When the harmonic alt-rock and shoegaze-fused band R51 formed in 2012, vocalist Melyssa Shannon, guitarists Jonny Woods and Aaron Black, bassist Anton Hughes, and drummer Matt Killen had a hard time booking gigs in their hometown of Belfast. Then, in 2017, their music went viral in Russia after somebody uploaded it to the country’s largest social media website, VK.

Not long after, a Russian promoter contacted R51 about travelling over. That September, they embarked on a twelve-date tour of Russia. After the success of these shows, they found themselves back home with post-tour blues and wanted to push the project further. By 2018, the members ditched the meaningless R51 moniker and reformed as Wynona Bleach, named partially after the actress Winona Ryder and partially after Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach.

With this name change, suddenly they found themselves getting booked at home and their profile rising. In Wynona Bleach’s short career, they have supported the likes of Alice in Chains and Feeder, been nominated for several Northern Ireland Music Prizes, toured internationally, and got a record deal. Yet, Jonny doesn’t feel they’ve accomplished as much as they would have liked in this time.

 “When you release a new song, and you’re putting together a press release, and you’re filling out forms and you’re doing stuff, you have to put in the date that the band was formed, and I look at 2018, thinking, ‘Oh, that was only a couple of years ago. It’s only 2018.’ Then you realise, ‘Jesus Christ! That is actually a long time ago!’,” Johnny tells Post-Burnout. “I don’t think we’ve done enough in that time. It’s felt like a very short time, and it still feels like we’ve a huge mountain to climb ahead of us. [Laughs]”

With that in mind, we ask Jonny about how many of Wynona Bleach’s opportunities he felt came from persistence versus pure luck. He responds, “You can put your foot in every door, and you have to – you have to try really hard and do loads of things – but it never goes the way you think. Usually, the best is the unexpected stuff, like that VK thing. When we got our record deal with Fierce Panda, that was a similar thing.

“Most things that have happened for us, we have thought would go one way – and we have planned, and we have tried, and we have badgered, and fought, and did what we did – and, by the end of that process, something entirely different has occurred, and it was usually for the better. I can’t say we’re anywhere near where we should be yet – we still have a long road ahead – but the best wins of those small wins have been the ones we didn’t expect, for sure.”

In 2022, Wynona Bleach released their debut album, Moonsoake, which was recorded in Portugal and was later mixed by Andy Bradfield (Spice Girls, Björk, Marillion, et al.) and Avril Mackintosh (Tori Amos, Bryan Adams, Dire Straits, et al.), whom they met after their manager had snuck them into The Music Producers Guild’s MPG Awards ceremony. Upon completion, the band did a vinyl pressing of 800 preordered records, with the initial intent of self-releasing. Instead, they decided to shop the album around, as there had been interest in the band from several labels.

 “The fine detail of what happened was, it was a kind of pincer move; we had a lot of different people that we were friends with at the time – we still are – but one of them passed away,” Jonny says. “He was a great rock ‘n’ roll agent, called Steve Strange, who was one of the biggest agents for the likes of…I think he was Eminem’s first UK agent. He was also Snow Patrol[‘s], and he was Foo Fighters’, and everybody.

“Sadly, he passed away two years ago, but he was a really great help with our band’s formation, but as soon as anybody found out we were involved with him or friends with him, we had people interested in wanting to talk to us.”

The band ended up signing with the longtime British indie label Fierce Panda Records, who have put out music by acts like Coldplay, Placebo, Death Cab for Cutie, Keane, Ash, and Desperate Journalist since their founding in 1994.

The band had wanted to sign with that label for their reputation and genuine interest in the career. “What really happened was, we had a little bit of interest from other labels at the time, but Panda – Simon [Williams, the label’s founder and owner], in particular – had come to a load of our shows in London, before that, and I guess he didn’t realise that we were trying to court him a bit,” Jonny explains. “He must have known, but he didn’t quite twig that we really want to be on Fierce Panda.”

But the buzz around the band had stalled the coquettish play between the two wallflowers. “So, we had [Andy and Avril] batting for us, we had Steve Strange batting for us, and we had all these different people batting for us, so what ended up happening was, Simon at Fierce Panda thought, ‘Alright, well they’ve got a big deal with a big label, now. They won’t need me because they’ve got all these friends who work for big labels,’” Jonny says.

“But, all along, we were like, ‘I kind of just want Panda to take it on,’ because they had their great reputation and we had a bit of an ick with a couple of A&R people that were from bigger labels, and it felt like emails would go unnoticed until we did something on our socials and then the emails would be replied to, and it just gave us bad vibes. We didn’t want to be halfway through releasing an album and somebody just give up or not give a fuck and not put any effort in.

