MilkMaid Merchant
Photo Cred: Lewis Milne
17th April 2024
‘Friends’ - the psychedelic debut single from MilkMaid Merchant is out now! The 23-year-old whose real name is Derry Creaney is a touring guitar technician and musician from Glenrothes, Fife.
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Since the age of seven, Derry has been playing music, picking up the drums, guitar, bass, keys and vocals along the way. ‘Friends’ happened to be the first song Derry ever recorded from his school days: “It was originally me singing about depressing things which is funny because if you see me in real life, I’m like the most eccentric person.”
The original recording from 2016 featured a broken 5-string guitar which caused it to be tuned down and slow: “The whole song was written in about 20 minutes but honestly I thought I’ll never do anything with it, I thought it was a horrible idea.”
Artwork: Aaron Andrews
However, after stumbling across the track years later with new ideas brewing, his friend John Huskie encouraged Derry to go for it: “I was showing him all of my other tracks and he was like, ‘yeah all of the other tracks are good man but that (‘Friends’) needs to be your single’. So, if it wasn’t for John, it probably wouldn’t have been recorded.”
Since Derry is currently without a band, it pushed him to record all the instruments and vocals himself with the exception of his producer, Liam Saunders who played some of the funky keys: “I want to play music, I want people to hear it… so ‘Friends’ is just a depressing song that was recorded in 20 minutes that took seven years to come out.”
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…and who first inspired him? Derry’s Grandad! Derry recalls from a young age, sitting in his grandad’s old Vauxhall where he would play him immense bands from the 60s & 70s such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Animals as well as David Bowie: “I remember one of the first songs I ever listened to that made me really want to play guitar was ‘Get It On’ by T-Rex. It was just insane, I was like - how do you do that?”
"Friends is just a depressing song that was recorded in 20 minutes that took seven years to come out"
Derry describes his style as ‘blazy’ and is heavily influenced by Mac Demarco who experiments with psychedelic pop, slacker rock and jangle pop. Not many of us are able to meet our idols but Derry was one of the lucky few who recounts that very evening at the Usher Hall: “I was with my mum, that’s how young I was and he was outside having a smoke, so I just sprinted up to him and I couldn’t speak, I was so starstruck.”
Instead his mum talked to Demarco, requesting if Derry could play on stage with him: “He was like ‘yeah that’s cool’ - it was crazy. I played the solo for Viceroy which was incredible.”
"One of the first songs I ever listened to that made me really want to play guitar was ‘Get It On’ by T-Rex"
It was just a few years prior to this that the artist name, MilkMaid Merchant was thought of. Derry was in music class with his friends, Andrew and Callum, brainstorming silly band names. Andrew then turned round to him and uttered ‘MilkMaid Merchant’ and from this moment, the alias was never forgotten: “The name of my project is based on a high school joke that maybe lasted ten seconds but for some reason it got stuck in the back of my mind.”
Derry also joked about how many people now misconstrue the name: “I want to put it out there as well - it’s not The MilkMaid Merchant, it’s just MilkMaid Merchant.”
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In the studio, Derry feels his recording process differs from overproduced modern music: “I stick up like three microphones for the drum kit and do it in one take and I’m like ‘cool that’s the drums down’ and then I’ll do bass.” ​
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"I played the solo for Viceroy which was incredible"
This was the case for his single, ‘Friends’ where most of the fundamentals were recorded in a day: “That’s how I like to do things…if I sit on things too long, I overthink the track.” Derry revealed that’s why he loves working with his producer, Liam as he knows when it is time to stop working on a project and move on.
As for new music, four singles are currently in the developing stage with the hope for one of them to be released this summer. Derry also aims to soon form a band: “I have got a few people down the line who are session musicians and are good friends of mine. At one point, there will definitely be a MilkMaid Merchant band."
This would allow Derry to experiment with the live version of ‘Friends’, something that has only been played once. The stripped back early version was filmed as a favour whilst he was in college: “There is a video of me somewhere in my McDonalds uniform playing 'Friends' with an acoustic guitar and playing it with a full recording live set up.”
"At one point, there will definitely be a MilkMaid Merchant band"
Ultimately, to experience the thrill of gigging is what Derry is most excited for: “I hope to be playing a lot of gigs whether it be small intimate venues or bigger venues. I am happy playing in front of ten people, I don’t care, as long as I’m having fun.”
To end, Derry wraps up his future plans in a nutshell: “Aims for this year: release more music, hopefully play more gigs and have a bloody good laugh doing it.”
Author: Karina Caulfield