Bricknasty are here to shake up modern music (Picture: Paula Trojner)
Ask anyone in the music industry, there is a serious drought when it comes to new bands at the moment.
Of course, bands exist but they seem to be staying far from the charts and struggling to find any mainstream success against the mass of 90s reunions and pop divas.
Kneecap and Fontaines D.C. are the lucky few who have established themselves in the face of nostalgia-drenched lineups but they aren’t the only Irish groups making waves; meet Bricknasty.
Hailing from Ballymun, Dublin, Bricknasty’s newly released mixtape ‘XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ’ boasts a unique blend of influences from jazz to R&B and hip hop.
They’ve been steadily growing in popularity after opening for Coldplay on tour but frontman Fatboy confesses that new artists are ‘struggling’ to keep up with established bands.
‘They are struggling to play their instruments,’ he coolly tells Metro ahead of their first UK tour, which kicks off in Brighton on November 24.
Frontman Fatboy is less than impressed with their contemporaries (Picture: Paula Trojner)
Bricknasty reckon nostalgia artists don’t pose a threat to decent modern bands (Picture: Paula Trojner)
Fatboy continues: ‘They are struggling to use the most technology that’s ever been publicly available, ever to make anything that is pretty cool.
‘If the older lads want to come back and f**king spin the block again, let them like. We should have got busier.’
Bricknasty was co-founded by Fatboy, who hides his identity, and Cillian McCauley after they met through Soundcloud during lockdown.
The duo recorded tracks together before recruiting Dara Abdurahman on bass, Korey Thomas on drums, and Louis Younge who plays saxophone and keyboard.
Producer Cillian had a similarly cutting view of their competition, stating: ‘If newer artists were better and if new music was better, that wouldn’t be an issue.’
While Fatboy declares ‘facts’, Dara gives a more considered approach and shares: ‘As things have become easier to pick up and just do, the quality has dropped.
‘I also think that’s a good thing in some ways, that it’s easier to get up and get started on that stuff, but yeah, a deeper interaction with it would maybe do us good.’
Fatboy, who also plays the guitar, dismisses modern music as ‘disposable’ as he vents about an ‘epidemic’ of people who are in it simply to become famous.
The accessibility of creating music through technology has sparked what Bricknasty see as a little effort or thought being put into what’s being shared.
‘The barrier for entry is so low now,’ Cillian says. ‘People are just locking themselves in a room and doing it by themselves and that’s fine, that is also good.
‘But what you have in a band or a collective format is you’re working with the people that you think are class and you’re getting the best bits of them and the best bits of yourself and it’s a collaborative thing. People are kind of shying away from that now and locking themselves away.’
Fatboy interjects: ‘Everybody wants to be the coolest fella. “I wear …read more
Source:: Metro