M(h)aol’s latest single ‘I Miss My Dog‘ might be a tender ode to a beloved butch lesbian pup named Kim, but it’s also so much more. Much like their new album it’s raw, aching, and laced with that signature M(h)aol bite.

With album Something Soft dropping 16th May via Merge Records, the intersectional queer feminist trio are heading out on a tour across the UK, Ireland, and US. They’ll be bringing their chaotic beauty to stages while empowering audiences to face some of society’s most pressing issues.

We caught up with Constance & Jamie from the band to talk dogs, tenderness, rage, softness, sports and Vin Diesel..

Hello both of you, congratulations on Something Soft. I love it but it definitely challenges the general conception of what soft is. What does the word mean to you? 
Constance: I have thought a lot about what soft means to me. I think I used to think it was a bad thing, for a person to be soft, but as I get older I have come around to the idea that there is a time for softness. I think one can be hard and soft at the same time…maybe like a thick jelly. I think softness is what allows us to actually process our feelings and connect with others.

For me the album perfectly encapsulates the strength that we possess as minorities.
C: Honestly the idea behind what I wrote for this record is to help myself feel powerful as a queer woman. Playing in this band gives me a space to explore that and how I interact with the world.

This is your first album as a trio, how did that affect the writing process?
C: Jamie and I were on lyric writing duties for this one which was a change from before! Other than that, we wrote in a very similar way to the last album. Almost all writing happens when we’re in the room together and then recording is either at the same time, or very soon after.

Previous single ‘DM:AM’ came together in 20 minutes. I imagine in that time you felt every emotion, from feeling adrenaline from writing to the rage from the situation that inspired it. Can you take us on that journey?
C: I was actually in a great mood when we wrote that song. Jamie was setting up the studio because she is our producer among many other things, and Sean, Sarah Deegan (who plays second bass on this song) and I were being extremely unhelpful and just sitting with our instruments.

I love that you have a track named ‘Vin Diesel’ which discusses the dangers of fast fashion and consumerism. Can you tell us more about this song and was there a Vin Diesel role in particular that inspired this song?
Jamie: On our last tour as a five-piece the van we were in had a dvd player and we asked our Instagram followers to bring any dvds they had spare to a show. We ended up with a copy of Fast and The Furious by the end of the tour. We also happened across the second half of 2 Fast 2 Furious on TV in one of the hotels on that run of shows too I think… Long story short, though, Vin Diesel actually has very little to do with it.
There is a vocal track in the break at the end which is a Facebook post about the wrap of the new Fast and Furious film that happened to be posted the day we wrote the song. I joked that we could say that the song is about how many tank-tops are used on each Fast shoot.
It’s definitely actually just about the struggle for ethical consumption under capitalism.

‘Snare’ takes aim at misogyny in green rooms. Has there been a specific situation that inspired this that you would like to share?
C: I would say the whole band takes aim at misogyny in green rooms haha. There are actually too many situations to count. Thankfully I do think it’s getting a bit better though, it feels better than when I was 19.

‘IBS’ is something so many people suffer from and yet I can’t think of any songs about it. But when you’re singing ‘Will you hurt me?’ this sounds like it is not to your own body. Could you tell us more about this song?
C: So IBS in this instance actually stands for Irritable Boy Syndrome but we did not feel the need to clarify that in the title. It’s about the experience of sleeping beside a man and realising how physically vulnerable you are in that moment.
J: I love that the lack of clarification on the title has worked kind of exactly how I had hoped. As so much meaning in art can be in the eye of the beholder, I loved the idea of someone who does suffer from IBS hearing the song and feeling seen. In this imagined scenario, the line ‘Will you hurt me?’ could have been about a particular food that sometimes causes flare-ups. This is clearly not as important as the fear of domestic abuse and femicide….

‘1800-call-me-back’ began as a joke about you writing a football chant. Do you think it’s time for queers to reclaim sports?! Is it happening already?!
C: I absolutely condone queers reclaiming sports. I want to see a queer Formula 1 driver please. I want to watch a gay rev their little engine.
J: Vroom vroom~~ the rise in attention for women’s sports is amazing, both the European soccer leagues and the GAA seem to be getting much more attention over the last few years. As if I pay attention to any sports…

As an intersectional feminist punk band, what is the biggest misconception of feminism?
C: See this is where I fall at the first hurdle because I feel like I’m meant to say ‘We don’t hate men!’ or ‘We do shave our legs!’ but I cannot say either of those things… #notallmen etc.
J: The idea that it could truly be anything less than fully intersectional.

What’s the most chaotic thing that’s ever happened at a M(h)aol gig? 
C: I’m not sure I can answer that.
J: Our most recent Dublin show, a bunch of my pedals stopped working as soon as we started. I think we had to not play almost half of our songs.

Who is your ultimate queer icon, dead or alive, famous or not…?
C: My dead dog Kim who was definitely a little butch lesbian. We have a song about her on our first album.
J: Fran Blanche who worked for Electro Harmonix back in the 90s and then went on to make Frantone.

Lastly we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001. So we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
C: Probably ‘It’s Like That’.

Something Soft is out 16th May via Merge Records.
For live dates see here.

Interview by Ed Westbrook.