it’s nice to be categorised with other artists doing the same.
Conor G: Yeah, definitely. We’ve all played in bands for a long time so that part was always natural for us, but those kind of bands definitely opened up the possibility for us to start forming ideas that maybe wouldn’t have been linked to bands like ours – four guys on stage, two guitars, bass and drums – such as such heavier use of electronics, sampling and backing tracks rather than their ‘real’ instruments.
The final track ‘Always on Time’ takes a more indie-folk direction than the rest of the EP, why did you decide to finish on a relatively stripped-back note?
Mark: I’ve always had a soft spot for acoustic music. I write most songs acoustically and make them a ‘band song’ later. I find it easier to write lyrics and melodies this way. People's singing voices have never been a main attraction for me in music, I’ve always been drawn more to the emotion that comes through. Always On Time, to me, felt like the most emotional track on the EP so I wanted to do that emotional value justice rather than drown it out in production. The original demo of the song is quite stripped back so when we went in with Adam to record it we wanted to keep that sincerity but still give it all those musical layers we had given all of our other songs. In the future maybe we’ll release a straight up acoustic song, who knows.
Conor G: it just felt like a closer to us, beginning stripped-back and growing into a big crescendo at the end, almost a cacophony of sound. Seeing as the rest of the EP was quite happy and up-tempo it just felt right to put it at the end.