New music
“Essentially, Ballymun was ghettoised by the government” rings the closing line from the opening track – aptly titled ‘Ballymun’ – from Dublin five-piece Bricknasty’s debut EP ‘INA CRUELER’. Delving into the life and hardships of frontman Fatboy, the record touches on everything from drug abuse, familial disputes, pain, and alcoholism and paints a vivid picture of life in one of Dublin’s most notorious suburbs.
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It’s a project, Fatboy and sax/keyboard player Louis Younge admit, that almost tore the band apart, and a process which saw Fatboy dive into his most introspective tendencies. “It’s like holding a child but your hands are oily and it’s made of gold and there’s someone with a gun behind who’ll shoot if you drop it,” Younge explains when asked how it felt to capture their frontman’s most personal memories and translate it to song. “You’re holding someone’s entire life in your hands. In hindsight.. well I kinda joined the project when it was almost fully done but it was a rocky road getting it over the line. If it wasn’t that, it wouldn’t be worth putting it out there”.
“I was not a cool dude doing this thing,” Fatboy interjects. “I was not a nice guy to be around because I was so obsessed with getting it perfect and I’m trying to heal that up now with the band but it was a long, long time”.
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Fatboy and Younge are sat on the floor on the second storey of Ballymun’s Axis Art Centre, a Community Resource Centre with an Arts Centre at its core, which holds a venue, making it an invaluable resource to people in Ballymun and the wider city.
The two are looking back, both on this new project and their lives to date, beamng with pride at the project they’ve forged alongside Dara Abdurahman (bass), Korey Thomas (drums) and producer Cillian McCauley. It’s been mere hours since the release of ‘INA CRUELER’, but it nevertheless occupies both their minds, with Fatboy spending the morning on the phone trying to get the track’s transitions sorted. “We need to get the transitions fixed because there’s little bits of silence we didn’t want between the songs but once we get that sorted I’ll be happy,” Fatboy smiles, as he texts furiously.
Beyond the centre’s glass exterior is a crossroads, over which you can see the grassy land that once housed hundreds of Ballymun’s most vulnerable families in multi-storey apartment blocks which became known as the Ballymun flats. ‘Ballymun’ documents the tower’s history, from its rapid construction as a means of dealing with Dublin innercity’s growing housing crisis in the 1960’s to their reputation (somewhat unfairly) as a hotbed of crime before their eventual demolition in the 2010’s. The final tower, the Joseph Plunkett tower – where Fatboy and his family called home – was demolished in 2015.
The tower’s development came at a time of great change of Dublin, and for Ireland as a whole. The economy was in crisis, and mental health institutes across the city and country were closing due to lack of investment. The government’s decision to transplant entire generations to the flats came before the surrounding area was given a chance to develop, meaning the intent was misjudged at best. With no shops, schools, roads or infrastructure in sight, the area became one of Europe’s biggest ghettos.
“The flats were only called the flats because of who got moved into them,” Fatboy recalls of growing up in the area. “Talk to anyone who lived there and it was huge, had underfloor heating, and you didn’t have to pay for electricity, heating or water. It was great. Then out of nowhere they decided to move us all and tear them down, because they claimed it wasn’t structurally sound. We all know that was a load of bollox because the flats in town are still standing and they are tiny and freezing”.
“The reason they tore them down is because the government couldn’t, or didn’t want to really, keep giving people the heating and the electricity for free,” he adds. “Then we were moved into council houses and the heating might not be working for the whole winter and when it was you’d be paying through the nose. I experienced more gun violence in that house than I ever did in the flats, make of that what you will. That gaff at the end of my road, it was like McDonalds drive-through for drugs. Garda were shot, young men were shot. All on that street”.
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It was in such environ’s that Fatboy’s fascination with music first developed. “The nurse thought I was deaf when I was born,” Fatboy laughs, “but that’s because I just wasn’t interested in jangling keys. But stick on Bob Marley or something and I’d dance away, and that’s why my family called me Wobbles”. He began learning guitar at 15, but had started writing music years earlier, looking up to Eminem at the age of seven and seeing similarities in their stories. He spent his teenage years and early adulthood in a band, before getting into hard drugs. “Things… got messy” he admits, glancing down at the floor. “I always felt guilty for breaking the band up, but it forced me to work on my own on stuff, and that’s when I started writing Bricknasty material”.
