Veteran Gwangju band marks 10 years full of Malarkey
For anyone living in Gwangju and paying attention to the local music scene, Malarkey has been a stalwart on the live front for many years now. Whether rocking their own sets of originals and covers, playing as the wrecking crew for the likes of Lizz Kalo and artists of other genres, or just plain throwing it down at a wild party, Malarkey is distinctive because they are professional, flexible and can just plain jam.
Give Malarkey a simple rehearsal together, and they’re good to go.
The current iteration of the band’s membership consists of co-founder and drummer Dan Lloyd along with fellow co-founder and guitarist Jon Amey, who founded the cheekily named act back in 2014. Vocalist Wilfred Rawlins, backed by Lloyd and Amey at times, along with Cat O’Neill (back in the U.S. as of 2023) add their distinctive vocals on the mic, and bassist/vocalist Kevin D’Abramo rounds it out, the self-described “Johnny-come-lately” of the mob, having joined in 2019.
Over the years, the band members have come and gone, but both Lloyd and Amey have (for the most part) been here the entire time since foundation, with a couple of notable sabbaticals and down periods that are pretty much inevitable.
Born out of the dissolution of two other local bands, Amey says they were just “having a bit of fun” at the start and not trying to take things too seriously.
However, even though the members were seemingly just having a laugh, it was notable that they put out a debut EP in 2015 almost immediately after formation. However, continuing to record wasn’t sustainable, with both Amey and Lloyd as well as other members leaving and returning, along with the fact that they were all working day jobs.
The EP did solidify the band’s teamwork, although with the other dynamics at play they “mainly became a covers band” live, playing regularly at Speakeasy in Gwangju, and other joints around the region since 2015.
As the pandemic put everything into a seemingly endless malaise, the band snapped into action, with Lloyd founding Malarkey Studio on an in-law’s portion of property up on Mount Jiri.
“My wife’s uncle owns a large property that used to be a motel. I decided one week out of curiosity to bring my drums up there as it’s isolated and from there the idea to use it as a recording space was born,” Lloyd noted. With a minimal investment into an audio interface and some monitors, it’s “become a great place to record and produce music without time constraints or fear of noise complaints,” he added.
Amey added “The setup in Jirisan was instrumental [to recording our debut album]. I cannot overstate how good it was to record stuff without the tick-tock of the hourly rate of a studio. We all have day jobs in Korea, and any way to save money on this aspect is good!”
And thus, a band that had been “together” (at least as an existing entity) for years finally put out their debut full-length album “Propaganda Dogs” last year.
Malarkey Studio has also allowed the band to branch out, not only with the album. Lloyd has recorded several singles and albums for (formerly) local artists like sanchez. (Irish artist Oísin Magee), Call Me Em (London-based Emily Tarry) and some drums for Jordan O’Keefe who was a one-time finalist on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
This work has presaged other ways in which Malarkey is branching out, with another project called Fantastic Mistake, featuring Korean singer Kim Hyeon-joong, pianist Andrew Vlasblom and Dreamers founder Park Tae-sang, being a regular feature at Dae-in Market on Saturday evenings in Gwangju.
With 2024 dawning, the band (along with Vlasblom) has additionally been named the new house band at FRIENDS, a new live venue downtown. Although other venues and gigs in cities have kept the band intermittently busy, regular gigs are once again on the horizon after the unfortunate closing of Speakeasy several years ago as COVID sunk its teeth in.
Amey noted further, “I’ve felt that there was a huge Speakeasy-shaped hole in downtown Gwangju since it closed. Not only ‘foreigner’ bands would play there, but it was part of the national circuit for Korean indie bands too. I’m looking forward to that being the case [again].”
For his part, after a rather exasperated groan and noticeably long pause, Lloyd added, “We’ve tried to keep the live music flag flying downtown but it hasn’t been easy when you have to lug your own PA and drums to the venue. It’s nice that live music finally has a home again [in downtown Gwangju]. I’ve already seen evidence of other venues stepping up their game to reach out to more musicians so things are looking more positive for the live music scene in Gwangju than they have in years.”
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