Serving up a bold, brash onslaught of rock ’n’ roll catharsis for over a decade, The Dirty Nil would be the first to admit that they’re not a band well-versed in subtlety.
Known for their sweat-soaked showmanship, glam-flecked punk rock grit, and psychedelic visuals, the Ontario duo’s identity has become one that revels in chaos. The riff-fuelled, theatrical brainchild of childhood friends vocalist/guitarist Luke Bentham and drummer Kyle Fisher, the pair’s penchant for pairing noise and nihilism has seen them grow into one of Canada’s proudest modern rock exports, but on album five their swagger is taking a bruising turn.
Stripping away the colour, ‘The Lash’ is a primal reimagining of the duo’s sound. Raw and uncompromising, the black-and-white brutality of its imagery and the skeletal riffs found within bring a stark reality check. Retaining their signature smirk whilst trading in some of the bravado for a surprising tenderness, it’s a record made with no one else in mind. Shaped by amplifier feedback and spit-shined sarcasm, it’s everything you expect from The Dirty Nil, but as you’ve never heard them before.
To dive deeper into the duo’s most stripped-back and sharp-edged release to date, Rock Sound caught up with Luke to talk life on the road, how a visit to the Vatican inspired ‘The Lash’, and what it means to make a record that answers to no one but yourself.
Rock Sound: Let’s begin with where your heads were at coming out of 2023’s ‘Free Reign to Passions’. That record had this wild, exuberant energy. Playing those songs live every night, how were you feeling when the time to lock in on album five came around?
Luke Bentham: We were definitely fired up. It was beautiful to come out of the pandemic and see that our fan base had grown and the shows were just getting wilder. Even before we released ‘Free Rein’, I was already working on the songs that would eventually constitute ‘The Lash’. It’s one of the best places I’ve ever been as a writer, I felt very confident and was cranking out new songs pretty quickly. It was very exciting.
RS: Everything about ‘The Lash’ is much starker and more stripped down. What drove that shift in direction?
Luke: It’s partially a reaction to the last couple of records, where we employed larger budgets, fancier studios, and extremely colourful surrealist artwork. We wanted to make something starker, musically and visually, that would curb these trends of increasing grandeur. We wanted to make it quickly with no time for over-thinking decisions. I would add too, that we wanted to bet on ourselves a bit; that we don’t need an extended stay in an expensive studio to make something that we are immensely proud of.
RS: This is your first record in a while without John Goodmanson at the helm. What did working with producer Vince Soliveri bring out of you that perhaps wouldn’t have come out in a more polished environment?
Luke: I tend to believe that you can access more parts of your brain when you’re relaxed. Vince is our good friend of many years, and we speak the same language of Ace Frehley worship, Simpsons references and Hamilton, Ontario humour. It was a very relaxing recording environment that fostered a lot of confidence and a very quick tempo of progress. In the past, we’ve put a lot of extra time into the vocals, doing layers and shooting out microphones, etc. This time, Vince set up the coolest looking mic and we did a single vocal track for 99 per cent of the LP. It was fast, no pitch correction or caution. We also had a blast doing guitars. Vince shares my insatiable appetite for howling feedback.
RS: There’s something to be said not just for working with someone who’s good at what they do, but someone who truly gets your vibe…
Luke: When you really click, you’re more willing to follow someone’s instincts and trust their direction. By the time we go to make a record, I’m not super open to changing the songs very much and I know what I want out of each one. Vince suggested a few arrangement changes that we did adopt, and I’m glad I did. It’s a delicate thing to have people change your music and it requires trust to accomplish with positive results.
RS: From a recording standpoint, there’s something very live and feral about this album too. How much does your live show creep into your thinking while you’re creating?
Luke: I certainly fantasise about the live show environment when I write something that I’m excited about. I’ve also had to learn how to carve space in the arrangements for myself to either swing the mic stand around or do my best Pete Townshend impression on the guitar. We love making records, but we live to play live.
