Def Nettle is the new project by prolific artist Glen Brady. Paying homage to punk, hip-hop and electro, debut single 'The Pills' melds and presents them in progressive way that could only be achieved by someone who has first-hand experience of making music in all these genres.
Glen has worked at the top of his field in DJing, production, engineering and performance for almost three decades, making music with the likes of R.E.M.,The Glass, The California State Symphony, Andy Rourke and the late Dolores O’Riordan to name a few.
Glen says: “Def Nettle is me looking in the mirror and seeing the stories of my life and everyone I’ve loved or lost staring back at me, telling me to get on with it. Make the fucking music. Use your voice. Take advantage of what you’ve learned, what you’ve seen. Over a lifetime of different jobs within the music industry, I would regularly have discussions with myself about the project that is now called Def Nettle. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t know when or how until it revealed itself last year.”
IG - https://www.instagram.com/defnettle/
Bandcamp - https://defnettle.bandcamp.com/releases
Public Enemy - By The Time I Get To Arizona
I played with Public Enemy a few times in the 90s and early 2000s when they visited Ireland and there are some great stories involving Robert Arkins (The Commitments) & Flavor Flav which will be left unspoken. I was in a band called 3rd Eye Surfers at the time, a group of Irish rappers I was producing. Chuck D took a liking to us and played us on his radio show a few times when he got back to New York. He was decent enough to send me some recordings of the radio show and him talking about us. I took it upon myself to put said recordings on the 3rd Eye Surfers Lp and 12”. BAD move. One day I got a call to my landline in Rialto from a guy any Public Enemy fan will know as Harry Allen, Media Assassin! He was none too pleased with my use of Chuck’s radio show and raised all sorts of hell on the phone. I promptly used my dial up to send him the accounts for the release. Let’s just say Irish hip-hop artists in that era were not worth suing! Yes, close one. 'By The Time I Get to Arizona' is a blazer of a tune that deals with certain US state governing bodies and racists resisting the Martin Luther King day holiday which is rightfully celebrated on January 17 and has since become one of the most important holidays on the calendar. Fight The Power.
The Smiths - That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
Morissey is an absolute wanker. That’s just a fact. That’s why we liked him in the beginning but that’s the lesson. We were arrogant. We chose him because we could relate. Maybe we were the wankers. We needed to feel it was ok to be the strange one. We needed a figurehead for that. We needed to die with a smile on our face after all. What we didn’t see coming was that the people that hated him, hated him because he was hateable. His hat was hollow. We made a mistake. I’ve seen it happen in other people’s lives and it has definitely happened in mine. On the other hand, Andy Rourke is one of the greatest bass players of all time. Life in F# while our lives were on E. I’ve had the privilege of working with him and he is the real deal. I met him for the first time when I was on stage in San Francisco with my old band The Glass. I was playing keyboard and scratching records in the show and he just walked on stage and hugged me and stood beside me for the whole show. It still makes me feel warm inside... and he may or may not have played on a Def Nettle record. I can’t say; not until he approves the mix down anyway. The Smiths will live forever.
Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps
Let’s talk about rapper 3D. Is he Banksy? I’m not sure. One night in the early 2000s I was walking round Shoreditch with handbag designer and general vagabond Pauric Sweeney in the middle of the night and we were definitely up to no good. We met a fellow with a massive THINK skateboards tattoo on his neck (after Think was cool and before neck tattoos were cool). Banksy wasn’t well known then. He had some stencils and paste-ups around Shoreditch and Hackney that were clever and he even had a few free booklets and flyers in the record shops that were ace. Anyway this big guy with the neck tattoo was pasting up these Banksy pieces and Pauric remarked that he was Banksy. There was no mystique at the time and he certainly wasn’t 3D. I know this because in my humble opinion 3D is one of the best British rappers of all time. Inertia Creeps, moving up slowly.
The Clash - I Fought the Law
When I describe what I want from Def Nettle live to the musicians playing with us, I always ask them if they’ve seen the video of The Clash playing live at Victoria Park in 1978. This is how a band should look and feel. They love the audience and they hate them in equal measure. It’s dirty and nasty with a seriously bad attitude but the energy is utterly palpable. They kick the crap out of the place. It is total mayhem. Beautiful chaos can not be contrived. You can’t dress for it. My earliest memory is of my mother singing ‘I Fought the Law’ to me. That’s tenderness. That’s my reality. Attitude and Love.
