We Meet Malojian

A musician whose carefully-crafted music stems from the same gossamer-like realm of the Beatles and Elliott Smith at their most candid, Stephen Scullion of Belfast three-piece Malojian is a master of writing songs about inner spaces and places that marry quiet respite with a triumphant spirit. Ahead of the release of his band’s exquisite fourth studio album, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home, we talk to Scullion about the craft of songwriting, embracing one’s eccentricities, working with Steve Albini, reinvention, and more.

—DiS: Hi, Stephen. You’ve released your fourth album, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home. That’s an interesting title. Tell us more about that.

Stephen Scullion: I have a couple of kids so I was thinking of a way to tell them it’s ok to be weird and that sometimes it’s the weirdness that makes us cool and unique. Sometimes I’ll start lyrics before even figuring out what I’m trying to get across, but with this one I had a clear aim that it should be an uplifting and positive message.

This album is a million miles away from recording your previous album, last year’s This Is Nowhere, with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio. Was it a conscious decision to do something completely different on this occasion?

The idea with This Is Nowhere was to capture the sound of the band as live as possible and that was a great thing to do, but at the end of it I definitely felt a bit deflated. It was recorded in four days and I really love being in the studio so I was sad that it was over so quickly. So I wanted to take more time over this one and enjoy messing around with sounds and stuff.