Portumna's pMad releases debut album

“pMad is not for everyone, and if you don’t like it, just move on to the next thing.”

Paul Dillon is modest in the expectations he holds for his music project. pMad (which stands for Paul Martin Anthony Dillon) certainly never set out to take the popular music charts by storm. Rather, this project is a modern ode to the bands that Paul grew up listening to in the ‘80s and 90s, principle among them Howard Jones, The Smiths, The Cure and Public Enemy.

The Portumna man would regard A House as the greatest of all the Irish bands. He has fond memories of attending Féile over the years in Thurles, where his mother Teresa Ryan (whose family ran Kinnane’s pub in Upperchurch) hailed from.

Paul played rugby with Nenagh Ormond between 1987 and 1991, and he also shares great anecdotes of going to The Friary (where Lidl is now) music venue in Nenagh to see the likes of A House and Aslan. He played in several bands himself, among them Starve the Barber and the Suicidal Dufflecoats.

Now a married father, accountant, farmer and manager of Pallas Karting and Paintball in Tynagh, Portumna, life got in the way of Paul’s music-making exploits over the years.

But he never lost his love for that scene of his youth. When the pandemic struck in 2020, Paul – like so many others in similar situations – used the time to reconnect with things he had started 30 years previously.

“There was often a good riff from the bits and pieces you’d put together,” the Portumna musician said of rediscovering what he had written the past. “I always recorded everything I ever did. Going through Covid, I listened back to stuff and thought: ‘oh, that’s good’. And I had books and books of lyrics that I had written.”

Using modern software tools like Logic Pro, Paul was able to put his own songs together at home.

“You couldn’t do that before,” he pointed out of how easier, and more affordable, technology has made the process of creating music. “You’d have to be sitting in front of an eight-track and record this or record it all live in one go. Now you can move it around, do this, do that; it’s fantastic.

“So, the majority of it was recorded at home. I just padded up a room and brought in instruments and played away, and then brought it back to the computer and pieced it all together and sent it away.”

‘WHO WHY WHERE WHAT?’

His demos were produced in Germany and mixed and mastered in Mexico. He put out a number of them as singles ahead of the release at the end of last month of the debut pMad album, ‘Who Why Where What’.

And while in many ways this was just Paul passing time making music he likes, he has been amazed at the reception his work has received around the world. He also delights in the many and varied bands and genres his music has been compared to - everything from Depeche Mode to Ministry to Sisters of Mercy.

“I end up on radio stations playing death metal in places like Slovenia, Croatia, Germany and Finland, and I’m getting number ones there,” Paul exclaimed. “And I’m wondering: how the hell am I in there? But then again, you don’t know what people are listening to.”

The Portumna man’s singles have topped several charts (alternative, as opposed to mainstream), but ‘Who Why Where What’ has also made album of the week on KCLR 96FM, while a clutch of UK-based radio stations have followed suit. Paul keeps a database of where his material goes and reckons as many as 800 radio stations and shows around the world are playing it. The reaction has copper-fastened his view that music is not “dead” and the scene in Ireland has made a strong comeback over the last two years.

‘WE’RE ALL VERY HORRIBLE TO THE PLANET’

“If The Cult and The Mission had a child, this is what it would sound like” – that is another description of pMad. Paul’s music could probably be pigeonholed under the darkwave, industrial, or “alternative, dark, brooding alt rock,” subgenres

“It’s mostly hopeful,” the artist said of his own creation. “They call it dark, gothic – post-punk more than most, I would say. Everyone hears what they want to hear. With most people, it’s a sort of an ‘80s post-punk thing with a modern twist on it, I suppose.”

While the various interpretations have amused him, Paul accepts that lyrically and atmospherically his music aims to acknowledge his own failings against a broader environmental perspective of how we are destroying our planet and ourselves.

“It’s myself at fault for most of my life and I don’t blame anyone else. We’re all very horrible to each other, unfortunately, and we’re all very horrible to the planet because of that.

“I don’t know, it just comes across like that,” Paul said of this pMad theme. “When someone asks you about a song and you have to say: ‘I sort of meant this’, and now you have to turn it into something. It’s like reading poetry back when you were doing your Leaving Cert… other people take their own meaning out of it as well.”

Regarding what happens next, Paul has plans to bring his music to the stage. This would involve collaboration with members of well-known Portumna bands The Greeting (with whom he also plays) and Big Generator, and going on tour.

He also has another pMad album lined up for next year. With the working title ‘I in Power’ (ie, there is no ‘i’ in ‘team’), Paul already has a batch of singles and remixes to include in the new album. For now, you can check out ‘Who Why Where What’ at https://pmad.bandcamp.com/music. See also the pMad social media pages and pmadtheband.com.