Diary Of A Songwriter: Meryl Streek

Meryl Streek: “I sometimes write without any music and just vent on topics that are currently on my mind.” Photo: Peter Kingston

The punk producer/artist films a video for his song ‘Dogs’ starring his Chihuahua Milly and works on potential new tracks

Dublin’s Meryl Streek is a producer and performer whose modern punk style is a fitting platform for the raw emotion and biting social commentary that drives his sound. That meshing of personal experiences and Ireland’s wider socio-political landscape – often anchored in the history and people of his hometown – fuels his new album Songs For The Deceased. Recorded at Darklands Audio with Dan Doherty (Fontaines D.C.) producing, collaborators like Post Punk Podge, Molly Vulpyne (Vulpynes), and Bratakus all add to the febrile mix.

In these diary extracts, Meryl and his scene-stealing dog film a music video and he works on songs that will form his next album…

Check out other songwriter’s diaries here

2 SEPTEMBER

Today we started recording my new video for the new single Dogs!

11am: Myself and the video director Pete Kingston met with my good friend and fellow artist John Murray. We discuss ideas around the video and ways to explore pushing the visual end of the song as best we can for the track.

3pm: We filmed scenes of John and myself walking and trying out parts on a busy Dublin street as people stopped to watch.

5pm: We arrive at a little cafe called Bite of Life near St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin to continue filming John’s parts. John’s frantically chopping up vegetables and sniffing lines of sugar off the counter pretending to be even more of a madman than he already is in real life, all while my little rescue Chihuahua Milly watches on (John lost out on the main lead to my dog Milly who is the star of the video)

9pm: I arrive home after collecting lots of video footage and, as always, my mind isn’t resting so I continue working on a brand new batch of songs that will eventually become Album #3.

3 SEPTEMBER

9am: I wake up early and get working almost right away by opening up Ableton and checking what I made from the night previous as sometimes it’s hard to remember.

12am: I like to go for walks listening to what I’ve made to see if I get a proper feel for it through headphones. That’s always a good test to feel if it’s good enough to wanna continue and finish it, or give it a space on an upcoming release.

8pm: This is normally when I’m at home and anxious. As I’m not doing anything, music and this project is generally all that’s going through my mind. I work on the new music until about 3am, checking YouTube clip after YouTube clip, finding samples that resonate with me and hit me in a certain way. I tend to use real clips of news broadcasts speaking about real and important, relevant issues to us all because they’re real and naturally will hit the feeling harder. They’re relatable and that’s important to what I do.

4 SEPTEMBER

11am: Back into the music video day two. We start the day at my friend Liam Norton’s house where we film scenes of me waking up on the sofa with my dog tired and starting my day off. We film scenes of me brushing my teeth while blood is showing, mixing with the toothpaste from my mouth.

4pm: We take to the streets once again and film scenes mostly focusing on Milly that capture her strutting to the actual song and making sure her character is captured on the film. We do scenes walking up and down of one of my favourite Dublin bars The Thomas House.

8pm: Home again for another long night session of finishing new songs and material. In two years this has never really changed. I can’t sleep knowing I haven’t done something to further the project, so it’s now an addiction.

Meryl Streek: “When writing lyrics, I normally pick a day to do it and try to not back out of it.” Photo: Peter Kingston

5 SEPTEMBER

10am: Today I’m recording vocals with lyrics I’ve written over the last few weeks leading up to the session. I never practice vocals as it’s me just shouting my head off. But my trick is to eat healthy that morning and drink a cup of tea with two sugars when doing the vocal takes – being a non-coffee drinker, that gives me the energy I need to be angry and creative. I record vocals in Darklands Audio with my best mate Dan Doherty. As I can’t shout at home (the neighbours would think someone is getting murdered) I record them with Dan and leave with all of the tracks I’ve recorded.

10pm: I’m home with my vocal takes and almost right away, I start going through them, lining them up to my track sessions and seeing what’s working and what’s not.

6 SEPTEMBER

10am: Waking up to check what I’ve done from the night before and finalising what I like and what I don’t like. As I’m primarily working with samples, this is almost always me at home awake until all hours, checking files and audio takes through headphones until I’m happy with what I’ve created.

5pm: I call Pete to discuss how the video is looking after he’s watched the footage from the previous days and we discuss ways to handle the scenes and what we plan to make happen throughout the video.

7 SEPTEMBER

12am: When writing lyrics, I normally pick a day to do it and try to not back out of it. I don’t advertise drug use, in fact, I do the opposite, but weed helps me with my lyric writing so it’s a day planned to have some weed, a notebook, a pen, and a cup of tea at the ready. Once I start with lyrics, I sometimes write without any music and just vent on topics that are currently on my mind (and see afterwards what songs it works on), or I can plan what the song topic should be about and write to the music while thinking of the topic.

With all of this stuff, I like to be in a beaten-up and tired state to get the most work done. It’s an odd thing to understand and I still don’t, but the shitter in life I feel the better it translates into what Meryl Streek is about.

Songs For The Deceased by Meryl Streek is released on 25 October via Venn Record. New single Dogs is out now and he’ll be playing shows across the UK in October and November. More info at merylstreek.com

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