Martha

Drive five hours north-northwest of London, and you'll find yourself in the North East, a sparsely-populated, Labour-leaning, working-class region of England that creeps along the eastern border of Scotland. Drive a few more minutes, and you'll reach an old coal-mining town that someone long ago felt compelled to name Pity Me. With a population around 6,000, it's an unlikely base for one of Britain's best rock bands, which is fitting because Martha is unlike most rock bands.

In passing, the foursome's pop-punk anthems resemble a ramshackle Weezer, full of young love, open chords and ecstatic harmonies. But spend some time with the threads that run through Martha's addictive debut album, Courting Strong, and watch that sweater begin to unravel. The lovelorn underdogs that come to life during its 10 songs combat conformity in every way imaginable: the queer crushes in "1997, Passing In The Hallway" and "Gin and Listerine"; the sentimental anarchist in "Present, Tense"; the tongue-tied intellectual in "1967, I Miss You, I'm Lonely."
Music Referenced In This Interview

Crass, "Do They Owe Us A Living"
The Housemartins, "Happy Hour"
Martha & The Vandellas, "Heat Wave"
Ted Leo / Pharmacists, "Timorous Me"
Superchunk, "Punch Me Harder"
Marked Men, "Wait Here, Wait For You"
Prefab Sprout, "When Love Breaks Down"

These joyous rejections of societal norms are extensions of the band itself. Drummer Nathan Stephens-Griffin, bassist Naomi Griffin, and guitarists Jc Cairns and Daniel Ellis are all self-professed anarchists. Unlike the vast majority of rock bands, there's no "lead singer" or "frontman." None of them touch meat, dairy or alcohol. The band books its own D.I.Y. shows that circumvent professional music venues (for how much longer, we'll see).

Doing it yourself doesn't mean doing it by yourself, however. Courting Strong was produced by Hookworms frontman MJ, and released by U.K. label Fortuna Pop and U.S. label Salinas. You can also listen to Courting Strong in its entirety on Martha's Bandcamp page.

It was on that Bandcamp page that I fell in love with the song "Dust, Juice, Bones and Hair," which NPR Music included in our 50 Favorite Songs Of The Year (So Far). And after finally parsing the profound passages behind the group's Irn Bru high, I decided we needed to learn a little bit more about the members of Martha. Over the new few weeks, we exchanged several emails that touched on D.I.Y. culture, queer romance, the band's roots in Motown music and what it means to grow up.

Your Facebook, Twitter and Bandcamp handles are "marthaDIY." The label D.I.Y. – do it yourself – appears to be gaining traction as a way for independent rock musicians of a certain stripe to distinguish themselves from "indie," which has come to define a certain ... I shouldn't generalize like this, but I will ... bourgeois sound that's released by major and independent labels alike. Can you tell us a little bit about what the term D.I.Y. means to you, and why you chose it as a search-enabling suffix?
Nathan

Nathan Stephens-Griffin: @MarthaDIY has a nice ring to it, and it's a pretty unsearchable term without a suffix so it made sense. It's an interesting one, though, because I feel like different people define D.I.Y. in different ways. I guess for me personally, D.I.Y. is about rejecting a top-down model of culture, where (to use a crude simplification) corporate forces dictate what we watch, listen to, engage with. That can be really bland, homogenous and uninteresting, and certain voices are invariably marginalized. D.I.Y. is about producing your own culture, without the need for middle-people or corporate indicators of success; it's about engaging directly with people as friends. Within that is an implicit emphasis on inclusivity, safe spaces and rejecting bad s*** in general. D.I.Y. is a critique of the corporate culture industry, akin to anti-consumerist critiques of capitalism.

“ When it comes to D.I.Y., living in a small town, it's kind of ingrained. You're forced to do things yourself, because otherwise they won't happen.

- Daniel Ellis, Martha

But the problem is that without those indicators (like being in glossy magazines full of ads, or radio play or whatever), bands are dismissed as failures. To use Wikipedia's terminology, they lack "notability." I reject that as a way of structuring things, and I don't think "notability" should be dictated by how engaged with the monetary, profit seeking side of the music industry you are. We are where we want to be. This is what we want to do: tour, play, make friends, see new places, and do it sustainably without compromising stuff we care about. There's no end goal of super-stardom or money. We take each thing as it comes and make decisions on what we do, case by case. But, it's important that we're in control of things like booking our own shows, recording, releasing, the aesthetic of the band, etc.

