Notes from the musical front-line
Alan Dearling
In trying to find the band, Mother Man, on-line I discovered that:
“The Mother’s Men is a company of fighting men formed in Meereen. Its members are all former slaves, known as freedmen, who are loyal to Daenerys Targaryen.”
Obviously a useless fact and not in any way connected with the band!
In fact, Mother Man appear to have just leapt out of their space ships and decided to form a band. Their gig at the recent three-day Fire Dance festi in County Durham was almost their birth, their beginning, their first or second morphing. Visually and musically they are all over the place: Bowie, Tiny Tim, Nirvana and The Doors come to mind. Maybe even a punked-up Freddie Mercury as well! Iggy on steroids and helium? Queer as fuck, and chock-full of potential talent.
At the festival they were oozing barrow-loads of North-East humour and originality. And singer Sam O’Brien’s voice and his banshee wailing is completely bonkers! Then there’s the stage antics from all the band members. Demented theatrics, indeed! It reminded me of musical weirdness and encounters of the third and fourth kind from days of yore – The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Alice Cooper and AC/DC, perhaps. MC5 and the Velvets, Black Flag, Alien Sex Fiend maybe?
Ramshackle garage rock ‘n’ roll! Gothick horror-show music? Vampire punk? As one of their songs proclaims, ‘Men with long nails!’ It’s dark, stark, staccato, unsettling and often menacing… You have been warned!
Tom White’s Youtube video of their joint photoshoot: https://www.youtube.com/@MotherManBand
“Have You Ever Met Me? is a short concept film created by Mother Man and photographer Tom White, March 2025. It’s our little way of saying – hello,” says Mother Man.
And here’s a video of the band by my friend, Marnie Burden, when she first met Mother Man: https://www.facebook.com/reel/581609247930168
Sam O’Brien, who fronts the Mother Man explains their genesis and recent evolution:
“We formed towards the end of January. The first song we played ‘Mother Man’ was the first we wrote, and decided to name the band after it. That song was done by me (Sam) and Beck (guitarist) and was based on a poem of mine. I’ve been an amateur poet for about ten years, played in a band called Blackout in York briefly but that didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t actually like music at all till I heard Iron Maiden’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’ at school one day, my dad then bought me Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ album on day of release – we know how that went. And ever since I’ve wanted to be a musician but never had the confidence or skill till now.
Bryn (bassist) then came in that same day and wrote the last song we played, ‘Oh Baby’ in one take, and we went from there. Rachel (drummer) then jammed with us a few weeks later and asked to join, of course I was ecstatic for that and we wrote ‘Friends’ together, so that was our first song as a whole band.
If you weren’t aware already, Beck and Bryn have another band who wear balaclavas and I’m not at liberty to confirm the name of – and Rachel is the drummer and primary songwriter for queer punk outfit, Gaydar.
People obviously questioned the name ‘Mother Man’ thinking it was some kind of play on an Oedipus complex- but it’s actually about angry, reactionary, middle- aged men. If anything. But I’ve found in the same vein, that it’s also reflective of my own life and struggle with gender roles. The parentification of working class young men, who take on motherly roles with family and friends yet either through social stigma or cultural osmosis, rarely get to even understand their own gender or sexuality and the violent and harmful ways that can manifest. It is an invitation to open your heart and let your anger out in a healthy way.
In a sense then, it’s a reaction to the alt-right, and the ‘crisis’ facing young men in a glam rock skin. I want to make people think, but you have to invoke a lot of emotion to do that. Fear and humour I’ve found grab the attention.
Our first non-music related project was the ‘Have You Ever Met Me?’ A short film with photographer Tom White, our most frequent collaborator. We exhibited it at Middlesbrough Town Hall and plan to open our shows with it in the near future. There’s a link to it in this article.
