In Conversation With #087 - Milk.
Dublin alt-pop band Milk. have provided us with a right treat with their new EP ‘1’ - which is out now. Combining a blend of thick r&b layers with euphoric pop - they pack quite the bundle in this release. We took a moment to have a chat with the band about the release.
Hey here Milk. - so the EP is out now. How does it feel?
Mark: It feels good to finally get the EP out. We worked very hard and spent a lot of time on it. The recording process probably took a little longer than it should have, but I feel like it gave us the time to really perfect every aspect of it. I hope the journey we went on when creating it will be heard and understood by the listeners in their own way.
Morgan: It feels good. We’re all very proud of it, and I’m more than happy to have made it with such close friends. I’m excited to see what everyone makes of it and I hope that listeners can take something from it. The idea of being part of the listener’s life in a small way is one of my favourite things about making music.
Conor K: It feels great, It’s the product of many people’s hard work, hopefully it resonates with people in some way. When we were planning the release we were expecting to play shows and festivals this summer, sadly that isn’t a possibility for a while but now I’m really excited to play these songs live to people.
Conor G: It feels really great to have the EP out. Since me and Mark started the band we’ve always thought in bodies of work rather than singles so to finally get to release our first one to the world is a very proud moment. We really hope people enjoy it as much as we do.
The title of the EP is ‘1’ - does that number hold a certain meaning to you?
Mark: Not particularly. Originally we had a song called ‘1’ that got binned but the name stayed. It just felt like it made sense and removed the task of thinking of an intelligent name. I feel like it also sets us up to make another EP rather than rushing into an album too early.
Not massively. Obviously, it’s our debut EP, but also, we had a song called ‘one’ which was originally going to go on this EP; we figured calling the EP ‘1’ would work. Although we scrapped the song, we kept the title.
Where was the EP recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the recording process?
Mark: We recorded the EP at our mate Adam’s studio, Flaked Studios. It’s essentially just a room outside his back garden. Our process is extremely casual because we’re all such good mates; it feels more like we’re just hanging out rather than doing a job. If the weathers good we’ll have barbecues or go on walks. If the weathers bad we’ll probably just make soup or something. It’s all very wholesome. The process is probably a little removed from the traditional way of recording and we do have boring days that are focused more on the smaller details or mixing. We’re just 5 mates in a shed with some guitars and a laptop really.
Morgan: The EP was recorded in Flaked Studios, a room outside our friend Adam Redmond’s house. He’s our producer and also one of my best mates, so it goes without saying that recording there is always a good time. My favourite moment in the process is listening back to a piece of music that we’ve worked on after a long day and hanging out together, or going for walks in his area - it’s a lovely thing to be a part of.
Conor G: It has not been an ordinary recording process. It’s been nearly two years as we first recorded ‘Drama Queen’ back in August of 2018 (I think). So it’s been kind of a staggered process of recording a new song every couple of months and then just before the coronavirus hit we were finalising everything and then finished it off over zoom calls and email. We generally get to Adams at like 12 and could end up staying there having barbecues and making music till 4am. The room where we record is literally 10 foot by 10 foot so it can be very cramped and a bit intense if all of us are there. However we always have a great time - as serious as we are about our music and how it sounds, at the end of the day we’re just five mates trying to make tunes that make us feel good and hopefully make others feel something too.
Conor K: As the lads said, at our friend Adam Redmond’s studio. Although it takes lots of hard work, it never feels like hard work which made it so enjoyable (But i’m not the one comping vocals so maybe Adam might disagree there) one of my favourite days recording the EP was when we brought in Noel Fortune to play trumpet on Always On Time, We were all really excited to put the trumpet parts down as we felt it was the “missing piece” for the track but I don’t think any of us had anticipated just how loud a trumpet is and one by one we sheepishly retreated to Adam’s house for the sake of our ears and and observed from a distance.
A lot of the songs of the EP started off on the messenger service Whatsapp, how does that work when it comes to writing a song? And how do you take something like that into the studio to create a final track?
