The way you fuse punk and grime together produces a very fresh and interesting style, how do you manage to bring it all together?
I suppose, like, for me and Phil, we’re more into the punk/death metal/nu metal/thrash metal, and Skepta, too. So when we sit down to make music, it’s like a big pot of influences. Dell is on the dancing, Richie is on the hip hop, so when we sit down together, our influences all bounce off each other because everyone has their own take on it.
Do you feel like your messages come across a lot stronger due to your fuse of two very flexible and rebellious genres?
It’s great because we aren’t confined to one genre, so we are able to cross platforms and speak out to a lot of different people.
Who would you say are your main influences?
For me, I would say Megadeth. I always try and sneak bits and bobs in but I always get told off and I have to strip it back because they just can’t handle it!
How does it feel being signed to a label like Music For Nations?
We had offers before this one and turned them down because we wanted to wait for the right one to come along, which it eventually did. It’s great we wanted to maintain creative control, what we can post, how we look. Our whole label isn’t major label ethos, it’s a lot more DIY, so we didn’t want to come out of a label as a fresh new band, we just want to do our thing and Music For Nations is flexible enough to let us do that.
You played at Download and Reading Festival, would you say performing at a festival and performing at an arena are very different?
Yes definitely. At festivals, you know, everyone’s on it and it’s like animals! It compares because at a festival, people are out for the weekend so they’re constantly trying to preserve their energy, but in an arena, everyone’s out for the night so they want to go mad. Personally, I prefer playing venues.
What’s it like touring with a band like Enter Shikari?
It’s wicked, like I remember listening to Enter Shikari in my school quad with my H&M techno hoodie on! Like its weird because we’ll be in soundcheck, and they just come out and play Mothership and it’s just so cool. They’re such a great band and they’re really good guys.
Do you find that the more personal your songs are, the more you can connect with an audience?
Definitely. I suppose there are a mix of messages throughout them all and they’re all relevant to what’s going on right now and what’s going on personally between us. Hence the album title, ‘Broke’; it’s not just that we haven’t got any money, like everyone’s broke. Broke mentally, broke society, broke everything. So hopefully people can see that reflected and whoever needs to relate to it, can.
Thinking about Welsh musicians, we usually think of Tom Jones or Katherine Jenkins. Do you think you’re giving young Welsh musicians a fresh take on dreams and success, thus encouraging them to try for themselves?
It’s nice, like especially for a band like us who are from Cardiff to get signed to a label like Music For Nations because it’s reachable. Cardiff is a small place, and it shows other people who are in bands that it is possible. I’m not sure but I haven’t heard of anyone from Cardiff being recently signed so it’s nice that we can be of inspiration to people.
