Veteran Gwangju band marks 10 years full of Malarkey
The current Malarkey band members, from left, Jon Amey, Wilfred Rawlins, Dan Lloyd and Kevin D'Abramo / Courtesy of Malarkey
By Daniel J. Springer
The typical life cycle for a rock band tends to go in several familiar patterns, pretty much all of them featuring the band’s survival teetering on a knife’s edge at all times. Members leave or quit for whatever reason, creative differences cause splits and/or the band just fades away due to lack of interest.
Here in Korea, an inevitable fact of life for expat musicians is that people who are here to work are not here forever, adding an extra dynamic bit of transience to that mix.
For anyone living in Gwangju and paying attention to the local music scene, Malarkey has been a stalwart on the live front for many years now. Whether rocking their own sets of originals and covers, playing as the wrecking crew for the likes of Lizz Kalo and artists of other genres, or just plain throwing it down at a wild party, Malarkey is distinctive because they are professional, flexible and can just plain jam.
Lizz Kalo sings with Malarkey as her backing band at FRIENDS in Gwangju, March 2. Courtesy of Daniel J. Springer
The latter is very much a distinctive feature especially here, as younger, less experienced bands can often take days or even weeks to feature new songs in a set, with many bands reading sheet music or lyrics as they play, creating a rather stilted live event.
Give Malarkey a simple rehearsal together, and they’re good to go.
The current iteration of the band’s membership consists of co-founder and drummer Dan Lloyd along with fellow co-founder and guitarist Jon Amey, who founded the cheekily named act back in 2014. Vocalist Wilfred Rawlins, backed by Lloyd and Amey at times, along with Cat O’Neill (back in the U.S. as of 2023) add their distinctive vocals on the mic, and bassist/vocalist Kevin D’Abramo rounds it out, the self-described “Johnny-come-lately” of the mob, having joined in 2019.
Over the years, the band members have come and gone, but both Lloyd and Amey have (for the most part) been here the entire time since foundation, with a couple of notable sabbaticals and down periods that are pretty much inevitable.
Artwork depicting the four current members of Malarkey / Courtesy of Travis Molina
Born out of the dissolution of two other local bands, Amey says they were just “having a bit of fun” at the start and not trying to take things too seriously.
However, even though the members were seemingly just having a laugh, it was notable that they put out a debut EP in 2015 almost immediately after formation. However, continuing to record wasn’t sustainable, with both Amey and Lloyd as well as other members leaving and returning, along with the fact that they were all working day jobs.
The EP did solidify the band's teamwork, although with the other dynamics at play they “mainly became a covers band” live, playing regularly at Speakeasy in Gwangju, and other joints around the region since 2015.
While the danger to survival and breakup stories are one thing, the fight through adversity and especially the comeback story are what sells the popcorn.
As the pandemic put everything into a seemingly endless malaise, the band snapped into action, with Lloyd founding Malarkey Studio on an in-law’s portion of property up on Mount Jiri.
“My wife’s uncle owns a large property that used to be a motel. I decided one week out of curiosity to bring my drums up there as it’s isolated and from there the idea to use it as a recording space was born,” Lloyd noted. With a minimal investment into an audio interface and some monitors, it’s “become a great place to record and produce music without time constraints or fear of noise complaints,” he added.
Amey added “The setup in Jirisan was instrumental [to recording our debut album]. I cannot overstate how good it was to record stuff without the tick-tock of the hourly rate of a studio. We all have day jobs in Korea, and any way to save money on this aspect is good!”
Guitarist Jon Amey and bassist Kevin D'Abramo work on Malarkey's debut full-length album at Malarkey Studio. Courtesy of Dan Lloyd
And thus, a band that had been “together” (at least as an existing entity) for years finally put out their debut full-length album "Propaganda Dogs" last year.
Is it a bit surprising to have put out a debut album so many years down the line from foundation?
Amey says yes and no. “I've wondered before whether we would have focused on it so well if it hadn't been for COVID, and I suspect the answer is no. The whole process is time-consuming, and I think that break from playing shows allowed us the freedom to experiment and jam together in a way that we didn't feel we had had prior to that.”
Malarkey Studio has also allowed the band to branch out, not only with the album. Lloyd has recorded several singles and albums for (formerly) local artists like sanchez. (Irish artist Oísin Magee), Call Me Em (London-based Emily Tarry) and some drums for Jordan O’Keefe who was a one-time finalist on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
“I’m always looking for new musicians to collaborate with, so if anyone needs to record or have their music produced, I’d love to hear from them,” Lloyd added.
This work has presaged other ways in which Malarkey is branching out, with another project called Fantastic Mistake, featuring Korean singer Kim Hyeon-joong, pianist Andrew Vlasblom and Dreamers founder Park Tae-sang, being a regular feature at Dae-in Market on Saturday evenings in Gwangju.
The members of Fantastic Mistake pose outside of Dae-in Market in Gwangju. Courtesy of Kim Hyun-joon
With 2024 dawning, the band (along with Vlasblom) has additionally been named the new house band at FRIENDS, a new live venue downtown. Although other venues and gigs in cities have kept the band intermittently busy, regular gigs are once again on the horizon after the unfortunate closing of Speakeasy several years ago as COVID sunk its teeth in.
Amey noted further, “I've felt that there was a huge Speakeasy-shaped hole in downtown Gwangju since it closed. Not only 'foreigner' bands would play there, but it was part of the national circuit for Korean indie bands too. I'm looking forward to that being the case [again].”
For his part, after a rather exasperated groan and noticeably long pause, Lloyd added, “We’ve tried to keep the live music flag flying downtown but it hasn’t been easy when you have to lug your own PA and drums to the venue. It’s nice that live music finally has a home again [in downtown Gwangju]. I've already seen evidence of other venues stepping up their game to reach out to more musicians so things are looking more positive for the live music scene in Gwangju than they have in years.”
With things looking up, are there any plans to keep the momentum going with new material?
“There are some songs in the pipeline, for sure,” Amey noted. “We will see how we manage releases going forward. Is the full album dead? Is it better to release songs in smaller batches? We need to think about that in my opinion. At least, this year I'd like to release one or two standalone songs to keep people interested in our original songs!”
Surely more lurks in the mirth.
Malarkey will play a free show at FRIENDS this Saturday starting at 6 p.m. in time for St. Patrick's Day, along with local Gwangju punk bands Dirty Rockhon, Monkey Pee Quartet and TwoFive.
Visit linktr.ee/malarkeykorea for more information.
Daniel J. Springer is the former host of “The Drop with Danno” on GFN, and current music director and resident DJ at FRIENDS.