Mark: Usually if one of us has an idea we’ll make anything from a quick recording to a full demo and send it into our group chat. We all listen to the recording, discuss parts, new ideas, what we liked, what doesn’t work etc. and maybe send the session around if it's easier to just record your idea instead of explaining it. Once we get the song in a position we’re all happy with, we’ll bring it to Adam. Or, alternatively, if we start to feel stuck or struggle with the song we’ll go into Adam with a loose idea and the process of starting again can help find whatever it was we were missing.
Morgan: One of us will send an initial idea into our group chat, whether that be a short voice memo of a guitar part or a near-fully formed demo. We’ll all listen to it on our own time and discuss what parts we’re into, and make suggestions to further the idea. Then, a revised version of the idea gets sent around once the changes are made, and so on until we’re in a position where we’re happy enough with the concept to share it with Adam.
Conor G: We’re lucky in that most of us are pretty proficient at using recording software and being able to get the ideas in our head out into something audible. It’s just what seems to work for us. We’ll send stuff over and back to each other until we feel comfortable with it. When we bring it to the studio, we rip the demoes up and start again. We’ll only use quintessential elements that made us love the song in the first place. Then it's just a matter of making it sound as big and as full as possible.
Conor K: I think it can spark more creativity, often times at various hours of the night there’ll be a message into the group with “just wrote this” and an audio file, I think it allows for more freedom as it lets somebody go as far down a rabbit hole without anyone else putting on the breaks.
What would you say are the key themes and influences on the EP?
Mark: I would say the key theme of the EP is intimacy and relationships (Especially as a teenager). It comes from a place of reflection and realising that as a young person in a relationship, I’m not quite convinced either of us knew what we were doing. The whole experience was just one big learning curve. Each song on the EP is about different aspects of that learning curve. I would consider Saudade to be the only love song on the EP. I’m sure people will understand by looking up the definition of the word. The picture of the bed on the cover felt like the perfect symbol for everything this EP is about. The very place intimacy in a relationship is intrinsic to.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
Mark: I’m not sure which would be my favourite, I often spend days debating if what I’ve written is actually good. Maybe “Sink those eyes into mine” from Always On Time? I recorded the demo of that song sitting across from the person it’s about and just blurted that out so it feels like the most genuine lyric on the EP to me.
Morgan: I like “you, cotton, lace, sunlight” on A Little More. Concise and emotive. Nice one, Mark.
Conor G: ‘I dress your wooden floor’, in A Little More. Often, I find that when people talk about sex and love it can sometimes be a little too direct and a bit cringey. I thought this lyric was a nice, simple way of alluding to the setting without literally saying ‘we’re having sex’.
Conor K: I really love the the second verse of Treat Me, I think the “I’ve forgot the can-opener for your head, I’ll have to look into your eyes instead”
This EP is a great introduction to the band, but now it’s out there - what next?
Mark: We have a lot of new song ideas we want to develop and old ones we want to revisit. We’re definitely going to explore more sonically moving forward, ‘1’ has it’s sound and our next EP will be independent of that with it’s own sound. I’m excited to workout what the sound of our next EP will be and bring it to live shows once it’s safe again.
Conor G: It is, and yet there are many sonic avenues we’re yet to go down with the music that we release. We have lots of new songs with lots of variation, and we’re excited to share it with our listeners both at live shows and in our records.
Morgan: we have a wealth of ideas that we can expand upon now that the EP has been released - we’ll be back in the studio in the next couple of weeks to begin working out the recording of our second EP, and we’ll have some shows in Ireland and the UK as soon as it’s safe.
Conor K: Personally I’m looking forward to getting back into the studio and playing gigs. As the lads said, there’s a load of different ideas we have for songs and I can’t wait to flesh them all out and play them live. I would never say I took those things for granted, but having them taken away has definitely made me appreciate them more. I’m just hoping I can remember how to play!