On stage in a Camden pub, Barry Quinlan, frontman of Irish rockers Bleech 9:3, channels the intensity of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis - hunching, jerking around the mic stand, his eyes boring a hole in the back wall while jubilant teenagers expand and contract in a circle pit. The mid-May gig had that I-was-there energy of early Arctic Monkeys or Fontaines DC shows. With major labels signing them on both sides of the Atlantic, dozens of festival dates this summer, and a wildly impressive five-song debut EP, the band will soon be playing much bigger rooms.
But meet Barry and his three bandmates earlier that day, and there’s none of that twitchy energy. Bleech 9:3 bring calm to a meeting room in their management company’s offices. That stillness is hard-earned: Barry and guitarist Sam Duffy are each other’s sponsor for Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). As Quinlan puts it with a smile: “It’s an anonymous programme, so we’ll say ‘alleged sponsor’.” After two friends sponsored each other in AA, they started making music. Now they’re gearing up for a summer of 40 festivals, telling a harrowing yet uplifting story - proof that addiction may suggest a devil, but recovery suggests something slightly more divine.