Recently, I've thought more about privilege in D.I.Y., and how having too strict a definition of what it means to be D.I.Y. can actually ring-fence it for the privileged people who can afford to lose money all the time and subsidize music as a hobby. That just leads to the same bourgeois blandness as the corporate model — loads of independently wealthy people making music at a loss. For better or worse, I feel like the definition of D.I.Y. has gotten stricter as technology has made things easier. We trace our punk lineage back to Crass (as opposed to The Clash), but even Crass was selling thousands of records in their day.

CRASS was a British anarchist punk act that (you could argue) was known more for its militant left-wing imagery than its actual music. Your new album, Courting Strong, features profound, political lyrics, but your hooks and melodies are unadulterated fun. I listen to Courting Strong whenever I want to feel happy, not necessarily anarcho. How did you arrive at this mix of politics and pop?
JC

Jc Cairns: It's funny actually, it can sometimes feel like our political side is either overlooked entirely or we aren't political enough. I mean, I wouldn't say we were singing about how f***** up the government is or like, impending nuclear destruction — there's a place for that, but what we sing about is our own experiences I suppose. We articulate our politics through love songs and stories about the day to day. Really, not everything about engaging with politics needs to be based in unhappiness and discontent — there are a whole bunch of feelings tied up in it.

In terms of our own songs, we try to encompass some of those feelings. I mean, we sing about crushes and relationships ... crushes and relationships that maybe aren't so well received by outsiders. If you look at songs like "1997, Passing in the Hallway" and "Gin and Listerine," they're queer love songs that I feel navigate some of the discomfort, but also some of the joy, that comes with fancying someone you've been told you shouldn't because you're a boy and they're a boy or you're a girl and they're a girl, or whatever. I think most of us have been there and I think singing about that stuff is political. And there's no shame in writing a pop song, right?

Stephens-Griffin: Yeah, I like the balance we strike. It's always there, but sort of just in the corner of the frame. I'd say that's true of most songs regardless of the intent of the author – "the personal is political," after all. The Housemartins are a really big influence on us, and I feel like they had a similar thing going, where they were publicly involved with stuff like Red Wedge and were quite stridently socialist under Thatcher, but their big hits seemed quite apolitical on the surface. "Happy Hour" seems like a chirpy song about drinking in the pub, but if you look more closely, I think it's about alienation and it's actually quite satirical.

I could see people overlooking the political nature of your songs the first time through Courting Strong, but once they recognize that Naomi is singing about a girl named Maureen, or Nathan singing about Vincenzio, your point of view becomes clearer. "Gin and Listerine," "Passing In The Hall" and "Sleeping Beauty" — young adult songs dealing with gender and sexuality issues — aren't the kind of tunes you encounter every day. Can you share any of the stories that led to writing those songs?
Naomi

Naomi Griffin: "Sleeping Beauty" was written from the perspective of two young siblings who are not fitting in to their parents' gendered desires for their personalities. I wrote the song with a back and forth between me and Nathan in mind (as we are siblings). We are two years apart and always shared toys and friends when we were kids. When I was little, I had a toy Batmobile that I totally loved and was pretty much inseparable from for about a year but when I was talking to my mam about it a few years ago, I referred to it as Nathan's toy. She was pretty baffled that even though it was one of my favourite toys and I have vivid memories of playing with it, my memory had re-written it as his toy. I was taken a-back, too, and started to think really critically about the point at which I started to police my own interests and desires based on my gender, as well as how others have, too.

The song is meant to reflect childhood innocence in a way, but also how children can have things a lot more sussed than adults before they get taught to think about themselves and others in arbitrarily restrictive and oppressive ways. While the subject is quite sad and frustrating (being deliberately misunderstood by the people around so that you subscribe to an inaccurate image of yourself that they want to see), I wanted the song to be a little hopeful, too. The kids are happy with themselves and with each other, and at least for the time being they are going to carry on as they are and ignore what their parents think.
Listen
Martha, Courting Strong
Martha, 'Sleeping Beauty'

Album: Courting Strong

Playlist

Stephens-Griffin: I think "Sleeping Beauty" is a really important song on the album, in terms of tying it together thematically and showing a vignette of the social/structural pressures that can really mess people up from an early age. It was cool when Naomi played it for us, 'cause at that point we hadn't talked about trying to do an album that all tied together. "Gin and Listerine" is a song in a similar vein. The story is pretty familiar: it's about these teenage kids, getting drunk, their self-destructive behaviour, general teenage angsty recklessness and first (queer) romances. The intensity of the feelings can be totally overwhelming, and I guess this song is about the aftermath of first break-ups and helping friends pick themselves back up, and move forward positively. Both those songs end on hopeful notes, too, which is important.

