Bleech 9:3 - "I feel like the purpose of us all is just to make sure there’s that little bit more good in the world than bad"

Something is happening with Bleech 9:3. Rarely has Whelan’s heaved with this many moshpit addicts and crowd-surfers. Everyone knows all the words to all the songs, despite the band having released less than a handful of singles.

The foursome comprises James Quinlan on bass and Luke O’Neill on drums, with the core songwriting partnership being Barry ‘Baz’ Quinlan on vocals and Sam Duffy on guitar. They have swagger, evident a day before in the Universal offices as the pair sit down with Hot Press. But their bond goes deeper than cool haircuts: the duo became close after meeting in Alcoholics Anonymous, where Baz was Sam’s sponsor.

“I’d seen Sam play guitar with his old band,” Baz says. “Straight away you could see there was something different about him. We started making music together. We’d sit down and do those recovery sessions and there were always guitars lying around. “There was a moment where we said, ‘Okay, let’s stop the recovery aspect and just be bandmates.’ That really freed things up. Obviously Sam was able to get his recovery going on another path.”

The name represents purification, the number referencing a Bible verse about the transfiguration of Christ.

“Baz had a song called ‘Bleach’,” Sam says. “He sent it to me on WhatsApp and instantly I was like, ‘That’s what we need to call the band.’ For the reason of starting again - bleaching the past and maybe also erasing what was coming to us musically at the time, which might have been just a bit of a bore.”

“There’s a totality to bleach,” Baz adds. “The real potent chemical aspect. I was living a fairly chemically involved life at one point. There’s different layers of meaning, but definitely this idea of annihilation, be it for good or ill. Then the Bible reference, but that was Sam’s stroke of genius.”

They aren’t your average twentysomethings, their sobriety and spirituality setting them apart in a country where neither is especially common for people their age. Leaving Dublin for London made sense on multiple levels.

“By the time I left I was coming up on two years sober,” Sam says. “It was quite easy for me to [move away]. I hope I don’t offend anyone by this, but I didn’t feel like I was leaving anyone behind. The guys I cared about the most were coming with me. And the other people that I loved dearly here understood why I had to go.”

Whatever path they’ve taken has led them to the right place. Support shows for Wunderhorse and Nick Cave beckon this summer, and the venues for their own shows get bigger with each tour, with a hometown headliner at The Academy lined up for December.

Trying to pinpoint the hype brings us to ‘Ceiling’, and the clips circulating online of fans hollering along to the lyrics: “I wanna kill the feeling / So sick of feeling nothing.”  Baz gets philosophical when asked why those words resonate.

“Maybe people are starting to get some idea, but maybe we’re not entirely aware yet of how negatively we’re being impacted by constantly looking at our phone: the different sort of agendas and political views - all that stuff that’s been programmed at you,” he says.

“That has to play some part in the disaffected feeling that a lot of young people have. A lot of young people probably don’t have a huge amount of space in their lives for spiritual stuff because it’s taken up with this other stuff. And look, as far as organised religion goes, it’s clear to see the terrible destruction that those institutions have been a part of. It’s a real shame because choosing a spiritual path saved my life.”

“But maybe it’s just part of growing up as well,” he continues, after a short pause. “You feel like you don’t know who you are, you don’t know how you’re supposed to fit into this big mad world. “I see the relevance and the manifestation everywhere. The battle that goes on in a human being’s heart over good and evil. You see it take shape on the world stage in Palestine: the terrible brutality that humans are inflicting on each other.

“But you also see small acts of kindness from strangers, and that can restore your faith. I feel like the purpose of us all is just to make sure there’s that little bit more good in the world than bad. That’s the fight we’re all in and the fight begins inside yourself.

“I would love it if our shows or our music could contribute to that in even some tiny way.”

• Bleech 9:3’s self-titled EP is out now. The band play Belfast, Dublin and Cork in December.