The End: SOAK

Interviews
All
Music
Cinema
TV
Comic Books

The End: SOAK

Jokes Then Death

May 20, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Sam Hiscox Web Exclusive

To end the week, we ask SOAK (aka Northern Ireland singer/songwriter Bridie Monds-Watson) some questions about endings and death.

SOAK’s new album, If I Never Know You Like This Again, came out today via Rough Trade. If I Never Know You Like This Again is the follow-up to Monds-Watson’s sophomore album, 2019’s Grim Town. Monds-Watson (who uses they/them pronouns) wrote the album with long-time collaborator Tommy McLaughlin (he/him), mainly writing in the pandemic. At the time Monds-Watson and McLaughlin were listening to a lot of 1990s bands, including Pavement and Radiohead (in particular The Bends), which influenced the sound of the album. If I Never Know You Like This Again was then recorded with Monds-Watson’s backing band at Attica Studios in Donegal.

“This record is the most accurate picture of me. I felt no pressure at all, it was almost like I was ranting as I was writing,” Monds-Watson said in a press release announcing the album. “When I was looking to the past, it was as though I had a big lottery ball of all my recent memories and I would just randomly select which one I wanted to unpack. It helped me to process my past.”

Read on as Monds-Watson discusses how they would like to die, their favorite endings to movies and albums, and their repetitive version of hell.

How would you like to die and what age would you like to be?

I’d like to die at 100 but stop aging whenever I turn 65. I think being guaranteed 100 years of life is the perfect amount. I’d like to die suddenly, with no pain at the end of my 100th birthday in the last minute before 12, just after I’d said something really funny.

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

I’m quite fond of the “and then I woke up” take but otherwise I think Fight Club has a perfect ending.

What’s your favorite series finale last ever episode of a TV show? (Or what’s your least favorite?)

I hate how Skins ended but that because I wasn’t ready to let go yet.

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

“Blue Bucket of Gold” by Sufjan Stevens off Carrie & Lowell.

What’s your favorite last album by a band who then broke up?

I really, really like the last album by Black Country, New Road. They haven’t technically broke up but one of them did leave.

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

A cereal buffet. Every type of cereal imaginable with every variety of milk offered.

What would be your own personal version of heaven if it exists?

Heaven is getting to go to the studio every single day and jamming with the band, writing or recording. Ideally the studio would be in a hot country and maybe also inside a mansion. All your friends and family would also live in the massive house. It’d be quite big.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

The same riff repeated forever.

If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

Being a dolphin would be good vibes.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

I’d like to be remembered as “one of the good ones.”

www.soaksoaksoak.com