Shedding some of the “teenage angst” that characterised their debut, Irish dream-rock trio NewDad are back with their second offering, Altar. Julie Dawson fills in K! on her increasing yearning for home, parallels between religion and the music industry, and how her first solo album affected where the band went next…
In her last audience with Kerrang!, NewDad’s Julie Dawson spoke fondly of London, the city she now calls home.
Her brother and sister both lived nearby, with a house “full of Galway-heads” in Shepherd’s Bush. Freshly signed to Atlantic Records, the Big Smoke was the obvious, logical base for NewDad to lay down roots, while their glorious debut album Madra (Irish for ‘dog’) rippled through the world.
Nearly two years later, those feelings are much more hazy.
“I really miss my family and I find the city so chaotic,” admits Julie, whose siblings have both recently returned home. “I struggle with the lack of peace. I would love to be able to move home and do this from Galway, but there’s just better opportunities here.”
Sandwiched between that push and pull, Julie unloaded her conundrum onto NewDad’s second album, Altar. Those first seeds were sown in only the third studio session back after Madra was recorded, where Julie continued her songwriting partnership with Linkin Park and Lana Del Rey collaborator Justin Parker.
“I needed to move on from all my teenage angsty writing,” begins Julie. “I'd been in London for two years, and the novelty was wearing off. I was coming to grips with the reality of the job, and that's what the whole record is about.”
Julie later admits that it feels “fucked up” to call NewDad her ‘job’, but that truth was staring her in the face. Everything I Wanted, the eureka moment for Altar, explores this juxtaposition, where Julie’s present-day struggles (‘What I’m breathing in is toxic’) exist at odds with the results of the full-time musical dream: ‘I tell myself / That it’s everything I wanted.’
“With the relentless nature of the music industry, you don't stop and reflect very often on the things you've achieved,” she ponders. “Trying to stay relevant, and all that added pressure to do that? It’s not something I had considered before.”
With those achievements in mind, and the notion of a bucket list in the rearview mirror, what is everything Julie now wants?
“The things that are hard to be made a bit easier,” she answers. “Touring – the cost and pressures of that – but honestly, I am getting everything I wanted. There's nothing else I'd want to be doing, but there's these other elements that I find difficult to navigate.”
Madra’s heavy touring cycle has seen NewDad sell out shows all over the world, from London’s KOKO to Shanghai’s VAS Live. Midway through an extensive in-store run as she speaks to K!, we ask Julie if drummer Fiachra Parslow’s decision to step back from their forthcoming headline run is emblematic of these pressures.
“There's too many horror stories – you have to look after your mental health,” she agrees. “You live in this world where there's no consistency, you're called last-minute, and it's so intense. I suppose, one day we probably will feel more in control, when we're not so reliant on advances or we own all our music. NewDad is bigger than us now, and it's a weird thing to come to terms with.”
Another significant change was bassist Cara Joshi’s departure in March, reducing NewDad from four to three, with no permanent replacement as of yet. Julie reassures us that their bass-driven core sound is going nowhere – just listen to how it sucks you into Pretty, the third track on Altar.
“We're not too naive to think it's not the most important thing in the NewDad [sound],” nods Julie. “Áindle [O’Beirn, founding bassist] turned us on to all these amazing bass-driven bands. I still write with him all the time. We want to take our time and find a good [permanent] fit, but we've learned so much from Áindle and Cara, and vice versa.”
Also in between Madra and Altar came Julie’s debut solo album, Bottom Of The Pool, which arrived last September. In an interview with NME, she described the approach as ‘freer’ – is this something she wanted to inject into the NewDad process, second time around?
“I like working with a few constraints and parameters, but I think there's moments on [Altar] where I allowed myself to stray away from that,” she reflects. “What I did on the solo record, I think it did drip into the writing process, knowing that things don't have to be one way. Sometimes that's how you get the best songs, when they’re all a bit funky, structure-wise.”
This flexibility bleeds into Altar, be it gnarly lead single Roobosh or steadily-building opener Other Side, which borders on shoegaze in its mushy second act. The album is littered with angelic and heavenly references, exemplified by a lyric in ethereal cut Mr Cold Embrace that partly inspired the album’s title: ‘Kneeling at the altar / Hope I get to heaven.’
“We were raised in a Jesuit school,” explains Julie. “Catholic guilt is a real thing. Even if you don't really believe in anything, you go to Mass, because that's the good thing to do. An altar is where you pray, appease a higher power and sacrifices. I haven't done it [personally], but the idea is that the altar is where I worship home.”
And so we arrive at the crux of Altar. A love letter to Galway, subconsciously fuelled by the flaws and burdens of success that come with their overwhelming new life in London. For Julie, her deity is Galway itself.
“There's a lot of interesting parallels between [religious imagery] and the music industry: appeasing higher powers, the high-ups. [Home] is the thing I hold dearest now, and I'm so much less concerned about appeasing other people.
“In Galway, I always go sea swimming, but I'm not a great swimmer, so I'll just go on my knees in the sand, and let it rock me back and forth. It felt like I was kneeling down and worshiping the view. Heaven was Galway. I hope I get to come back to Galway and I don't get sucked into the slog of London, and never leave.”
NewDad still have glorious hopes and dreams, but the goalposts have changed. As the band grows in size and ambition, their idea of success can now be reshaped into more subtle, underlying concepts, rooted in an eventual desire to return home.
“‘Am I gonna make it?’ – will I succeed at this? The only thing that really allows you to do that is success,” concludes Julie, before reminding herself that time is on her side.
“The thing is, I'm still so young. I'm getting quite existential for a 25-year-old!”
NewDad’s new album Altar is out September 19 via Atlantic Records
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