Review Fix Exclusive: El Misti’s Paddy Bleakley Talks ‘All is Lost’ And More

Review Fix chats with El Misti’s Paddy Bleakley, who discusses the band’s new album, “All is Lost” and so much more.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Paddy Bleakley: I’ve always been in to music, of all kinds for as long as I can remember. My childhood home was always filled with the sounds of Ireland as well as Van, Bob, Bruce and the like. My parents were always singing together whilst my Dad played the guitar. My Sister played, and still plays many instruments. Very inspiring place to grow.

I started DJing at first, playing hip hop and house music in local nightclubs. I still have a lot of love for those days. However, I hung the headphones up as soon as I picked up a guitar. I’d found an outlet for my writing and I never looked back!

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Bleakley: Pretty lonely at the start. Lyrics can come first, or melody can. Theres no set structure. A song can sometimes come from just a line, or even a word. Songs just happen, I rarely try to write. It’s about being ready when inspiration strikes, so I’m never far from a guitar or piano. I need quiet so a lot of writing is done when the rest of the world sleeps.

Once I have something I believe in, I’ll show it to Kieran, and or the others, and we’ll work out the arrangement and the feel together.

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Bleakley: Anything and everything. Conversation is good. Reading, listening to music, walking…basically, living and existing. For my sins, I also find major inspiration in chaos, which can detrimental.

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Bleakley: Almost everything. Along with human connection and love, It’s the most important thing to me.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Bleakley: I’ve heard us described as Indie before, but I always had us pegged as more Americana, Country, Rock. I suppose that belongs to the listener. We sound like us, but I think you can hear all of our influences too, which is cool by me.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Bleakley: Obviously there hasn’t really been a chance to perform live over the last year or so. Think of that what you will. With this second record though, we tried to keep it as raw and live sounding as possible. So hopefully there won’t be too much difference when we are finally allowed to gather and live freely.

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Bleakley: A lot of time passes between the initial inspiration and the finished product. My memory is hazy when it comes to that. It was probably a moment I was in or a feeling I felt.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2021? 

Bleakley: Probably the same as everyone else in the world. To get back to the beautiful normality we so often took for granted.  

Review Fix: What’s next?

Bleakley: More music, hopefully. There should be an EP towards the end of the year. I’m also hoping to be involved in other peoples projects too. My girl is nearly ready to get into the studio, so hopefully I’ll be lending a hand and an ear to her. That’s going to be special.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add? 

Bleakley: Thank you for the support. Our new album ‘All is Lost’ will be out on July 26th.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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