Meryl Streek is preparing to make their Reading-debut when they visit this September, in a gig organised by Club Velocity.
The artist was born and bred in Dublin and has fond memories of his start to life.
“Growing up it was great,” he says. “I had a lot of family around me and things were good, we were a working class family of independent screen printers.”
But, as life has a habit of doing, things changed as he grew up: he lost several family members, and austerity closed in on the country.
As a recession hit and work became steadily thinner on the ground, Meryl Streek moved to Canada for a seven-year experience that shaped him as a person and an artist.
“Seeing how countries work outside of Ireland, and seeing how unfair Ireland’s work ethic and living situations are, I came back here fuelled to try and make a change,” he says.
With his father a talented drummer in his own right, and the call of punk rock’s ethics and morals so strong, it was perhaps an inevitability that he would eventually fall into that same world.
“My dad was an unbelievable drummer, I was raised being around punk bands like Crass and anarcho-punks Rudimentary Peni,” he continues.
“I remember seeing him play growing up as a kid and that was the start of my growth as a musician.”
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Following in these parental musical footsteps, Meryl Streek began in earnest when he finally quit his former band to try and give a voice to those he saw struggling in his home country.
“I just said, ‘I need to do my own thing’ and try to help the ordinary people in Ireland who’ve been suffering,” he says.
“I do it for my father who has now passed on.
“I know what it’s like to feel betrayed and hurt, and I want to devote my life to helping others as best I can.
“The music may sound vicious to some, but times are changing and the government here in Ireland aren’t.”
Mostly recorded at home in his Vancouver apartment over the best part of a year, his debut album, 796, arrived in November 2022.
It shone a light on the 796 bodies of children found in a septic tank at Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Taum, Ireland, a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children run by Catholic nuns.
Armed with just a microphone and a laptop, in less than a year Meryl Streek went from playing his first show in a Dublin squat to performing live at Kentish Town Forum supporting post-punk pioneers Public Image Ltd.
The combination of news samples, rumbling bass and a front-man marching through crowds spitting out truth like his life depended on it cemented the Irish poet’s reputation.
Much like the first album, Songs For The Deceased, saw Meryl Streek enter the Dublin recording studio Darklands Audio with producer Dan Doherty (Fontaines D.C.).
Meryl recalls: “The album came about in bits and pieces due to the amount of gigging. I got so carried away with playing live I forgot about the recording side of things and what matters the most to me.”
To push the music into new spaces, guest musicians were invited to collaborate on tracks along the way.
Benefits front man Kingsley Hall provides spoken word to the album’s Interlude, Cal Graham from UK punks The Chisel appears on forthcoming single Dogs and influential musician Oliver Ackermann from A Place to Bury Strangements contorts his guitar sound for a truly experimental outro on the song Murder.
Of the collaborations, Meryl Streek says: “I’m delighted to have some of my favourite artists on this record with me and very thankful that they are.”
The songs move from the deeply personal (Paddy is a tribute to his uncle Paddy, a unique individual who chose to live life by his own terms), political (Bertie directly targets Irish politician Bertie Ahern), social (Gambling Death deals with gambling addiction head on), to tragedies from Irish history (Stardust remembers the victims of the fire that took place at the Stardust venue February 14, 1981, killing 48 people and leaving families begging for answers as to why the disaster happened in the first place).
“It was only when I finished recording the new album I realised I had made a record that revolved around people and events around my hometown of Dublin. Now, I admit it’s not always a pretty picture I’m painting, and it probably never will be, but these are cases that desperately need awareness,” he says.
“This is a collection of stories about Betrayal, Murder, Injustice, and Corruption. It’s not just happening in Ireland, it’s happening around the world and we’re supposed to just take it lying down?”
He says Songs For The Deceased isn’t just about his hometown, it’s an album about people and their relationship with a society that continues to let them down. It’s a tale as old as time, on a global scale.
here will always be stories to tell and injustices to highlight, and Meryl Streek aims not to let us forget quickly.
When is Meryl Streek performing in Reading and how can I get tickets?
Meryl Streek’s first time in Reading will be on Tuesday, September 16.
The show will see support from Glasgow-based punk band Soapbox.
It takes place at The Face Bar in Chatham Place, Reading, with doors opening at 8pm.
Tickets cost £14.30 including a booking fee, and for those aged between 14 and 16, they can attend if accompanied by an adult.
For more details, or to book, log on to: https://wegottickets.com/event/659508
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