From this, before we even began playing I began work on defining the aesthetic for this genesis phase of the band, I’ve attached one of the posters we used to announce the band’s existence – and built some mystery around ourselves. They are made using photos by Tom White. We also work often with Joe Copley, another amazing photographer from the north-east.
We are planning a concert film in collaboration with Mozzenjammer. To be filmed in the courtrooms at the town hall in September entitled “How Do You Plead?” with narrative sections interspersed with multi-cam concert footage.
In the next month we are also planning on recording two singles. Both with A and B sides. The first will be ‘Feminine Heroin’ and ‘The Seeker’ (acoustic, Leonard Cohen-esque) then ‘Males With Long Nails’ and ‘Sugar Sucker’ to be released a few months later.
We are devising very theatrical photo shoots to promote both with Tom White. And more specifically, a music video for males with long nails in the style of a George Romero film or a 1920s German horror with stop motion make-up effects. We’re trying to get it shot on 16mm film if budget allows.
Looking further down the line, we are planning a double A side single of ‘Friends’ and ‘Enemies’ for Spring next year, and already have a few tracks we’re saving for an album to record next summer, hopefully.
The singles will not be part of the album. I feel very strongly there needs to be a different approach to singles and albums. Individual, self-contained songs with strong contrasts between each side for singles and a more thematic approach to album writing.
You might’ve guessed, but by and large I control the creative direction. I write all the lyrics, melodies and some bass lines. We have an unconventional writing style in that sense. Most of the time I sing the melody and we write around that. Of course, some of them we jam out, hence the airy ending to ‘Strange Euphoria’ for example. But this too is on purpose; we don’t rehearse it to maintain a level of tension and anxiety for the performance.
None of this is to say Beck, Bryn and Rachel don’t contribute. None of this would exist without them and the songs would sound very different with others playing them. We all have our own tastes, and it’s the combination of those styles that make our music what it is. We don’t aim for a particular genre, we try and capture the spirit of the lyrics with the music itself, i.e. prosody.
In total we have around 30 demos, and many more instrumental tracks and a book’s worth of lyrics and melodies to develop. We don’t do covers as a general rule and aren’t planning on any either. We have discussed it at length but want to focus on our work first. Originally we floated ‘Please don’t touch’ by Motörhead and Girlschool, ‘Hoist that rag’ by Tom Waits, ‘Revolution blues’ by Neil Young, and ‘Sweet and tender hooligan’ by the Smiths. The last one we thought would be best to avoid for obvious reasons.
Our next gig as of right now, will be Lost in the Woods on the 14th September. Fire Dance was our fifth gig in as many weeks. Our first being at Etch supporting Amass (who then asked us to play Fire Dance). Till then, we’re focussing on recording and the concert film.
I appreciate that’s probably far more information than you need – hope you find it useful. Hope to see you again sometime.
With kindness and blindness,
Sam”
One of the other performers at Fire Dance, Ged Chatfield, commented that Mother Man was the,
“Surprise act of the weekend, bloody amazing! His voice was off the wall , the whole show from start to finish was top class!”
Alan says: It is absolutely great to be an:
I asked singer, Sam what he and the other band members do in their day jobs(before they become the obvious superstars they are targeted to become!) Here’s his interesting response:
“By day I’m a civil servant, I work in the courts. Used to be a researcher for the UN, and hope to pass my solicitors exams eventually. Did my masters in human rights practice and specialise in constitutional law, articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR (freedom of expression and assembly).
Beck is an electrician, Bryn is a bartender and Rachel is a sushi chef. So plenty of variety between us all!”
And here are some more links to Mother Man:
https://www.facebook.com/share/1B8R8XrodG/?mibextid=wwXIfr
And a link to the very barebones Twitter (Sam says: I’m not calling it ‘X’ that man can die):
https://x.com/mothermanband?s=21&t=96FbLjHwlNWP5GMTWgZxOQ
Marnie Burden’s videos of Mother Man live from the Fire Dance festival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-1x681RXc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEkmW6B1iY
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