Bleech 9:3 are proving that reinvention can hit harder when the songs feel this urgent.
Bleech 9:3 are proving that reinvention can hit harder when the songs feel this urgent.
leech 9:3 are a band built on second chances. The latest and arguably most exciting in a long line of enviable Irish talent, their unique brand of alt-rock befits a shared past that embraces the crushing lows life has thrown at them.
Leaving their native Dublin and staking it all on London living, the three singles they have to their name so far piece together a spiral of self-destructive addiction, a meeting which saved their lives, and a discovered synergy that created this latest and brightest of chapters.
With each new single, the band unfurl another angle, another perspective into their existence, bringing new depths and new levels of ferocity that are as enticing as they are eviscerating.
‘Jacky’ plunges into an almost nu-metal universe as relentless drums and thrash guitars play out over a pleading tale of a friend lost forever. ‘Ceiling’, meanwhile, is an unadulterated indie-rock anthem, illuminating any number of 2000s classics, interspersed with an Irish trad-folk-inspired guitar line that Sam Duffy plays with the confidence of a 70s glam rock star.
"The 9:3, I think we should let people figure out themselves"
“Sonically, they all do something different,” Sam explains, “but we’ve been very conscious for them all to sound like they come from the same planet, you know?
“On that planet, we’re the only people that live there, so it’s not like there’s any other bands there that we can play from. We didn’t want to have a set full of songs that are each a different genre.”
Barry nods: “I think Sam’s right; they definitely live in the same world sonically. That’s something we were really focused on, hysterical about, felt awful about, because you’d write something really good but then you’d realise, ‘Oh, this sounds too like that song’. You’ve got to take that far thornier path of trying to do your own thing with it.”
“That’s been a great exercise for us, though,” Sam considers, “the leaving behind things that would – without being cocky – be considered good ideas. You can settle on a good idea too much in a way and stagnate.”
Behind the sonics, the gnashing, screeching guitar lines and hooks sharp enough to barb even the most stubborn of listeners, the foundations of the band are set in much stronger stead than many of their contemporaries.
The relationship between Barry and Sam began due to their shared experiences of addiction and a journey to recovery, which has taken them from their lowest ebb five years ago to a life in a new country and a band shining bright.
Looking back at the fresh new roots of what would become Bleech 9:3, Barry says: “We were all in bands back home in Dublin cutting our teeth. The scene was really good, pretty vibrant and loads of great bands.
“Eventually, it came to a point that I was just completely dissatisfied with what I was doing. Then I met Sam; he was introduced to me, and the relationship began on the basis of trying to get sober. Recovery was the foundation of our relationship. I became his sponsor and showed him the process I was shown.”
"We want the music to be useful, because that's what all of our heroes did"
“The idea of bleach was like starting again, but the 9:3, I think we should let people figure out themselves,” Barry considers.
He continues: “I think when the time came, Sam gave me a call from London and said, ‘let’s just start a new band and move to London’. A couple weeks later, I moved here, and we started this thing. I felt like my heart was being pulled in a different direction; I knew I had something to say and an idea of how to say it. The spiritual elements, recovery, all of that is the backbone of the band, and I think the time just came to give this a chance.”
Sam nods: “It’s more important to give in to the truth than deny it and do something that your heart isn’t in anymore. I guess in a way it was a risk, but when your heart’s in it, it doesn’t feel like that.”
This total conviction in the band, in the urgent but not chaotic sound that Bleech 9:3 are slowly carving out, is what sets them apart from so many others in the same position. Talent will get you so far, the ability to write a catchy chorus will get you slightly further, but only honest emotional connection and raw self-expression will get you to the top.
If ever there was a group that knew what it was to be totally open and without façade, it’s Bleech. When Sam and Barry are asked about their paths both into addiction and subsequently into recovery, it’s greeted with openness rather than an understandable desire to guard the past.
“It’s not a taboo thing,” Sam states, “at the end of the day, [recovery] is the thing that saved our lives.
“When Barry was taking me through the 12 steps three years ago, you’re doing all this work throughout the day, and a lot of sensitivity and a lot of emotions are in the air. For me, I can express emotions through the guitar and especially when I understand what the song’s about, you know? I’ll always write parts that will sonically represent those emotions. I was two years clean, Barry five, when we started the band, so we were ready to start living our lives and tell these stories.”
Barry agrees: “I think, as a songwriting partnership, we have that intimate understanding of each other, so it’s lent itself to a really powerful creative environment. I just feel like I had a lot to say about what I’d seen, what we’d been through.”
Those tales of their lives in Dublin make up the rest of an EP set for release in May, completing the set so bombastically started by their already-released three singles. Really, the EP acts as a step up into a debut album. It’s a hackneyed cliché to say that you have your whole life to write your first record. For Bleech 9:3, it’s more a matter of using the debut album to write the story of their lives thus far.
“The EP is some bullet points about growing up back home,” Barry muses, “but I’m like 99% sure that this first full-length album is going to be the broader statement about those years in Dublin. I don’t think I can move past it fully without doing that.
“There’s an old idea,” he adds, “if you want to play the Devil in a film, you don’t go to him and ask what he’d do, you have to go to God and ask what the Devil’s like because the Devil won’t tell you the truth. Once I was able to access the truth, I was able to write properly about it.”
Sam nods, before poignantly adding, “I’ve always felt like I want to go home with something that I’ve done here; I want to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I got some good news’, because there’s been a lot of bad news in the past.”
Barry and Sam both have their eyes firmly on the future. Barry mentions in passing the potential of a fourth album, while Sam notes that “we’ve never lived in fear, why are we going to start now?” With that in mind, their vision of the future isn’t one focused on selling out arenas; it’s one that hinges on, ultimately, being there for whoever needs them.
“I think for us, for the songs and what the band stands for, we want the music to be useful,” Barry says, “because that’s what all of our heroes did.
“Music was our lifeline. That’s when music transcends just being four people holding guitars and becomes something so much greater. That’s the apex for me. If they could write on my tombstone that I was a good man, then I’d be fucking psyched about that.”
Sam continues: “You know, those times when stuff isn’t really going the way you planned, and you think ‘what I need right now is to listen to that one song because it helps me’, I think that’s the type of music we want to make.”
Taken from the March 2026 issue of Dork. Bleech 9:3’s single ‘Cannonball’ is out now.
