MISS MARDY

Writer: Joseph Maranta

The dulcet commentary of Adam Gilchrist and Ravi Shastri provide the perfect white noise for a Sunday afternoon recovery. A night spent with Guinness and VB, as well as a short but sweet cameo from Vodka and his mate Red Bull has resulted in an all-too-common feeling of hopelessness come Sunday morning. Their fragile emotional state is dealt a death blow as Marnus Labuschagne departs for yet another single digit innings, the TV swiftly changing to a soothing re-run of an old Family Guy episode.

As Peter and Brian get up to their usual hijinks, last night’s crowd begins to come to their senses. As the wounded warriors depart in their chariots the extent of the damage is realised. The house is desecrated with empty bottles and discarded McDonald’s bags, a familiar and nauseating stench of Lager permeates through the now sticky wooden floorboards. Hosting afters was a great idea in the moment, but reaping is always great until you must sow.

10 minutes with a dustpan and brush has made a dent in the mess, but this clean-up is starting to look like a job for his future self. His hard work mustn’t be without reward however, a cold shower and a return to sleep is more than warranted.

Lying in bed, his frustration compounds as the headnoise persists. The scope of the clean-up and the thoughts of his life passing him by is preventing his rest. With no other options coming to mind, he does what he must. He opens Kayo and lets the commentary team do the rest.

“Jasprit Bumrah with two to come”

This is Miss Mardy

An indie-rock quartet featuring Danny O’Rourke (Rhythm Guitar, Vocals), Max Hodge (Lead Guitar), Tom Doherty (Bass) and Kyle Bedford (Drums), their music brims with vigour without sacrificing any attention to detail. 

Their latest single Who Lives Like You represents a shift in their sound, a departure from the 2000’s New York rock revival scene which once inspired them. Masterfully toeing the line between accessibility and originality, Miss Mardy are set for an enormous 2025.

JOE: Thanks for spinning a yarn today guys. So tell me the story behind the band. 

DANNY: I just thought that these guys were some of the funniest people I’d ever met, and we all liked music. 

TOM: But not the same type of music, Danny and I were in a shitty high school band together, where Danny was playing drums and I was playing keys. Danny was like “Dude fuck drums”, so he started learning guitar with Max. I eventually came in, and I’d never played Bass but it was pretty easy to learn and Kyle was just sort of roped into it all. 

JOE: You dropped your debut song earlier in the year, how was the process of getting your first song out and who’s the guy in the cover photo?

DANNY: We had the intro and outro of Back of the Line written at the start of 2022, and we finished the in-between bits midway through last year. We weren’t good enough to add the other sections until then. The guy in the cover photo is actually my Dad, on the piss in front of the underground in the 90’s. 

JOE: And you’ve just released your second track, “Who Lives Like You” last Friday, what can you say about the new single?

DANNY: We wrote that one, fully at least, about a year and a half ago. At the time it was a bit half-assed, I’d written some lyrics but I was just yapping, I didn’t really know the premise of the track - but there were a few lines which I thought had some interesting concepts. I eventually met my girlfriend, and it allowed me to attribute some more meaning to my lyrics, and in the end it turned out to be a bit of a love song. 

TOM: It’s had a lot of re-working, we learnt from Back of The Line, I think that song represented our sound at the time but our sound eventually changed through playing live. But we’re really happy with how Who Lives Like You came out. 

KYLE: The earlier iterations of this song definitely had the vibe we were going for but we weren’t good enough to fully capture it back then. 

MAX: A lot of people think we sound like The Strokes, which granted - yeah we obviously love the strokes, but this new single is a big 180 from Back of The Line so I think it’s just a good progression of our sound. 

JOE: You’ve released all your music under the ANTI-DISMAL label, how did your relationship with them start?

KYLE: I just kept showing them our music on a night out and they really liked it. They actually got us our first ever gig at the SubStation in Woolloongabba. 

TOM: We have the demos that Kyle showed them, and it was similar to the sound we have now and what we’ll have next year, which we’re really looking forward to. They have faith and it’s a really nice relationship we have with them. We’ve been playlisted on Apple music and other big platforms, so we’re just extremely grateful for all their hard work. 

JOE: You mentioned you’re a bit tired of The Strokes comparisons, do you think that New York sound you once had is a thing of the past now?

TOM: When we were writing Back of The Line we were very into The Strokes, but we’ve been getting into more Post-Punk stuff especially from Ireland and some English bands. It isn’t a conscious choice but we’re moving away from listening to bands such as that. Except for Interpol, there’s a new song we have called new song 2 and it’s a bit Interpol. To be fair there’s also a great New York band called Geese, they’re a very cool band who are on the rise. Every annoying person in Brisbane is going to love that band. 

MAX: Like Tom said, that UK and Irish scene  - like Black Midi for example, we worked on a new track today which changes time signatures like 3 times. It’s all that technical bullshit, we used to be very uniform with what we wrote - we used to joke that we’d basically become Apple as a band. So we want to stay away from that uniformity to an extent. 

JOE: Are there any current Brisbane bands you guys admire?

MISS MARDY: Square, easily. 

KYLE: Best band ever. There’s no rules with that band at all. None of them are trying to be anyone but Square. 

MAX: They could be playing in a venue which holds 40 people on a tiny stage, but they’d make every centimetre of the room count. Their lead singer Tom, he’s just mad - he moves so unpredictably and unnaturally, but when you talk to him off stage he’s just the nicest person you’ll ever meet. 

KYLE: He’ll literally be pouring beers before his set, and he’ll just be lovely Tom like a normal guy to talk to, and then he’ll headline downstairs and become a different person. Like “I’m Square Tom now and I’m the king of the room”. They just have the most confidence I’ve ever seen from a Brisbane band.

JOE: Do you each have one song that makes you proud to be a part of the Australian music scene?

DANNY: I’d say ‘Look The Part’ by The Belair Lip Bombs. 

KYLE: Joy (Guilt) by Dust. 

TOM: I can’t narrow it down to a single song sorry. But I’ll just say Stella Donnelly, I really love how you can hear her Australian accent when she sings. 

MAX: I haven’t seen them live yet, but I fucking love Radium Dolls. I love their song C.I.A, it’s so funny but it just works so well. 

JOE: This question is for Kyle, have you ever played a show and kept your shirt on while drumming?

KYLE: There was one gig where I kept it on yeah.

TOM: Usually we’d ask him to keep his shirt on, but he’s a really good drummer and works really hard using every limb. We (non-drummers) use our fingers and hardly move around, we aren’t Square. He wouldn’t say this because he’s so humble, but he works so hard. If this is staying in the interview, come to a gig not for Kyle without his shirt - but because of the music. 

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