Do the four of you have a "creation story"? Can you tell us about the beginning of the band?

Stephens-Griffin: For a while, there was a really cool monthly dance party running in Durham, that would play loads of Motown, as well as like garage punk, and all sorts of stuff. It took place in a little bar above a chip shop (the Fish Tank, which is mentioned in the song "Move to Durham and Never Leave") that we've all played and promoted shows at and been to tons over the years. But the four of us would all be at that night, dancing and having fun, and the vibes were always pretty positive.

Anyways, I guess from that we started talking about doing a poppy band, with a Motown influence, and we were also all listening to Beautiful South, some U.S. indie stuff like Ted Leo and Superchunk, as well as Dirtnap Records stuff like the Marked Men, Exploding Hearts and such. I don't think we really sound like those bands, but those were (and still are) our influences from a songwriting perspective. The lineup was initially a couple more people; before we started properly, we envisaged keyboard and horns, and really going for a big-band thing. But after practicing a bit, we basically realized that no matter how poppy we try to play, it'll always sound punk, because for better or worse, our instinct is always to put the gain up, and play louder.

It was also cool that it was just us four, as we're really close friends, and it made sense to keep it smaller — this was all before we even had a name really — but yeah, at one point further down the line, we realized we were all vegan and all straight edge. We thought it would be funny to describe ourselves as a "vegan straight edge" band, because those are terms usually reserved for heavier bands, but it was just as true of us. It's a tongue-in-cheek label, but it's true.

I think there's something a tad ironic about a band of your nature – you seem self-sufficient, well-spoken, and politically active – hailing from a village called Pity Me. Can you tell us a little bit about your corner of the world?
Daniel

Daniel Ellis: Well, like many villages in County Durham, Pity Me is actually an old pit village, so there's a really strong political history in terms of union activism and socialism. Our parents and their parents have been involved in political activism, particularly the miner's strike of 1984. My grandad was actually a miner who lost his job to Thatcher, so the political side of us is not such a big surprise, although that was a long time ago. But the legacy of that stuff lives on, and is still felt by communities in the North East. People talk about a North/South divide in the U.K., and the North East has been quite a neglected, predominantly working class place, and often quite left wing compared to other places in the country. And when it comes to D.I.Y., living in a small town, it's kind of ingrained. You're forced to do things yourself, because otherwise they won't happen. We've been putting on and playing shows together since we were kids, and we were doing things ourselves long before we'd ever actually heard of D.I.Y. in a punk context.

What was the music scene in Durham, or the North East in general, while you were growing up?

Stephens-Griffin: As a kid, I'd go to working mens clubs with my family and see club bands play old rhythm and blues stuff. (I say "working mens" clubs because that what they were called — there isn't really another word for them, and it describes quite a unique phenomenon and part of the history. That term illustrates that for such a leftwing, union supporting region, there was often sadly a complete failure to engage with feminism and other struggles.) My dad was in one of those bands. That was my introduction to live music. This strong scene of predominantly cover bands that would play a circuit of working mens clubs around the region. That was a big part of North East culture for a long time.

Then when I was a bit older, I remember going to hardcore shows in Durham in the early 2000s, put on by kids a little older than me. They had established U.S. bands like Bane and Count Me Out come through, as well as loads of touring U.K. bands and locals. They didn't happen every week, but when they did there would be like a hundred kids there going absolutely wild at the shows. It was a strong D.I.Y. scene, and that obviously influenced me, especially in terms of putting on shows.

“ To be honest, part of it is that I don't actually feel any older than I did as a teen. I might know more about stuff and have a better political analysis. I might have a car now, and have rent and bills to worry about. But I'm still just the same.