“So, what ended up happening was, our manager was at a party, and Simon was there, and he said, ‘So, what’s happening with their record? I suppose they’ve got it signed off and all?’, and she said, ‘No. Why don’t you sign them up?’, and then he went, ‘I’ve been wanting to, all along, but I just thought they were signed to someone else at this point!’”

After the release of their album, Wynona Bleach were riding high in the local music scene with a loyal fanbase. One of these fans was musician James Foy.  “I was off work – I was sick for quite a while – and I had a practice space in Blackstaff Mill, which is kind of out west in Belfast, and I kind of got into a routine where I wasn’t in work at the time and I didn’t want to go crazy at the house, so I would head out to the room, and, you know, I was writing songs, and I could play drums loud, and I could record drums, and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, pretty much, during the day,” James says.

“And I remember one time, it must have been, I don’t know, autumn or winter, […] and I walked out and there was a girl with green hair, just sitting there, and I was like, [Laughs] ‘Oh, she looks cool! Who’s that?!’ And I started chatting to her, and she was smoking a joint, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so fuckin’ cool. I wish I could smoke a joint and not have to drive home!’

“And, yeah, we just got chatting, and she was like, ‘What do you do?’, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m just up here, recording drums’ or whatever, and she was like, ‘Oh, cool. I play in a band.’ I was like, ‘Do ya?!’ She was like, ‘Aye, I play in a band called Wynona Bleach,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve definitely heard the name. Did you play in another band?’ She was like, ‘R51, yeah,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah! I kept seeing your poster at the time, about you guys going to Russia! That’s so cool!’, and we got talking about that and all the rest of it.

“I kept seeing her every time I’d go up – because Mel has a studio, making ceramic jewellery and stuff – and I remember going home and playing Wynona Bleach in the car and being like, ‘Holy shit!’ A couple of weeks later – [To Jonny] You were at The Black Box for some gig – and I ran into Mel, and I was like, ‘Oh, is Jonny here? Can you introduce me to him?’, and you were fuckin’ steaming! [All laugh]” “I actually don’t remember this!”, admits Jonny.

James continues, “And we got chatting, and, I don’t know, I must have come and hung out at the studio or bumped into you a couple of more times or something, and we actually just became mates. I remember so clearly driving my dad into work one day, and my dad loves ‘Cherrydream,’ which is off the Sugar EP; it is one of his favourite songs, if not his favourite song of all time.

“And I remember driving into work, and him just being like, ‘Fuck!’ Because it’s so dynamic and so quiet at the start and then it fucking comes in halfway though, I’d have to be like, ‘Dad, this is the part where it’s going to get loud,’ because I didn’t want him to have a fuckin’ heart attack or something! [All laugh] And he always used to jump, no matter what! And he was like, ‘God, Wynona Bleach are fuckin’ great!’, and I was like, ‘That’s the kind of band I want to play for.’”

If the fact that James is an interviewee in this article about Wynona Bleach didn’t already give it away, James would eventually get that opportunity. Wynona Bleach were on the road with the shoegaze-without-adjectives band and fellow Belfast homefolk Virgins, whom James was drumming for. This tour solidified their friendship further.

When Wynona Bleach needed a replacement drummer not long after the tour, James was their first choice, but they didn’t want to burden him with the responsibility of being in another band, nor did they want him to choose between them and Virgins. Instead, they auditioned other drummers, which didn’t eventuate further. Still needing a drummer, their minds kept coming back to James.

Months earlier, the band had agreed to record a rendition of The Cure’s “Why Can’t I Be You?” for God Is In The TV’s charity album of Cure covers, but, being preoccupied with their drummer search, they had forgotten about it, and the deadline was quickly nearing. Needing to get the track recorded A.S.A.P., they asked James if he would hop on drums for the session, which he agreed to.

After such an electric and joyous session for all involved, the band broke the seal and asked James if he wanted to join the band. They sought the blessing of Michael Smyth, the bandleader of Virgins, who was totally cool with it, saying (according to Jonny), “Yeah. I think it’s right.”

Now once more a full band, their longtime guitarist, Aaron Black, announced that he would be leaving Wynona Bleach to pursue other avenues before they began working on their second album.

“At the time, it was a huge shock,” Jonny recalls of Aaron’s departure. “Well, we’d sort of known for a while that he was talking about moving on with life and doing other stuff, but, when he did it, it was like, ‘How are we going to make this record?’, but, actually, it was almost this great new challenge. What I think’s really cool is, Carl [Gilmore, their bassist] has totally stepped up into this…” “He plays more than any of us!” laughs James. “He has the hardest job in the band, all of a sudden,” continues Jonny.