The turning point in Fatboy’s journey came with a chance SoundCloud encounter with producer Cillian McCauley. “I was making these songs on my Android and putting them online and Cillian found them,” Fatboy reminisces of the earliest days of the pairs collaboration. “He started commenting on my stuff so I looked into his and we started talking and we were chatting for two years before we ever even met. ‘Diddy Punch’ was the first song we ever wrote, the first time we ever met. We stayed up all night; then at the same time Korey and I wrote ‘Boyfriend’ in 20 minutes”. At the time Fatboy and Cillian first met, Fatboy was in BIMM (“a creche for adults”) but his academic career kamakaze’d to an end during the pandemic. The majority of Bricknasty’s material to date was written during lockdown. The basis of the EP has roots in that time of seclusion. Others go back even further.
The riff for the project’s third song ‘Prazsky’ was one Fatboy had been toying with for years but had never made stick. Similarly with ‘Judo Throw’, which has been around as far back as 2018. “I’ve had these for years but it wasn’t until I put it in the context of the project did it make sense and feel at home,” Fatboy notes. “You hear all about the real dark times, me being on the bag and crying about my Dad and then you get those riffs and it’s real funny, a bit sarcastic”.
One of the most touching and evocative elements of the EP is the evocative use of voice notes, at points where many would have chosen to rely on lyrics. The purpose was to show, rather than merely to tell; to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth rather than have it regurgitated to you by a third person. “If someone can justify making art to themselves, right; without being able to hit certain criteria, like does it hit hard, does it make you feel something strong and does it serve a practical purpose in the world; then I don’t think you should even be making art,” Fatboy responds when asked of the voice notes’ purpose.
“I didn’t want to ask my ma all about those things that happened when I was young, I didn’t want to meet my biological Dad again, I didn’t like the fact that I was a weirdo coke head, that people around me were dying and that my family were worried but I had to show you that. Don’t record it so I can go home and write about it, primary sources. I brought you to me gaff and I let you in and I showed you what was going on”.
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A prime example of such is the track ‘MouthBreather’, which tells the story of Fatboy meeting his biological father at his uncle’s funeral. “I went to the funeral while I was working on the EP and I knew I’d have to see my Dad again,” he recalls. “The previous time I saw him he’d thrown his chair on the floor and made what was meant to be a day of celebration for my sister, her graduation, he made it all about him. So when I knew I’d have to see him again I made sure that, despite being half his age, I didn’t do the same at the funeral. There’s very few times in life you get to show the mark of the man you are so I knew this was one of those chances. I went to the funeral, even though I got those butterflies like when you feel you need to hit someone, I held my nerve and I showed respect. I went up to him then and I said ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, shook his hand and he gave me a hug and told me he loved me and apologised for what had happened before”.
“I recorded all of that because I wanted you to see it, you had to see it. The voice note then is my sister, who’s trying to cultivate a relationship with Dad herself, so when I took that step she couldn’t believe I’d do that. She didn’t think I could have the strength to reach out and pay my respects after what had happened but I did. I’d do anything for her. Anything”.
Its frankness and honesty is a marvel. It’s a project that finds beauty in tragedy, experiencing the lowest moments of a person’s life before being quickly contrasted with some of their proudest, all within 10 tracks – 21 minutes total. It’s something truly special, something that only the best of the things we call art can do. “We were always aware to what was going on in a broader sense and musically we were just trying to do it justice,” Louis smiles of the band’s involvement in the creative process. “There were times when we’d do something and we’d all say it was shit, which can be tough to hear sometimes but that’s music, that’s art. It’s cut throat. But again, if we hadn’t gone through that process it wouldn’t be what it is. I think it’s a massive privilege to be able to tell someone else’s story and someone else’s life in your hands”.
As the conversation draws to a close, it’s clear how much of a weight ‘INA CRUELER’s release has had on the band as a whole. And it’s not – both are at pains to point out – over quite yet. “I need those transitions fixed. Did you ever watch Always Sunday, the Pepe Slyvia scene? That was me making this but I need those transitions fixed,” Fatboy laughs. “I’m glad people are fucking with the songs, though, and enjoying it. But it’s not the Bricknasty project that Bricknasty the band wrote, arranged, and put together. It’s like raising a child – you wouldn’t send a child to school and take all it’s pencils!”
He laughs, then adds: “We’re so close to perfect… but we’re not there yet.”
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‘INA CRUELER’ is out now.
Words: Cailean Coffey
Photo Credit: Weepy Woopy