- Nathan Stephens-Griffin, Martha

Not too long after that we were starting our own bands and doing our own shows. Renting out community centres and function rooms and cobbling together P.A. systems and busted up amps. Begging my older brother for a lift with all our gear. It was fun, and we were learning as we went. Nowadays there's a pretty established D.I.Y. scene in Durham that we're all involved in, and lots of bands stop by here on tour. It's cool. We even have an art space that we can host all-ages shows at (called Empty Shop). Music wise, the North East has produced a lot of really good bands, many who've gotten really popular. Sunderland alone has produced Kenickie, The Futureheads, Leatherface, Field Music and The Toy Dolls (who famously often recorded in a house in Pity Me). There's tons of bands from Newcastle, too, like Maximo Park and Venom. Believe it or not, our very own Durham produced the influential British hardcore band Voorhees, the punk rock band Penetration, and of course, Prefab Sprout!

Can you describe the moment when Courting Strong transformed from a bunch of songs into a capital-A Album?

Stephens-Griffin: We got the songs we already had from before together (like "Dust, Juice, Bones and Hair" and "1967, I Miss You, I'm Lonely"), and then looked at the bits and bobs we were currently working on, and identified that there was clearly this thread running through it all — small towns, growing up, heartache, being weird. At first we were worried, like we can't have loads of songs about similar stuff, but then it was like, no wait, this is cool, it's what an album is meant to be, like one interconnected piece, and so we went with it.

Cairns: I feel like a lot of the overall "feel" of the record came about in the studio, too. Because we hadn't been touring with these songs, they really came into their own once we set out to record them. Touring with songs and playing them live is an extension of the writing process that we'd become so reliant on, but due to the timeframe, couldn't really do that. Instead, we kind of locked ourselves in the studio for a week (the longest period of time any of us had ever spent in a recording studio in one go) and let the songs come together that way. MJ (proprietor of Suburban Home Studios and organ wizard in Hookworms) was keen to let us develop the songs organically, too, rather than pushing it in a specific direction. He was so great and it was a really nice recording environment. - NPR

Martha, "Dust, Juice, Bones & Hair"

Humans are mostly bones, liquid and air, as the raucous chorus of this indie-pop song reminds us, but these British kids take care to emphasize the adverb. - NPR

I met many amazing people and learned many fun facts, such as seemingly every indiepop band is vegan, that everyone loves Martha, and that The Punks Are (indeed) Writing Love Songs. - Impose Magazine

"Now I may be a reject / But to tell the truth, you’re scarier than a prefect." With every dimwit commentator lauding the recent past as some hazy utopia, our half-assed notion of ‘retro’ legitimising everything that was actually just plain fucking grim, it takes a surer sense of romanticism to get away with a line like that.

Courting Strong, in (vegan, straight-edge four piece) Martha’s own words; an account of "growing up weird," is exquisitely playful but indefatigably clear-sighted. A barrage of power harmonies, seriously chunky guitars and a bucket full of melodies support the pinpoint, nostalgia-free narratives: ten absolute diamonds that mark them out as pack-leaders, even at this stage.

Dust, Juice, Bones and Hair purloins beautifully from The Wedding Present, its super-sweet riff a trans-generational homage as savvy as Joanna Gruesome’s Secret Surprise. But it’s the madcap lifting of Rush’s Spirit of Radio on Move to Durham and Never Leave – oh, and the Nova saloon on the cover – that can flip a listener from slightly infatuated to hopelessly besotted. [Gary Kaill] - The Skinny

The 2014 edition of NYC Popfest happened last weekend with five shows across four days and over 30 bands from around the world. I made it to every show except the Saturday (5/31) afternoon show at Spike Hill and saw a lot of great stuff. Pictures from all four evening shows are in this post. Highlights:

UK band Martha (Cake Shop, 5/29) who traded vocals between three members, played their hearts out and delivered scrappy pop hit after pop hit. - Brooklyn Vegan

Filling the UK quotient for the night is "vegan straight-edge pop group" Martha who just this week (5/26) released their new album, Courting Strong, which is out on Fortuna Pop (Joanna Gruesome, Shrag) in the UK, and Salinas (Swearin', Radiator Hospital) in North America. The record was produced by MJ of Hookworms and is ten songs of hooky, punky guitar pop and you can stream the whole thing below - Brooklyn Vegan

Many would argue that the concept of bands writing songs about growing in the grim old north is a tired one, a path trodden so heavily down the years that there’s precious little of interest left for anyone to write about the subject. Still, once a decade or so, you’ll find a group who can circumvent the cliches and portray the heart and soul of their world so eloquently that it catches the listening public off-guard. In my music-buying lifetime, two big examples in the shape of Pulp and Arctic Monkeys spring to mind. Both bands essentially changed the way a generation of kids saw the world simply by writing clever pop songs which somehow made the city they grew up seem at once the loneliest and most exhilarating place on the planet.

