Whozyerman?

Whozyerman?

Words: Aaron Kavanagh

The longtime musician Paul Savage made a name for himself as the frontman of the Waterford-by-way-of-Cork psych-and-prog-fused indie quintet O Emperor. Described as “remarkably passionate and invigorating” by the Irish Times, the band enjoyed immense domestic success, helped in part, perhaps, by their debut album, 2010’s Hither Thither, being released through Universal Records and reaching number six on the Irish Albums Chart. All within a year of the project officially forming in 2009.

However, despite this immediate and promising success, O Emperor were dropped by Universal after their debut EP and album were released in the same year. Undeterred, they continued releasing a string of acclaimed albums and EPs through their own label, BigSkin. Yet, in spite of their loyal fanbase, coveted gig opportunities, critical acclaim, and tenacity in the face of adversity, the lifespan of O Emperor was transient, as before the decade in which they released their first album even ended, they disbanded. 

In her glowing review of their 2018 swan song, Jason, for the Irish Times, writer Zara Hedderman frustratingly pondered, “When are the lads going to get the recognition they deserve?” Hedderman’s question would be answered swiftly, as, in one final laugh at the industry that snubbed them, Jason would go on to win Irish Album of the Year at the 2019 RTÉ Choice Music Prize; the ceremony’s top award.The self-determined perseverance demonstrated by O Emperor would serve Paul well when he began his next venture, Whozyerman?, which he informally started as a hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“It started as a solo project, of me tinkering away, coming to the end of O Emperor and just having new little ideas that I wanted to work on,” Paul casually remarked about Whozyerman?’s origin when he spoke with The GOO. “But now, it definitely feels more like it’s developing into an act; like, a band. Maybe a band of new, moving musicians… - it’ll still be a solo project - …but it’s morphing more into a band.”

By May 2020, Whozyerman? had already released their debut self-titled four-track EP, with additional percussion from Paul’s friend and O Emperor’s former drummer, Brendan Fennessy, and was aided in the mix by Paul’s other friend, engineer Stephen Dunne. The EP’s new-wavey direction focused on laid-back, stripped-back, minimalistic guitar, synths, and drum machines. 

The Whozyerman? EP was essentially a proof-of-concept and interim release before Paul truly declared his intent for the project with Blink, their debut album, which was released the following year. While maintaining the same electronic instrumental foundation as its predecessor, the musicality was much more fleshed out and rich, with detailed, spatial, and solid layers that veered into the psychedelic and atmospheric.

And while Whozyerman? continued as a live project, there was no new music from them post-Blink until the release of three singles this year: “Miles Away” in April, “Long Stretch” in June, and “A Simple Sharp Act” in August. These songs were part of their next album, which Paul had been working on in the background for some time.

“I actually recorded it in, like, September 2024,” Paul says of his upcoming album. “So, it has been slowly progressing over two years. It’s mad to think that we actually got the bulk of it done quite quickly over one weekend, but then, after that, it was about a year-and-a-half of me just tipping away on it. Even when you get to that point, you still have to mix and master it.”

The radical freedom permitted by being a self-publishing, self-determined artist that allows for Whozyerman? to be a part of Paul’s life, rather than consume his entire being, does have its drawbacks. “The downside of doing it yourself is that you’re the only person that has to motivate yourself,” admits Paul. “For better or worse, you’re the only one that has to make the decision. No one else really cares.”

Unlike their previous releases, which were, essentially, solo ventures that needed support in their later stages, their new album, Belly of the Beast, was more collaborative from its conception, and was made with a band in a room, jamming, and solidifying their collective contributions into a cohesive whole. 

This new cooperative dynamic presents the next leap forward for Whozyerman?, as while the new-wavey psych-pop of their discography thus far has been preserved, it is now much more fully realised and expansive in its dimensions. 

While he is now much more open to synergetic songwriting, there is one area where Paul maintained sole creative control over Whozyerman?: The lyrics. Citing influence from writers like Rob Doyle, Geoff Dyer, and Dante Alighieri (who appears on the album’s manic, Sgt. Pepper’s-as-constructed-by-Terry Gilliam-on-acid-esque,  bricolage, assemblage cover), Paul wanted to write about the “frantic, erratic, and slightly uneasy” neurotic responses to contemporary strife that he had observed in people around him.

To achieve his goal of “finding peculiarities in the banal” and embracing the “helter-skelter of life,” Paul sought to write outside himself for the first time and present the inner woes and bleak delights of his envisioned archetypal stand-ins from their subjective perspectives, using freeform stream-of-consciousness to achieve that.

