After his band Spies disbanded in the 2010s, the Dublin musician Andy McGurk moved to Waterford, the hometown of his then-girlfriend. Andy soon became enamoured by the scene in Ireland’s first city, as the more stripped-back intimacy and camaraderie compared to what was on offer in Dublin was exactly what he needed going into his thirties.

After getting married, Andy and his now-wife planned to move to the city where his mother-in-law was based, but the then-in-effect lockdowns prevented it. “Myself and my wife were planning to go to Australia; that fell through,” Andy tells Post-Burnout. “Australia closed its borders, so that wasn’t going to happen.

“My original plan was to move to Perth, Australia, and start this band, and use it as a way of meeting people and playing music with people, and getting to know the city by playing gigs and stuff.

“Once that fell through, it was just me in my living room, and a load of burnt-out statistics [Laughs] about, like, [the mortality reports of the COVID-19 virus], and, I dunno, I remember there was a decision, where I was like, ‘No, I think I’m just going to do it, anyway, because it’s something to do.’”

At the time, Andy was inspired by the lo-fi production of Tame Impala and early offerings from the blues guitarist Gary Clark Jr. “I saw him live in Vienna,” Andy says of Clark Jr. “He’s a quintessential blues guitarist, I can’t stress that enough, but there was an early EP he did, that the production value is just in the dirt, and it’s super garage-y, and I don’t think it exists anymore.

“That’s actually the reason why I chose this guitar… [He points to his Epiphone Casino]. I saw one that was on sale for cheap in Dublin, and I went out, met the person, and bought it, because that was the guitar he was using on the recording.

“So, he had this early EP that was really garage-y, and, basically, immediately after that, the production value just skyrocketed and everything became crystal clear. But that first EP blew me away. I loved it so much. And it is why I wanted to be really lo-fi in the first songs.”

With the concept for a new project, Andy needed to christen it to make it official. He decided on “A Lethal Black Ooze” for some very disparate reasons. “For me, I had just finished watching Chernobyl,” he explains. “So, the Elephant’s Foot was, like, in my head.

“But, additionally, also, like, Grimer and Muk from Pokémon. So, those were the kinds of things that were around. Then, I was trying to be all distorted and stuff, so I thought that was a fun name.”

Initially, the project was a one-man army, but, when fleshing out the material to record their self-titled debut EP, Andy enlisted the talents of two well-respected names in the Irish alt music scene to help, with Gilla Band’s Adam Faulkner filling in on drums and M(h)aol’s Jamie Hyland filling in on bass, as Andy sang and played the guitar.

Despite the profiles of the personnel, Andy felt this didn’t necessarily translate to immediate notoriety for A Lethal Black Ooze. “I think it was challenging,” he says. “When you start any new project… – I found, anyway – …it doesn’t matter who you are; you still need to go out, and make alliances, and become well-known as part of the project.

“And then, there’s a real snowball effect, where the more shows you play, the more you get. That’s kind of a real feeling, especially around Ireland. If you can get into the city and play one show, you become more likely to get your second show, or whatever.

“In some ways it was easier because I had a plan for the first time ever, and I kind of wanted to test out a load of theories, and see what would happen if I did this, that, and the other, and it was fun because, in the past, I don’t think I’ve ever had those types of goals.

“You know, in the past, it was just about writing music, playing as many shows as possible, and ‘getting signed,’ whatever that meant. We didn’t really even know what that meant, you know? Not that those things are coming, because, in my opinion, this project isn’t busy enough to warrant the attention of a label or whatever, but, if a label did come, I would seriously doubt that I would go ahead with it, unless it’s a real cool indie label from Ireland or something.”

Andy feels that he let the freshman momentum of A Lethal Black Ooze slip somewhat last year. Ahead of and after the release of their EP in 2023, he was persistently pushing the band. Then he agreed to play bass on a European tour with MELTS, which ate all his time and energy for 2024.

But this year, Andy put all of his renewed focus into A Lethal Black Ooze. Recently, he’s enlisted the talents of two Waterford natives to fill in for Jamie and Adam on a full-time basis. Tommy Moloney (whom Andy met at a gig) is now their bassist, and Alfonso Palma (whom Tommy recommended to Andy) is now their drummer.