While County Durham’s Martha may not yet had as a momentous an impact on popular culture as the aforementioned two bands, to me their debut album Courting Strong paints just as vivid a picture of growing up in the pit village of Pity Me as their forebears did with reference to Sheffield. Whether they’re singing about love, gender identity and sexuality or kids getting pissed up outside a cathedral, the four-piece gang exhibit a delicious mastery of the art of balance. Their songs are at once clever but not smart-arsed, fun but completely serious, catchy but lusciously enriching.


The most telling illustration of Martha’s canny instincts in getting the tone just right comes in the way they use words throughout Courting Strong. It’s a massive part of the appeal of the album that they seem to choose absolutely the right language to transmit whatever they’re singing about. Like on ‘1997, Passing in the Hallway’ when Naomi Griffin sings "Maureen, school is totally boring, these GCSEs really get to me, I long for your company"’, in the process beautifully depicting the terrible thrill of young love by stripping it down to the most elemental terms.

It’s not certainly not an accident that they’re able to do this, either. In a recent interview they talked about what they were trying to express on penultimate song ‘1967, I Miss You, I’m Lonely’. It’s a hugely important track in the context of the album, which kind of sums up the whole aesthetic of Courting Strong, embarking on a verbose trip around a number of landmarks both geographical and literary before arriving at a chorus which echoes the blunt titular sentiment ‘I Miss You, I’m Lonely’. As Nathan acknowledges, it’s an illustration of the fact you can write a million words to try and express yourself, but the simplest words are usually the most effective.

The band chose to recruit a kindred spirit in Hookworms’ MJ to commit their ideas to tape, and just like his work with Joanna Gruesome, Honeyblood and a number of other great records in recent years, his production captures the character of Martha masterfully. Between band and producer they’ve managed to condense a (young) lifetime of experience into a half hour bundle of explosive punk-pop, and there’s so much exuberance and energy underpinning the emotion and warmth of these recordings that it’s difficult to imagine a situation where anybody might not be affected by them.

In short, then, Martha are one of the most thrilling and likeable bands to emerge from the North East in god knows how many years. I really could spend hours extolling the virtues of this absolute triumph of a record, but perhaps it’s best to follow the good example set by Martha and know when to keep your sentiments simple. Courting Strong is just fantastic.

8/10 - Drowned in Sound

The Clash and the Sex Pistols may be the celebrated artists of punk’s canon. However it’s arguably the songwriting of Pete Shelley that bears the strongest influence upon today’s thrashing upstarts. With lovelorn lyrics, longing melodies and chord changes infused with rotten sugar, Durham four-piece Martha take the Buzzcocks blueprint and use it to aplomb.

\Cosmic Misery is a disarming opener. With a torque riff that could have slipped from the guitar case of Alex Turner, you could be forgiven for expecting the four to throw a selection of swaggering neo-punk chords into a bag and kick it between themselves. Thankfully this idea is quickly tossed into the river. It takes a mere 15 seconds before the band show themselves of a more mature punk persuasion and a further 15 for that persuasion to identify itself as being born of Manchester’s finest.

1997, Passing In The Hallway, quickly allows Martha to display one of their most potent weapons. With Naomi Griffin taking lead vocals the band’s dual approach is made apparent. Indeed the band’s vocal strength is such that all members sing at various points, all with a tone that make Martha’s musical attack all the more affecting.

Courting Strong is not though simply a multi-vocaled paean to The Buzzcocks. Like their excellent contemporaries Doe there’s a strong Superchunk influence, which is heard in tracks like Present, Tense and Bubble In My Bloodstream, the latter arriving at the Chapel Hill four piece via Sum 41’s breakout hit In Too Deep. Martha’s take on Superchunk’s furious indie-rock, though, is not quite of the same jaw clenching, teeth-mashing nature.