RS: You’ve kept up a ridiculous touring schedule over the years, and people outside of the industry often don’t see the gruelling work that goes into keeping a band alive. ‘Rock N’ Roll Band’ pulls back the curtain in a pretty unfiltered way. What pushed you to write a track that basically says, “Here’s what it really costs to chase the dream”?
Luke: I was in a bad mood that day, the source of which I cannot even recall. I can tell you that it did lead me to slap my laptop closed and turn my amplifier to maximum and I wrote ‘Rock N’ Roll Band’ very quickly. I immediately felt better about whatever was bothering me. Though it came from a place of frustration, I think of it more now as a salute to the fellow road dogs out there.
RS: On the other end, you’ve got something like ‘Spider Dream’, which is probably the most tender we’ve ever seen this band go. Being so comfortable with the boisterous side of things, does writing the quieter stuff feel more vulnerable?
Luke: ‘Spider Dream’ and ‘Warning Ya’ are without question some of the most delicate material we’ve ever recorded, and I think it’s a reflection of our confidence when we were rehearsing the material. Typically, if I wrote a song like those, we would supercharge it into a Nil song, but this time we just let them be what they already were. I grew up listening to crooners, and Frank Sinatra is my favourite singer of all time. It’s nice to give the vocal cords a little break with these ones.
RS: When we put every The Dirty Nil album cover together, there’s no denying that you’ve always embraced bold visuals. This time though, it’s just black-and-white brutality: whips, blades, skeletons… Tell us more about the album’s aesthetic.
Luke: I went to the Vatican and saw the bronze reliefs of Francesco Messina which completely blew me away. I had certainly hit my threshold for Christian art, when I saw these massive bronze panels depicting the brutality of war. One in particular depicted two men desperately struggling to gain control over a knife, each with a look of miserable dejection on their faces. To me, this is the essence of much human conflict. The forces that brought you to clash with your fellow being become quickly irrelevant. Nonetheless, it is very difficult to disengage from a struggle and the inertia it develops.
RS: Working with UK designer Jack Sabbat was a huge driving force in how the record got its look, too. How did he take the initial vision and develop it into what we see now?
Luke: Jack was absolutely incredible to work with. He loved the Messina reliefs that we sent over and ran with the inspiration. It was only a matter of days before he had everything complete, it was amazing. Jack draws everything by hand, and we thought his style would perfectly match the presentation we were shooting for. We couldn’t be happier with the visual representation he has given our music.
RS: ‘The Lash’ is certainly a record made for the live shows, and that’s an area that this band are absolute masters of. Do you find that the things you write take on a different level of catharsis once you’re playing them in front of people?
Luke: Absolutely. Watching the entire room bounce when we kick into ‘Gallop of the Hounds’ makes me want to scream the chorus even louder. Rock and roll is a shared, tribal experience. There is no feeling like a good show and we’re beyond fortunate to be preaching from the pulpit.
RS: There’s no hiding from the fact that ‘The Lash’ is a very different record for The Dirty Nil. Of course, everything you create will always retain the band’s core DNA, but what does it mean to be five albums deep and still finding new ways to surprise people?
Luke: I feel extremely fortunate to have what I have with Kyle. We’ve known each other since we were six years old and we learned how to play our instruments together. I gave up trying to impress outside people long ago. It just made me frustrated and the songs I wrote were less than great. Our mission has now returned to the one which animated our first rehearsals, twenty years ago: To make a racket that we like, to hell with anything else!
RS: It says a lot about the future of this band too. You’re still finding new creative avenues to explore, and most importantly, you’re still having a hell of a lot of fun with it. Has working on a record like this thrown some more fuel onto the fire?
Luke: It certainly has. Regardless of what happens next, ‘The Lash’ will forever occupy a special place in our hearts because we truly did whatever the hell we wanted, free of any concern beyond the walls of the studio. I think you can lose your head trying to mold your art to perform better. This album is our pledge to ourselves to play Rock and roll for its own sake. I like to think that 16-year-old Luke and Kyle are proud of us, and that they would love ‘The Lash’.