However, there is still material that Andy recorded with Jamie and Adam that’s slowly being released. In March, the band released their first post-EP single, “Sha Ooo, Sha Ahh,” and, last month, followed it up with “Rosie,” named after one of the cats that he and his wife adopted just before the pandemic. Rosie also serves as the cover girl for the single’s art.

“Rosie” was written during the pandemic, but Andy had sat on it until making, in his words, the “offhand decision” to release it last month.  “I was stuck in traffic at the Grand Canal Dock on the way to the Yellow Door rehearsal space to jam, and I came up with the whole vocal line, just in my head because I was bored,” Andy says of how the song materialised.

“I recorded it on my phone! It kind of sounded ridiculous when it’s just vocals because it sounds almost like a nursery rhyme until you put the really silly punk backing track to it, right?

“And I had no idea what it was, but, for some reason, I felt compelled to record it, and I just thought it was really funny, and I showed Jamie and Iain in Yellow Door, maybe that same day. I can’t remember if it was that same day or it was a week later or whatever, and what you got was this really silly punk song.”

With a repeating refrain of Me and my wife/Me and my wife/Everyday, it’s me and my wife, Andy wants to clarify his intent before a potential misconstruction. “There’s one thing I want to stress about this, and this is something that people always think, is when they hear the lyrics, they think I’m slagging off my wife, right? I’m not!” he asserts.

“It’s not at all. I thought it was more of a funny, playful observation on the fact that we were both locked inside all day, and then we had just adopted this cat, and the cat was meowing at six in the morning for attention and stuff like that.

“So, the lyrics are a play on that sort of interaction; the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday thing. […] I did actually mention it to her. I was like, ‘Here, just so you’re aware, I’m writing a song, and these are the lyrics.’

“And I kind of like it because I like to talk about the fact that […] I think when you watch too much TV, mentioning your wife, or mentioning your other half, or your husband in any fashion, so not just your wife, but any mention of your partner or your husband, is kind of seen as a kind of ‘ball-and-chain’-esque communication.

“And what I love about it is, when people listen to ‘Rosie,’ they always say to me, ‘It sounds like you’re slagging off your wife,’ but I would counter and say, ‘That’s because you’ve watched too much American TV growing up, and that’s the only reason why it sounds like that.’

“In fact, I kind of thought it was sort of interesting, because I had never heard bands or artists using the words ‘husband’ [or] ‘wife’ and putting it to the front of their song. I hadn’t heard that before. So, when the line came to me, I went, ‘That’s kind of cool,’ and I thought it was interesting sounding.

“And, also, I was newly-married at the time; I was only married in 2021. I was all excited about it, and it still remains to be something that I really cherish, but I almost felt like it was more interesting, to use the word ‘Wife’ as a lyric and put it out into the front, because it had that response in people.”

With the new iteration of A Lethal Black Ooze, Andy is moving away from crafting the one-to-two-minute-long, shorter, punkier ditties that they’ve become known for to more spacious and lengthy grooves. This will be heard on their next album, which is expected to be released after Andy finishes his backlog of banked tracks.

Teasing the album, Andy says, “So, the album that I have written with the two lads from Waterford has evolved, compositionally, in that I’m less scared to…I should probably say We. [Thinks] No, me personally, because they wouldn’t, necessarily, have been in the first set of songs, but the songs are a bit longer, and a bit more expansive, and they have a lot more texture and guitar bits in it.

“Whereas, what I wanted to do when I started off in the pandemic was really reduce what I was hearing. Like, I kind of felt like I was listening to a lot of songs that were four-and-a-half minutes long, expansive bits, whereas I really just wanted to listen to a one-minute song that got to the point and stopped.

“So, I would say that the structure is probably a little bit less scared to be a little bit more expansive, in that way. But there’s still a bit of time. We haven’t recorded that yet. But, with regards to ‘Sha Ooo’ and ‘Rosie,’ they were songs that were written in the late pandemic.

“Ultimately, I held onto them, and I’m kind of just releasing them now as I’m preparing for this album recording session, just to keep flow moving and show that there’s still activity happening.”

A Lethal Black Ooze’s latest single, “Rosie,” is out now. You can keep up with the band through their Linktree.

A Lethal Black Ooze will perform at:

Aug. 16^th – Waterford – Geoffs Café Bar (w/ Peer Pleasure and Test Plan) – Free entry!

Aug. 22^nd – Dublin – Anseo (w/ Creepy Future and The Usuals) – Tickets €10 at the door.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 21:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full. 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.