Julie Dawson used to be “scared” to share her lyrics with her bandmates.
The guitarist is the lead singer of the Irish rock band NewDad and has featured alongside Cara Joshi, Fiachra Parslow, and Sean O’Dowd since 2018 but just days after releasing their debut studio album ‘Madra’, she has amitted that she has had to become “less wary” when it comes to letting the others hear her personal work.
She told the Daily Star newspaper’s Wired column: “In Galway, there are a few people I see around town who lower their heads a little when they see me now. I’m less wary in my songs now, when before I was more scared.
“Before, I wouldn’t let the band hear my lyrics until we were recording.”
The album features tracks such as ‘Angel’, ‘Where I Go’ and ‘Nosebleed’ and Julie joked that whenever there is some kidn of drama going on in her personal life, she knows that she will at least get a good song out of the situation.
She added: “Any time there’s a little blow-up in my life, I think, ‘Oh, at least there’s a banger of a song incoming now’!”
The rock band – who got together while in secondary school as a way of avoiding solo performances for their Leaving Certificate practical music exam – have released the EPs ‘Waves’ and ‘Banshee’ since beginning their careers but have also performed at a number of festivals and Julie revealed that their dream artist to work with would be Robert Smith, who is known for his work with the Cure.
Julie added: “Robert Smith does loads of cool new-school collaborations, and he’d be my top-tier person to write with.”