Beginning as Dana Margolin’s sadcore bedroom project, Porridge Radio developed into an idiosyncratic post-punk four-piece after she moved to Brighton and met her future bandmates. They inelegantly knot together Margolin's vicious, furious emotional outpourings with beautiful pop melodies.
The band’s debut album Every Bad has been nominated for this year’s Hyundai Mercury Prize and sees them competing alongside the likes of Kano, Laura Marling and Stormzy.
Their latest single 7 Seconds dropped just last week, you can listen to it below.
Hi Porridge Radio! Tell us about yourselves…
Hello, I am Dana, we are Porridge Radio. We all met as a band in Brighton five years ago. At the moment, we are split between London and Brighton and are going between the two whenever we need to practice.
How have the last few months been for you?
We released an album in March, just a week before lock down. We had to change a lot of plans because we had to cancel our trips to America, all over Europe and our UK headline tour. Obviously, it has been difficult as we have been out of work as touring was our big plan for this year. But, at the same time, I think we have been quite lucky because we did release an album just beforehand so we have had a lot of stuff to do and we have been really busy talking about the album and also writing, demoing and recording tracks. Me and Sam released a song La La La La a few weeks ago and we've just released our new song 7 Seconds, so I think we always have a lot of stuff. We have the Mercury’s as well which has been amazing and has helped us to keep getting our music out there. So even though a lot of things had to be cancelled or changed I think we have been quite lucky.
Tell us about the new single…
That is a hard question to answer because there is a lot of inspiration for it. It is an old song in a lot of ways but also new. I wrote the words a few years ago and they went old with a really sad song and about a year ago I went to Sam’s house and we rearranged it and sped it up and made it really fun. We took the miserable words and made them part of an exciting feeling song. At the end of last summer, we went to Margate and went to PRAH Studios and finished it with the rest of the band. Even though the pandemic has stopped a lot of things from happening, it has been amazing to keep demoing, keep recording and be able to release some new music.
How does is feel to have Every Bad nominated for a Mercury Prize?
It feels quite surreal and quite strange. It is nice to be recognised by the industry and that feels really cool.
What’s next for Porridge Radio?
I have hinted at the fact that we are writing and demoing a lot so hopefully new music. We have got tours lined up for whenever they can happen and when it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we are going to keep writing and recording.
