Rising Damp on Petrol Factory

Michelle Doyle aka Rising Damp dropped her long awaited debut album Petrol Factory with a live performance earlier this month on her monthly morning show. Ellen Duggan caught up with her for a socially distant back and forth on the ideas running through the album.

I wanted to ask you some questions about ideas of resistance. First, in terms of the process of the album, you mentioned in your ddr. new album special  that you kind of feel as though your natural home is improvising and that it was tough to sit down and ‘solidify’ with Petrol Factory. Was a non-improvisational approach something you felt resistance towards?

I think the process was very much a learning and attention span one for me. I worked out much of the album from performing live, improvising and having panicked last minute practices. One performance was the ddr. Sleep Concert, where I improvised for 8 hours non stop. From that process alone I was able to parse 2 songs, Recognise Fascism and A Nation. I enjoyed the process of coming into practice an hour or two early and whipping up the outline of a song, then playing it live immediately, testing it before there was any real lyrics, sometimes just repeating a few lines that I'd read somewhere that day. In fact since making Petrol Factory, songs like The Bank have changed a lot since even the recording. Now that I'm working with a live band I am often asked how many bars, where's the change? Which again has changed the process - songs have structured parts but there's still a looseness and ability to jam on, which is really important. Improvising allows you to enter different spaces within ideas, to return to themes and expand them. It can respond to a live rowdy crowd, who wants more - or a crowd who are more pensive and want a darker show. 

The Bank deals with Central Bank, a building you really aptly described as having ‘scary architecture’ in your album release. I feel the track really balanced images of this formal staple of the City Centre standing quite firmly while the kids we all grew up knowing (or who we were) loitered around outside. This kind of juxtaposition you create between this formal, kind of austere voice over, layered upon this quite harsh, hypnotic music. Is the musical evoking of the resistance between these two ideas something that you consciously wanted to explore?  

Yes - The Bank was originally from a live art performance I did in The Lab on Foley Street. It was part of the exhibition "The Last Great Album of the Decade", which was celebrating relics and souvenirs of subculture. In the performance I was dressed as a site engineer and used a lot of props to make construction noise, to replicate the renovations currently underway. Central Bank was important to me as I got into music through online forums and myspace and regularly met up with total randomers outside it. Central Bank was famously the place where goths and punks congregated. It is a really important space for counter culture and revolution for so many people, and nothing really compares to it. Even before Occupy Dame St, it was the place you would hand out fliers to gigs and protests. So while we cherish objects of subculture, these spaces are important too and the Dublin neoliberal grand project has never been to honour or protect space, but to privatise it, make tiered financial points of entry, folly for tourists and gated communities. Every small change that was made to the front and side was to stop congregation, to stop skateboarding on the benches, steps, to stop homeless people sleeping under the shelter - every aspect of it makes it hostile. I also came across photos of "Anarchitect", Gordon Matta-Clark's holes in buildings and somehow wanted to embody this de-construction work through sound.

How the FUCK do you know when something is finished??  

Nothing is ever really truly finished! Some things come together very easy, sometimes a song is 3 instruments, 3 lines, 3 minutes and it's done. Which seems mad, but better to work fast, get the shape of a song and then finesse it rather than slowly brick by brick laying a song. Some songs I made in 2 mins at practice, left for 6 months and came back to with a fresh head and finished. There's nothing worse than being stuck in a rut, but nothing finishes songs like playing live gigs, playing with a band or recording with someone 

The way you use your voice on this album really embodies the feelings behind the lyrics.

I was thinking particularly of Excessive Force when I read the account of you ‘spitting lyrics’ in the album description that I thought worded it really beautifully, almost this kind of performative derision that is so incredibly energizing to listen to. Do the lyrics feed the way you use your voice? Or are they all working in tandem?

They all work in tandem. I am a forever Crass fan. One of the things I really like about them is their extremely sharp attack. Each word lands on the right beat, and when you do that you play your voice like a rhythmic instrument. I also love the delivery of Gudrun Gut of Malaria! John Lyndon in his PiL days and Anne Clark. I often read essays and articles and highlight words and phrases I think can have a sharp attack. Sometimes I walk around town just making notes on my phone, talking to myself in this snarling and crazed voice. I think in order to make work come alive you have to be willing to defend it and that means being confrontational in how it's delivered. 

I feel really struck by the percussion on the album. On your album release show, you referred to a sampler as a ‘natural clock’, kind of a timekeeper for the world of the song.  How did you approach the programmed drums on the album?  

I think what I meant was it's either a drum machine or a drummer - never both, as both are ultimately the natural clock of a song. I had problems with the beginning of the live band because I was so caught up in trying to protect the fidelity of songs that I made on a computer. As soon as I relinquished control of these aspects and trusted my amazing drummer and guitarist, the songs came together in a way they had never before and I realised that Rising Damp is 2 things, a solo club act or a post punk band. It doesn't have to be both things at the same time, and in fact it's better to push the possibilities of the live jam experience with a live band, and in a club setting to push the limits of remixing and improvising electronically.

I am lucky to have so many amazing real life non machine, human-drummers in my life who actually inspired how I program drums. Sarah Grimes who is now playing in the Rising Damp live band was someone who I have always admired the melodic, harsh and hypnotic way she plays. I played bass in punk band Sissy - the drummer was Eoin Fullam who is also a great drummer and taught me all about where drums sit in arrangements - they should always be loud in the mix. Sound engineers must hate me as I'm always asking for drums above everything, but quiet drums at a live gig can really kill the energy. And another incredible drummer is David Lacey, you have to see his excellent band Rainfear. Probably one of the best bands in Ireland in the last 20 years.

What is exiting your Quarantine existence?

Right now I'm working on shorter projects. I'm trying to use the approach I have to making songs to making art. A lot of things I was working on were pushed back. I was one of the fortunate recipients of the Arts Council's Next Generation Award in 2019 and am ticking away on new work at the moment as part of the award, including video and writing. I'm making demos for different upcoming compilations like A Litany of Failure, 343 and my practice space's comp. I'm also working on releases and videos for other bands I'm involved in like The Healers and Bodycam. 

While I'm looking into disembodied online performances, nothing beats the live and it could be 2021 before we really see a return to live gigs. Looking ahead, the plan would be to emerge out of quarantine and think about consolidating work towards live shows in the Summer of 2021. How art will respond to this is really hard to say, but we are entering a time of grief, more inequality and increased surveillance. Lots of people are going to be making art and music to comfort and placate. But I think I'll just keep making the same terrifying music I've always made.

Petrol Factory is out now on wherethetimegoes.