Sienna Bentley

We’re teaming up with DIY Magazine and Fifth Floor to celebrate the launch of Meryl Streek’s highly anticipated third record, which is out on 9 October 2026, at the iconic 100 Club. Dublin-born “angry one-man-operated punk band” Meryl Streek is back with his standout political poetry on Stories They Don’t Teach You At School, and he is playing tomorrow night to mark the occasion. 

Grab your ticket here while you still can (and do go and say hello to Ray!).

We caught up with Meryl Streek before the big day to tell us more about the project and the most difficult parts of creating it, the core wrongness of today’s music industry being so money driven and the cost of being so outspoken – and why it is critical to do it anyway.

Making music to raise awareness

He describes what the project has always been about: telling the truth and doing what he can to see important issues come to light and be talked about. For Streek, art is – or should be – an inherently political platform. “Mohawks and drinking warm cans of piss is the least punk thing in the world to me,” he says of his punk upbringing. “Genuine anger, frustration and a drive to make change is everything to me, while also maintaining a true reaction to what’s currently happening around us in the world.”

“Everyone should be angry right now,” he continues. “If you’re not, you are part of the problem in my strange, white-circled eyes.”

This record continues a longstanding streak of telling stories that matter – such as 2024’s Songs For The Deceased – especially those that harken back to Ireland. Out of all the tracks on the new album, one message that he is particularly keen to get out into the world is on a song about a girl called Kelly Lynch. “It’s a story about her family seeking answers and justice.”

“Her death was classed as a suicide and then a drowning before the Irish police finally classified it as a murder investigation,” he recounts. “Left behind is a heartbroken family with no answers. Basically they made a balls of it, and the person who committed the crime is still out there.” 

This isn’t the only case like this, either – he talks of a lot of these types of crimes across Ireland. “I hope people read up on and do their own investigations into the topics and stories on this record, and I hope, like the last two records, it makes you think. Just because it hasn’t happened to you, doesn’t mean it can’t.”

The cost of creating

We’ve written at length on bite mag about how being vulnerable in your art comes at a price, and for Streek, this was one of the biggest challenges when creating this record. “Easily the toughest part was seeing friends very close to you choose not to support you, instead turning a blind eye rather than helping or supporting.”

“It’s truly mindblowing how much work and commitment goes into things like this, and if I post a photo of my dog wearing a hat it would get more attention than anything else I’ve worked on in my life. It’s not something I’ll ever overcome; instead I take notes so I won’t forget.”

The industry is afraid of working-class success

Streek has not been quiet about his stance on the industry and how it is designed to hurt emerging and working-class artists, not help them. Having read in his interview with Rolling Stone that he believes the cost of touring now is all part of the plan to limit the ability of the artist, I asked him what he thinks the industry is afraid of.

“The music industry is afraid of working-class people being able to succeed and have their message and agenda heard,” he replies. “It’s a way to cripple another art form speaking up and challenging society and all that is wrong within it; and that’s not just in music.”

“The ones with the money will always get to the top, and they are normally the ones shouting about absolute see-through nonsense and topics they haven’t got a clue about,” he continues. “The way the industry is heading, success is now having my voice heard and keeping up with all the acts around me who come from money. We have an industry that revolves around who makes the cringiest reels and who pumps the most money into Spotify to climb the ladder.” 

Streek urges aspiring artists hoping to send a message in today’s landscape to go against the grain and try to “stand out from the rest of the same old shite”. But when it comes to artists navigating the industry today, he has one piece of advice. “Be careful, because this industry is made up of absolute wankers.”

And on that note, here’s a rapid-fire Q&A.

A lyric you wish you’d written

American eyes, American eyes

View the world from American eyes

Bury the past, rob us blind

And leave nothing behind

‘No Shelter’ – Rage Against The Machine

Streaming: friend or enemy?

Not my friend, and it’s the start of the end unfortunately, yet the entire industry still knowingly supports it.

Your one non-music gig essential

My phone, so I can pretend to take a call and have to leave so I can go home to my dogs instead.