“He went from being a really solid bass player, who was playing really great parts that he had written, to a guy who now, basically, is doing three jobs, because what’s happened is, to maintain the density of the band’s live sound – which we were always really proud about how […] fuckin’ full-on it seemed. Like, it’s got a weight to it – and, without Aaron’s guitar parts, it was kind of scary. ‘How are we going to do this?’ or whatever.

“And what we do is, basically, Carl has a really ingenious pedalboard set-up that means he’s split among a guitar amp and a bass amp, and he’s playing guitar parts, and there’s parts of the set where he’s playing his bass, but, actually, the bass part is off and he’s octave up, and he’s playing guitar parts!”

Once again being mixed by Andy and Avril, the at-time-of-publication-title-unannounced second album by Wynona Bleach is set to be released this year, and it marks the first time the band have recorded as a four-piece. In January 2024, the band released the first single off the album, “Swim in the Bay,” before releasing two more singles from it, “I Deserve That” in October and “Tangerine” last month.

When discussing “Tangerine” (which I dubbed: The best summer song to be released in January), Jonny says, “I thought releasing that was going to be a shock to some people because it has such, such space in it, compared to what we’re used to doing. I mean, most of the things we’ve done in the past have been walled out, fuzzed out, but you can only do that for so long before you, as an artist, don’t feel like you’re pushing any boundary, and there’s no real point in doing something the same every single fucking time and expecting it to be different or expecting a different result. So, this was an exercise in more guitar with less guitars.”

The band’s second album will see them delving more towards pop music, which isn’t a huge departure given that euphonic melody has always been a crucial distinguisher of their sound. “It’s more alt-pop,” Jonny says of the album’s sound. “David Roy in the Irish News called us, ‘Crunchy, bubble-grunge,’ and then I think when he first said that, I thought, ‘That’s totally either what we are or should be.’

“So, there’s definitely some bubble-grunge in that. It’s poppy and it’s floaty, but it’s not [as] shoegaze-y as much as it used to be. […] It just makes no sense to stick around on that category that we always didn’t really feel like we were in, anyway. […] So, alt-pop is what it’s more become.

“It’s naturally done that; it wasn’t from any kind of, ‘We need to do something commercial.’ It just sort of feels like that’s what the fun thing is.” “Your big thing is always just hook…” James begins to say to Jonny. “Hook and melody,” Jonny finishes. “And you are a self-proclaimed basic bitch,” James adds. “I am a basic bitch,” Jonny freely admits. “And shoegaze is great and all, but when you’re a basic bitch, like me, it only goes so far. [All laugh]”

With the album expected soon (“We’re nearly finished,” Jonny says of its timeline. “As it stands, at this moment, I think there’s only a couple of more tracks to finish the mix on, then it’s done.”), the band are headlining a gig at The Union Bar in Belfast on February 16^th, before jotting off to Austin, Texas, to perform at this year’s SXSW in March.

With the album on its way, we conclude our interview by asking if they’re planning a tour in support. “We have yet to decide on the release date on the record, so that’s what’s dictating the rest of it,” Jonny says. “So, we really want to try to punch on into Europe a little bit, because we always do end up posting records to Germany and France, and we’ve never gone over, properly, and gave it a good shot; we’ve always been up and down the UK, and up and down Ireland.

“So, I think we’re trying to make it line up with touring season, where it might work out better for us. So, we’re talking, maybe, closer to the end of the year, and we’ll try and go down into France, and, maybe, Belgium, and into Germany, and back again. It’s all very up in the air, but it’s only up in the air because we can’t commit on a date on the album yet, for various reasons. But when we do get it nailed down, yeah, I think that will be the plan.

“The show on the 16^th is…for a lot of people I know in Belfast, it might be their first time seeing us as a fourpiece, and it’s also a bit of a fundraiser for us because, obviously, doing South by is not cheap, so it’s kind of a big deal show for us because it’s a small venue and it’s going to be sweaty and close together, and we just really want to give us the best possible spring in our step onward to the U.S.”

Wynona Bleach’s latest single, “Tangerine,” is on all streaming platforms now. Keep up with the band’s music, live dates, and social media accounts through their website. Also, when we did the interview, I said I would link to their VK account in this article (You’ll get the joke when you listen to the interview on our podcast!). I think this is the correct page.

Speaking of the podcast, you can tune into that tonight at 21:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full, where we expand on everything discussed in this article as well as going into detail about R51’s Russian tour and what Jonny experienced there, Jonny’s work as a producer, how producing for Wynona Bleach has influenced production work in other areas, and much more. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.