Justifiable rage in searing song from an incendiary live band!
Brewing chaos in the underground LA punk scene since 2022, Mermaid Island are all about total emotional honesty, based on building and protecting the DIY community. The goal was getting people out of the house and going to shows, connecting with each other in real life, and creating more space for charged, purposeful aggression. Founded by Canadian vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Alex MacDonald, the band quickly became known for their high-octane performances.
“It was always about the shows. We have as much fun playing for no one in our lockout as we do for a packed crowd.” says MacDonald. The band solidified their presence in the LA scene before ever setting foot in a studio, and their name came from a friend’s four-year-old who was obsessed with mermaids, and it stuck!
Mermaid Island’s sound blends punk rock with early 2000s pop-punk energy, heavy east-coast Canadian influences, melodic vocals, and folk-tinged chord progressions. MacDonald met fellow Canadian, musician and multi-hyphenate creative Rowen Kahn who agreed to learn how to play the bass, then she called drummer and producer David Westerhout to see if he could fill in for a show. He learned their songs in two days, and the night of the show after playing the set with the band, offered to become a part of Mermaid Island. Westerhout convinced MacDonald to record at a small studio with recording engineer Jacob Johnston, who Westerhout had worked with on previous projects and thought would be a good fit. They went into the studio and recorded the bulk of the album in two days.
The live band currently comprises:
Judah Bell (bass)
Jenna Terranova (drums)
Alex MacDonald (guitar/vocals)
Jesse Shafer (guitar)
‘Mermaid Island‘ opens with ‘Freaks‘, a song “for the outsiders, for the misfits and for everyone who ever felt like they didn’t belong. Fuck making ourselves and our dreams smaller in order to fit into some kind of mold that the world wants to put us in. Hopefully this song reminds you to trust yourself and your values, and live your own truth.” Hard-hitting, melodic and incorporating sublime small spaces into the music, it’s a superb start!
‘Perfectly Happy‘ is a great take on sorting our own heads out – “Yes, we all need support. Yes, we all need to talk about things that piss us off with our friends. Yes, we all want to be heard, validated and acknowledged. But at a certain point, it’s your own responsibility to move yourself out of negative thought patterns and take a tangible action towards changing your own experience. We are more capable than we think when we’re stuck in a loop. This song is about the frustration of being actively caught in that kind of pattern – and acknowledgement is always the first step towards change. Plus, it’s a fun bop about being fucking annoyed with yourself or a version of yourself that you’re tired of whining in your own head.” A twist on Californian pop-punk, it’s also pretty raw and emotional.
Delving deep into the psyche of someone who’s been hurt and traumatised in ‘Don’t Ask‘, this is a powerful track with its repeated refrain “Don’t ask for anything, don’t need anyone”, which will resonate with everyone who has had to numb their emotions and build their walls high to try to stay safe…
‘He Started It‘ is about violence. “Having your personal boundaries crossed repeatedly, being constantly sexualized, and being conditioned to believe that it’s normal to suppress the internal rage that these situations evoke led to this cathartic release of violent urges. Women only want to be able to exist in peace, yet we are forced to exist in a constant state of high alert and awareness in order to survive. This song is an unfortunate result of the years of suppressed reactions we wish we could have said when we were uncomfortable or disrespected, and I hope it inspires women and girls to stand up for themselves and tell someone to get the fuck our of their face. Men, take note, let this be a lesson to you– if she doesn’t reciprocate your advances, stop. Act like a fucking adult and we won’t have a problem. I wish I lived in a world where I didn’t have to write this song.” This is a truly brilliant outburst of justified female rage, exploding into the open in a way that so seldom happens in real life. There are hook-filled groovy bass lines underneath the chorus and searing guitar lines throughout – I love it!
Alex says she wrote ‘Horseshit‘ “about doing the same thing over and over and over again, and feeling trapped in patterns of addiction and unhealthy habits. It’s about wanting to change, but finding yourself waking up every day the same person you were yesterday. I wrote this song about how hard it can be to get sober, get clean, and get your head right, and how sometimes these things take a thousand tries before something sticks.” It’s a real earworm too – rather appropriately for a song about addiction.
Short and sharp, ‘Earth Is Boring‘ races through a dream about being abducted from this planet – but it’s also about leaving memories behind when your body has gone. The tempo change in the choruses provides a clever contrast.
Imagine you’ve chosen to become cryogenically frozen to avoid the progression of a disease that can’t currently be cured, but you’re watching your beloved partner grow older – this is the story in ‘Panic Button‘. It’s an emotional punk ballad, but it doesn’t sound out of place at all in the album, as it’s another fantastic piece of music!
Catchy-as-hell ‘Ice Cream‘ “was inspired by a situation where I was trying to explain how business transactions work to a five year old. She was selling me ice cream from her toy ice cream set, and I gave her fake money and told her I wanted chocolate but she gave me vanilla. I tried to explain that I wanted to be able to decide what flavour I had and if I’m paying for it I would get to choose. But she said ‘you get what you get, and don’t get upset.’ I think it’s supposed to be about acceptance. I thought it was hilarious that she was using it on me, probably because she was tired of me trying to rationalize everything and logically explain complex concepts to her and teach her so much about the world, because she’s five and she just wanted to play with her toys. The phrase itself stuck with me and I used it to get through some annoying situations of my own and focus on accepting instead of trying to change things or control other people.”
That passive-agressive friend or partner’s awful behaviour is examined in ‘Subtitles‘. We try to understand them, help them, and plead with them to communicate, but in the end we have to conclude that they’re not going to change, so it’s time to turn that anger into getting them the hell out of our lives!
‘Shit Out Of Luck‘ is “the closest thing we have to a love song. It’s about being completely sidelined by someone in the most annoying and inconvenient way possible. The refusal to accept that some connections are inevitable and sometimes you just have to let life get in the way of your plans.” A heavy song with a hilarious nod to The Beatles midway!
By contrast, ‘Mona Lisa‘ is more of an anti-love song… This melodic number ends the album with a cautionary tale; “I thought it was the Mona Lisa, But nothing’s ever as it seems, I thought it was a work of art but it was just a dream. And that’s the hardest part”. Ending with a fast Oi!-like chorus of mixed vocal harmonies, it leaves us keen to hear what Mermaid Island have got lined up next!
‘Mermaid Island‘ drops on Friday, June 12th digitally via No Dad Records HERE and on vinyl via Anxious and Angry HERE
Mermaid Island are set to take the stage this summer with Dillinger Four and Off With Their Heads, with more shows to be announced:
14th Jun — 4th Horseman, Long Beach, CA
27th Jun — Redwood, Los Angeles, CA (Gerald Shaia Memorial Show)
2nd Jul — Deep End, Redondo Beach, CA
17th Jul — The Slipper Clutch, Los Angeles, CA (Record Release Show)
24th Jul — Red Dwarf, Las Vegas, NV
25th Jul — Hola Habibi, Las Vegas, NV
12th Aug — Casbah, San Diego, CA*
13th Aug — The Sardine, San Pedro, CA (Recess Romp)*
16th Aug — Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco, CA*^
* with Off With Their Heads
*^ with Off With Their Heads and Dillinger Four
More info HERE
Main Photo Credit: CARLOS HERNANDEZ
- Freaks
- Perfectly Happy
- Don’t Ask
- He Started It
- Horseshit
- Earth Is Boring
- Panic Button
- Ice Cream
- Subtitles
- Shit Out Of Luck
- Mona Lisa
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