There’s also a jangle pop influence throughout their guitar synchronicity, with the yearning Gin And Listerine starting meekly, before turning into a union between The Popguns and McCarthy. Closer So Sad (So Sad) thumbs a more contemporary text for its reference, bearing a resemblance to Cymbals Eats Guitars’ superb …And The Hazy Sea.

1967, I Miss You, I’m Lonely, is the record’s recent single and it’s easy to see why. It’s the most immediately infectious of Courting Strong’s songs and is a perfect microcosm of what makes Martha so addictive. Martha’s pop appeal might not be as feverish as Joanna Gruesome, as arcane as The Wytches, as algid as Speedy Ortiz or as blanketing as Tyrannosaurus Dead, but their hooks dig deep into the bones.

There’s also an approachability about them; Martha perfectly encapsulate the essence of the loverlorn late teens and early twenties, when feelings are articulated in a manner that’s self-effacing, rather self-obsessive. This quality is seen in their lyrics and it’s these that really set them apart. Lines like, “You’re either living six months into the future/Or looking ten years into the past/You’re searching for answers/In tough circumstances/But I just need a moment that lasts” or the brilliant ‘I spent a dirty weekend practising my French/Rosy cheeked I saw my limitations there in evidence/When I invited Frank and you, back to mine for a mange tout/When I meant ménage à trois/You laughed so hard you cracked your chin against the bar’, rattle the teeth with laughter and bore tunnels deep into the chest, while displaying a grip of rhythmic structure that most would be unable to apply.

If Martha are Courting Strong then you’ll need less than 35 minutes before you’re ready to reciprocate. This is a debut LP that makes you pine for the times when these songs were written about you, rather than represented a blur of sentiment; or if you’re the age of our protagonists, then this is the record to clasp to your chest for 2014 and beyond.

Verdict: A superb debut of lovelorn pop punk - ***** - Songwriting Magazine

If you’re familiar with any of Martha’s previous offerings you would be expecting infectious power pop – ‘Courting Strong’ certainly delivers its fair share and then some.

Right from the off Martha hit us with punchy tunes and memorable lyrics. Firstly documenting teenage angst- whether it be the woes of being an outcast loner that are described in ‘Cosmic Misery’ or the misfortune of not only having to sit GCSE’s, but to also be a lovesick schmuck, as chronicled in ’1997, Passing in the Hallway’.

The record takes a little dip towards the middle, but even the less memorable tracks such as ‘Present, Tense’ and ‘Dust, Juice, Bones & Hair’ have something to offer in terms of creative and tuneful melodies.

It would be wrong to attempt to try and discount Martha with the label of ‘cheerful pop’ when the band deliver much more than that. Towards the last third of the record things take a slower pace and the heartfelt lyrics and stylish yet simple melodies of ‘Gin and Listerine’ cement this is as an incredible record. Overall ‘Courting Strong’ is an impressive record, well worth a listen if guitar driven pop is your thing. - Punktastic.com

I LOVE THIS EP MORE THAN MY PARENTS. OH MY GOD. IT’S POWERPOP AND PERFECT AND I’M GOING TO DANCE TO THIS UNTIL I VOMIT. If this is what happens when Nathan and Daniel of ONSIND get two more talented musicians and play as a full band, then I’m shipping them every talented musician I encounter. Which means all you jerks are safe. –Donna Ramone (Discount Horse, marthadiy@gmail.com, marthadiy.bandcamp.com) - Razorcake

We decide to stick around for Durham punks Martha, with an album out on the wonderful Fortuna Pop. Fresh from a tour of the USA these guys are on top form, their cheerful indie pop goes down a storm with The Tyne’s packed crowd. 1997, Passing the Hallway is a great track and really stands out this evening, Martha are a band who have the ability to make you nod and sing along from the off. They emanate a real happy vibe and are the perfect contrast against Big Fail’s massive riffs, some jaunty indie pop and great hooks is just what we all need. A set full of short but brilliantly formed tracks picking everyone’s spirits up and making the sun shine that little bit brighter. - See more at: http://louderthanwar.com/narc-festival-ouseburn-valley-newcastle-festival-review/#sthash.JIswA4TD.dpuf - Louder Than War