On a cloudless August afternoon, the fields of Glanusk Estate – home to Green Man Festival – look like a picture of bliss. As they prepare for their NME photoshoot, the members of Mary In The Junkyard attempt to scale a small oak tree while discussing the festival’s vast and eccentric activity offerings, from willow weaving to charcoal making. The harmony of the scene is spoiled only by dozens of muddy puddles, the last remaining evidence of the weekend’s heavy rainfall.
The music of this experimental rock trio – comprising guitarist and vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and viola player Saya Barbaglia and drummer David Addison – would find a fitting backdrop in this sprawling and dramatic festival site. Their debut single ‘Tuesday’ plays like a slowburn to a frenzied finale: staccato guitar and Freeman-Taylor’s whisper-like vocal meld with a careening intensity before reaching a two-minute crescendo. The track is both fragile and fearless at once, swooping between devastating new depths with the same quiet ferocity of caroline‘s self-titled debut or Crack Cloud’s ‘Pain Olympics’.
For Freeman-Taylor and Addison, ‘Tuesday’ represents a “new era” of their lives. Prior to forming Mary In The Junkyard with Barbaglia, whom Freeman-Taylor met at a youth orchestra, the pair were part of Second Thoughts and had garnered a devoted social media following during those long, desolate days of lockdown. With a Discord channel and multiple meme accounts dedicated to the indie-rock group, plus a 100,000-strong TikTok audience, the online attention often overshadowed the music itself, Freeman-Taylor says today. “The TikTok stuff felt like hysteria,” she adds, twiddling with a handful of leaves as she speaks. “What we’re doing here is trying to be the complete opposite of that. Because we fucking hated it.”
During rehearsals with Second Thoughts, Freeman-Taylor and Addison would secretly practise demos that would evolve into material for Mary In The Junkyard, before they made the decision to leave and start working with Barbaglia instead. Avid gig-goers across London will have likely since seen the trio’s name appear on lineups at The Windmill, where they have honed their live show alongside their similarly buzzy peers, including Picture Parlour and Fat Dog. Freeman-Taylor – who has previously worked as a solo act – also appeared on stage as part of Declan McKenna’s backing band at Reading Festival in August.
It’s evident that ‘Tuesday’ is something of a real mic drop moment, then; an opportunity for three exceedingly talented musicians to start afresh, having already been through the wringer while forging their way into the industry. “When we’re playing a show and I look at David and Saya, it makes me want to cry,” says Freeman-Taylor, stretching across a picnic table to hug Barbaglia, who begins to visibly tear up in response. Addison continues: “I’m really proud of being associated with this band. It’s cool and it’s totally new. Hopefully people will see that.”
NME: Do you think there’s a particular mood that ‘Tuesday’ is trying to capture?
Saya: “We recorded it last December and it feels representative of the excitement that comes with being together in the studio for the first time. The idea was to try and capture where we were at in our lives. I remember the session really well: we got to the studio and we were like, ‘Let’s just put everything into this song and bash it out’.”
Clari: “The song also speaks to how it feels to move to London and what it means to adapt to a big city. You used to be able to hear birdsong and the countryside in my demos – and now you can hear fights outside! It’s a vulnerable song, and having people around you who have been through the same experience is really important.”
David: “It’s the song that we play last in our sets as it’s got a dramatic ending. The first part is quite tight and almost electronic-sounding, and the end is akin to a complete emotional release. It’s a bit messy and I think it’s cool for our first release as a band to be that way; we didn’t want to arrive sounding professional. It’s a big, mad, five minute-long song.”
Your music has a real sense of spontaneity. Does it feel like a bit of an escape from the classical worlds you grew up in?
Clari: “Totally, but Saya is also an incredibly talented classical musician. She can play beautifully over anything I write. The bassline at the end of ‘Tuesday’ is really honky-tonky, and I wasn’t expecting it! Saya and I used to play in string quartets together, and a massive part of that is about being able to read each other – it helped us to bond in such a special way. I think being a three-piece allows us to keep that focus.”
Saya: “I don’t play classical music often anymore, but the passion – in the same way a lot of people may feel about sports – will always be there. When we play live, as I don’t sing, I’m often jumping around the stage, which is new for me. It’s been freeing.”
Why do you think people connect with your live shows so intensely?
Saya: “The Windmill has been so important to us, and to be at a festival where so many bands who have come up in that venue – Squid, Butch Kassidy, Fat Dog – are playing makes us feel like we can make the big stages, too. The collective energy that you feel at an underground venue has really helped us to connect with people.”
What does being in Mary In The Junkyard offer you that your previous projects didn’t?
Clari: “We were just like, ‘We have to do this or we’ll explode.’ David and I were really young when we were in the other band and I think we did a lot of stuff that we didn’t really want to do. All the numbers popped up on social media and they didn’t mean anything to us.”
David: “I think now we are really learning how to play live and be there for each other. I love these guys and feel excited by what we are making. Looking back at what happened before, and that tricky period of time, feels really weird.”
How does it feel to have such a difficult experience be a cornerstone of your new band’s backstory?
Clari: “Starting Mary [In The Junkyard] felt like a breather. I showed the other guys in [Second Thoughts] the songs I was writing at the time, and they really weren’t interested. I never thought my songwriting was good as it had been dismissed by others in the past, so for this new band to happen has been amazing. It feels like a rebellion against that whole previous era.”
Mary In The Junkyard’s debut single ‘Tuesday’ is out now