“Your psyche definitely comes into it, even if you’re writing about a character that’s the complete opposite of you,” Paul says of his first experience of writing from the third person. “The funny thing is that there’s something of your own shadow in that character. You try to avoid it. You try to write the complete opposite, but maybe [Laughs] you’re just critiquing yourself! 

“I kind of acknowledge that, as well, that by writing about other characters, you actually are getting a sense of yourself. You always come to that full circle, eventually! No matter how much you try to escape it! But it’s a nice way of using a vessel to get to that introspection, because that’s all it ever is, really, isn’t it?”

Describing the characters that inhabit his crafted world, Paul says, “They’re very cynical. They want to laugh at the world burning. In the first song, ‘My Meat, Your Poison,’ someone is almost enjoying the cynical sliding down of the world. Then there are people who are cynical because they’re just worn out; they really do care about what’s going on, but they don’t even know what or how to start. 

“There’s that neurosis that’s hitting everyone in different ways, and it’s affecting people, whether they’re really buying into a certain ideology or just wanting to cower away from it; everyone is being affected in different ways. Thematically, that is a lot of the album, in a way; just looking at how the world is bubbling along.”

When Belly of the Beast releases on the 23rd, you will be able to purchase it on vinyl or digital through Whozyerman?’s Bandcamp page. Or you could stream it, provided you’re not a Spotify user. 

Paul is another musician doing what he can to protest Spotify. When asked what his particular aversions to the platform are, he admits that he doesn’t believe that they are that unique, but that he agrees with the many issues artists have had against the platform for a while now, such as their pittance payment to musicians, their investment in war technology, the dubious politics of their CEO, and, as a general statement, Joe Rogan. 

Paul does want to emphasise, however, that he doesn’t feel that Spotify are a uniquely evil corporation, and, essentially, if you are to use any major platform to publish your music, you’re probably inadvertently financing something terrible. Spotify just seem to be the most shameless about it.

“[As you get older], with experience, you’re a bit more mellow, and are less giving a shit about those little hang-ups that you might have had before, about, ‘Are you utilising every avenue to get out there?’” Paul says of his decision to boycott Spotify.

“Once you’ve kind of been around the block a few times, you have to take it back to your own autonomy or credibility, as much as you can, to be like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ And, of course, I can say this from a point of view of, I don’t have a record label or a manager that’s kicking my ass, or I don’t have the pressure of 100,000 followers that I’m going to burn by taking it off Spotify.

“So, yeah, that would’ve been a real question of my bravery, if I were to do that. But, coming from this point, you can say, ‘OK, who gives a shit?’, and that’s an easy thing to do. But I hope that more and more people are just starting to kind of tweak the dial a bit, to cut back from Spotify. Like, everyone on the street knows it’s a piece of shit! […] They all kind of hate it, but they mumble, and they groan, and then they kind of get on with it.”

Belly of the Beast is a meditation on the despair and futility of modern living, inspired, in part, by Paul’s experiences of seeing footage from the Palestinian genocide coexisting with trivial, inconsequential influencer-slop on his Instagram feed (in a fashion not too dissimilar to how The Hunger Games was inspired by Stephanie Meyer seeing Iraq War footage on the news alongside reality TV while channel-surfing).

Unfortunately, the things that Paul penned two years ago are not only so painfully relevant today, but are even worsening with advancements in AI (or “SI,” for you Trumpheads) tech and global political extremism. Despite this, Paul remains somewhat optimistic.

“The energy that I have now is to love creating and love writing,” Paul concludes by explaining what keeps him motivated. “I’m starting to write, in general. Just more narrative, non-musical…but just writing.

“The ‘shitness,’ maybe, of what is going on…the underlying positivity that you always have is that humans are inherently born to create, so we will create good stuff, and it does drive you on to create, especially as a rebuke to AI and to social media. 

“You want to switch off and to go with a pen and paper, away, and just write something, and that gives me great energy. And I think more and more people will see that, and, hopefully, get involved with it. In a mindful way, writing is such a great thing to do, and music, as well. Just playing, away from the internet! [Laughs] So, we will rise again, I think, in different ways.”

Whozyerman?’s latest album, Belly of the Beast, will be released on October 23rd. 

Paul will also perform a launch show at Upstairs at Bank Lane, Waterford, on the same day, as part of the Imagine Arts Festival. Tickets for that show can be purchased through imagineartsfestival.com.

You can keep up with Whozyerman? at linktree.com/whozyerman.