Dublin trio DIVIL release debut EP ‘DIVIL I’
DIVIL by Megan Law
DIVIL, made up of Danny Dempsey McMahon (vocals), Jocelyn Vance (guitar) and Conor Cusack (bass), today release their debut EP, DIVIL I.
Three songs. Three childhood friends. A record made in the wreckage of a decade apart, and the life events that brought them back together: a father's death, a cancer diagnosis, and the strange, necessary relief of making music again.
Danny, Jocelyn and Conor grew up together in Dublin, the year below John Francis Flynn, in the same class as Gilla Band's Dara Kiely and Daniel Fox. By their thirties, they hadn't been in the same room in nearly a decade. It took the night of Danny's father's funeral to change that. Late into the evening, Conor watched Danny and Jocelyn sing ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’ to close friends and family. The following month, Conor is diagnosed with cancer.
In the wake of those events, they found a room at Camden Studios and started writing. What resulted were the three songs on DIVIL I, the first three songs they ever wrote together, recorded with Rian Trench at Meadow Studios.
Stream DIVIL I here
‘Thanks A Million’, the EP's opening track and debut single, was the first song DIVIL wrote. Built around a bass riff the band struggled with for weeks before flipping it into the chorus, it balances the weight of a self-inflicted depression with the pull of old friendship. "The song is about hope in the form of friendship," says Danny. "It's about your friends checking in to see if you're alright after you've been in a self-inflicted depression." The title phrase is unmistakably Irish - something you say to a shopkeeper, a stranger, a mate who just pulled you through three bad days - gratitude so casually delivered it almost hides itself. ‘ORANGUTUN’ takes a harder look at what happens when you don't let people in. A portrait of escapism and poor decisions, it was born from a samba-inflected loop Jocelyn had running on a pedal one afternoon, captured by Danny on his iPad and returned to on a manic weekend alone. When it came time to record, they kept the original iPad recording intact, the frantic energy of the thing was the point. ‘Chewing Gum’ closes the EP: a reflection on grief and the moments that come to define a life, and the quietest, most considered piece of writing on a record that never stops being honest.
Conor Cusack is well known in the Irish music scene as manager of Saint Sister and Morgana, a central figure at Ireland Music Week, and founder of Merchy Christmas, an initiative supporting emerging Irish artists. Gilla Band even name-check him on their early EP France 98, on the track ‘That Snake Conor Cusack’. With DIVIL, he turns the lens on himself. Danny Dempsey McMahon spent years making music in Dublin bands without the industry traction to match the talent. Jocelyn Vance had all but stopped. Together, and only now, they have made something that could not have existed at any other point in their lives.
DIVIL I is out now. The band are planning live shows and return to the studio later this year to record new material.
DIVIL are:
Danny Dempsey McMahon - vocals
Jocelyn Vance - guitar
Conor Cusack - bass
DIVIL I tracklisting
1. Thanks A Million
2. ORANGUTUN
3. Chewing Gum