New Order - True Faith
We should all have songs that got us through the darkest parts of our teenage years. This is one of mine. It’s not even one of their best. Even still, it puts a hurting inside me whenever I hear it. I was in a boarding school that was more like a GAA jail when I was 16. Most of the other boys were into Queen. They used to call us gay for being into New Order, The Cure etc…Ohh the irony. Still, I love Freddie Mercury, but back then he was lumped in with some Black Betty hard rock business that although cool now in a kitsch sense, was utterly style-less back then. I used to think that the day would never come but it did and I was there when it did and it will come again and I’ll be listening to Hooky’s basslines and the utter magic of music.
Brian Lyons - The Ballad of Billy Reid
My father didn’t drink too often when we were children. He was a bartender and was wary of being around it too much. All the same, when he did, 'The Ballad of Billy Reid' would inevitably get sung in a real, sour, twisted key with my father’s Cavan accent blaring through with a passion that teenage lovers would find hard to match.
Are we all Fenians? Do we really mean it when we jokingly say ‘Up The Ra’? There’s definitely a part of us that feels bitterness for the Great Hunger, Black and Tans and the bad feelings of old. But still we know it’s time to move on. We know the damage done might be too much. We might be splintered forever. I don’t know but I’m still voting for Mary Lou come next election and I don’t even agree or believe a lot of what she says. We need a change though, don’t we? Oh no, I’m talking politics again. That’s what I get for giving up the drink. Come out and fight me like a man.
Enola Gay - Scrappers
There are a few times in life…and only a few, when you get to a gig or a show of some sort and you immediately feel the beauty of being somewhere really special. You feel that everyone in the room is privy to something that the Normals out there wouldn’t and don’t understand. They haven’t a clue. The air is warmer. You genuinely feel a love for everyone in the room. I don’t mean a big gig where LCD Soundsystem has you all crying over lost friends because you took too much MDMA. This is real. This is actually special. You only get a couple of these in your life and if you love music, then you know exactly what I’m talking about because like drugs, you can search and search for this feeling but it never happens again. There is only one first time. I got to see Enola Gay and Naked Lungs play upstairs at Whelan’s Dublin during that weird time last year when the government sort of let us out to see music for a minute and then shut us back up in our gaffs again. This gig was one of those gigs. The mosh pit looked vicious when Naked Lungs burst on stage like a bunch of hungry animals. The floor dipped 6 inches with every beat and I thought we were all dead. Old guys, young girls, weirdos, straight, normal people, all moshed away. It was beautiful. It was one of those moments. On the door. Looking for a fight? Sorry son, tonight’s not the night.
Talk Talk - Life’s What You Make It
Look. Life is totally awful a lot of the time. Many of us suffer from mental illness, anxiety, weight problems, money problems. The whole thing is a big fucking chore. I’ve been completely broke, owing tax in three countries with an STD, nowhere to live, alcohol and drug abuse problems, barely able to breath from smoking. I’ve found myself in cities in far off countries having panic attacks on the street with no-one to call, no-one to talk to. I’ve been beaten up for no reason. I’ve been cheated on and done the cheating. I’ve been accused of stealing. I’ve been locked up in a mental home for 24 hours in Brooklyn. I’ve been abusive and I’ve been abused. Life is a really fucking long complicated business. Can’t escape it. Beauty is naked. But let’s celebrate it. Anticipate it. Yesterday’s faded. Nothing can change it. Life’s what you make it.
Beck - Loser
I’ve never met Beck. In fact, I’ve never even been to one of his concerts. However, his debut track ‘Loser’ really inspired what is now Def Nettle. In a sense this track is a combination of The Butthole Surfers and Beastie Boys with a little country thrown in for good measure. I think Fred Durst, Eminem and even some Rage Against The Machine songs owe a debt to Loser. This was the Postmodern period when mix and match was cool. Even the title is very Gen X and was so ‘of’ the time it was released. I’ve heard Beck is a serious Prince fan and there’s a funk to his music that aligns with that idea. His work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack is eloquent and gorgeous.
INK - Bad Intentions
One of the best and worst things about music is that when a genre or scene becomes popular you can nearly always be certain that the stuff at the top, getting all the attention is not always the best stuff. I don’t like to disrespect artists. It’s not my place. However, there are always those bubbling just below the surface that the mainstream miss out on. INK is my favourite Irish rapper. Period. This is INK and he’s Old Stock and he should be known on every block.