It's not easy to do something new within a genre, but here are Porridge Radio, a band with a unique identity, instantly recognisable by the voice of Dana Margolin.
Porridge Radio are a British band whose sound shifts seamlessly from slacker to indie, through lo-fi, moments of spoken word and more, all with their own unique voice throughout their growing discography. Preceding the newly released album Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, Porridge Radio released singles “A Hole In The Ground” and “Sick Of The Blues”. We had the chance to chat to the band about their songwriting and recording process, as well as allowing happy accidents to have their space to come together!
Thanks for taking the time and congrats on the release of “A Hole In The Ground”. How and where did this song begin?
Sam: Dana wrote the song and recorded a demo of it and sent it to me. I had a little play around with it to craft a bit more structure, but it didn’t really become the song that it is now until we were playing it all together. That’s generally how it goes with Porridge Radio songs. Dana always writes the original lyrics and idea and then we turn it into something we can perform as a group.
What made “A Hole In The Ground” and “Sick Of The Blues” the choice for singles for the forthcoming album Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me?
Dana: We would’ve been happy with any of them as singles but the team chose those ones and in the end it didn’t really concern us too much. We thought that “Sick Of The Blues” was a weird choice at first because it’s a weird album outlier but actually it’s turned out it’s cool and no worries
Georgie: Yeah because “Sick Of The Blues” is the last track on the album, it felt strange to have it as the lead single, but actually it worked out quite well.
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What was the recording process like overall for the album?
Georgie: We recorded at Bert Jansch Studio in Frome with Dom Monks producing and Milo Ferreira Hayes engineering. I look back on it as a bit of a magical time because we practised for a long time before to be able to record the songs live. Even mine and Dana’s vocals were recorded live at the same time as the instruments, which we had never done before. We did add a few extra over dubs – we blended my usual keyboards (Yamaha DX27 and a Yamaha reface DX) with a Roland Juno 6 in some instances and the string sounds were bolstered with an incredible old string synth that I thought I took a picture of but now can’t remember the model! I played a chord organ on a couple of tracks as well which was my fave to play.
Is there any thought of performing live while writing Porridge Radio songs?
Dana: I write and figure it out later when the songs are just landing, but when we come together as a band to arrange brand new songs there’s always a lot of thought into how we should play the songs in the room with the instruments we play and the live setup we have. Usually with an album we’ll mess around with the production a lot and figure out how to play it live later, but with this album we focused really heavily on the live arrangements before we went into the studio because we knew we were going to use the live takes and I think the album is really strong because of that.
Georgie: I do sometimes worry about adding to many layers, which can happen when we get over excited haha. But I think we had a perfect balance on this album. The violin played by Maria Marzaioli and the trumpet played by Freddie Wordsworth were overdubbed but this was mainly due to timing. I’m sure knowing Dom and his process he would have loved to get them all in with us and record everything at once.
What is something about the workflow of Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me do you wish you’d known on earlier albums?
Georgie: I think each album and the recording process for each has been reflective of where we have been at each stage of our journey as a band. I don’t think we would have been able to do it this way without passing through the processes of our previous work. So I don’t think I’d wish for us to go back and do anything different in terms of recording. I loved when we first started out and Sam would record us all live in the Sussex uni practice room and those recordings had such a fantastic energy that I loved. I guess in some ways this new album reaches those heights for me.
Dana: I feel the same, I don’t think we’d have got here without everything else we did, and I’m so proud of everything we’ve done, but this has really taken me back to those early days where we could just be as raw as we needed to be, and it feels like we’ve found that magic again just in a way where we now know what we’re doing and we are confident in how we are doing it.
Murphy’s Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong) is often never truer than when in the studio. Are there any funny stories, happy accidents or studio mishaps you can share?
Georgie: I think the most happy accident was when Dana had written an extra song (“I Got Lost”) and we hadn’t planned on recording any more but we were messing around just me and Dana. Then I got on the chord organ and we played it in the main recording room that has the computer and everything in it. It was past when we said we should go home and Sam and Dan had already left. Dom and Milo set up a few mics and we just recorded it there and then. We added a few overdubs the next day and when Freddie came in we added the trumpet at the end. Bish bash bosh! And it’s one of my faves on the album.
Dana: That was a really special night, it felt good to catch the magic of that song the moment that it hit us.
Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me is out now via Secretly Canadian, keep up with Porridge Radio here.
