Tour Diary: The Burnt Tapes’ Greek Disaster

Dank Tone shares a tale of cursed weather, swine flu, lost luggage… and good friends.

In January, London’s melodic punk quartet The Burnt Tapes returned to their Athenic roots for a short tour of Greece with pop-punks The Overjoyed.

Tone, the band’s charismatic bassist, wrote this exclusive tour diary for Shout Louder.

Dear Diary,

Best night ever! That’s all there is to be said about our home-coming show in Athens that brought to an end our short, but way overdue, tour of Greece.

The tour that was plagued with nightmarish bad luck. Fates conspired against us with terrible weather, logistical restructuring, unreliable airlines and swine flu. Bear with me, this is a doozy. Continue reading “Tour Diary: The Burnt Tapes’ Greek Disaster”

Last Chance To Grab A Shout Louder T-Shirt!

Our limited edition pre-order of Shout Louder ‘Meowsh Pit’ tees finishes today!

Today is your last opportunity to order one of our purrfect ‘Meowsh Pit’ tees!

We keep the Shout Louder free from advertising, but web hosting, recording equipment and travel aren’t free! You can look pawesome in this limited edition t-shirt and support Shout Louder in creating great, unique and honest content about the punk scene you love.

PRE-ORDER NOW

People often ask us how we make money through Shout Louder. It’s a flattering question, but the reality is that we spend hundreds on web hosting, podcast equipment, transport, gig tickets, etc…

The site would be free if we allowed advertising, but we pay so that you don’t have to look at adverts. We also invest most our free time into writing, editing, organising and promoting the content you see on the site and the podcast.

If you want to support Shout Louder and the cool things we do, grab a tshirt; it really helps.  All proceeds are going to help cover some of the running costs of the site.

The purrfect ‘Meowsh Pit’ design was created by Lasse Steinmetz Mikkelsen. They are available in wide range of skinny and regular fit sizes on lovely Gildan Softstyle, printed by the cracking lads at Merch Stall.

T-shirts are pre-order only and will be taken off sale in 24 hours, so grab one now.

P.S. There’s currently 20% off everything else on the Lockjaw Records website!

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Exclusive: Mean Caesar Premiere Video For ‘Drowning’

London gruff-punks debut the third single from their self-titled EP, released via Little Rocket Records.

Shout Louder are proud to bring you an exclusive look at the brand new video from South London’s Mean Caesar.

This is the third single from their self-titled debut EP, which was released on Little Rocket Records on 5 October 2018 (read our review here).

“Drowning is about attempting to have a healthy relationship with someone while also trying not to face up to mental health issues, pretending everything is fine and then inevitably lighting the fuse and watching everything burn down, before retreating into alcohol as the one thing that will always be there,” said vocalist, Danny Lester, about the new track. “It’s not a particularly optimistic song but I guess it’s real.”

The video for Drowning was shot by Craig Temple from Racketeer Pictures in guitarist Ollie Ward’s living room. They played a gig the nght before and thought having a fry up and filming a video would be a lot more fun than going to their actual jobs. Continue reading “Exclusive: Mean Caesar Premiere Video For ‘Drowning’”

Main Line 10: Fierce Spanish Melodic Hardcore [Interview]

We speak to Dani about Main Line 10’s 13 year history, their influences and their plans for 2019.

Interview by Sarah Williams.

Main Line 10 deliver a whirlwind of positive melodic hardcore loaded with adrenaline. Originating from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, they’re one of the most exciting live acts Europe has to offer.  Their latest release The Fox featured on our Top 10 Punk Rock Albums of 2018, and they’re due an appearance at Manchester Punk Festival in April.

After falling madly in love with their latest record, we were keen to speak to drummer Dani Amengual about their 13 year history as a band, their latest release and their touring plans for 2019.

You’ve been together since 2005. How do you think you’ve grown as a band, and as people in that time?

As a band I think we could have done more things and better, for example our two first records sound like crap! (AdrenaLine released 2006 and Today Is Tomorrow released 2009) We could have done more tours and more shows but when you start a band at 17/18 years old, nobody tells you how to to those things, and didn’t have social media in 2005.

I think we’ve grown well as a band and as people. We are the same as we were in the beginning with the same humor, same bad jokes and with a strong friendship between us… We’re fatter and have more hair in our faces but, in the end: the same. Continue reading “Main Line 10: Fierce Spanish Melodic Hardcore [Interview]”

Band Spotlight: The Friday Prophets [Interview]

Introducing Swedish punk rockers The Friday Prophets. FFO: The Bouncing Souls, Not On Tour, Green Day.

Interview by Sarah Williams.

The Friday Prophets are a Stockholm based punk rock band who ooze energy, positivity and good times. They’ve recently released their second album In The Key Of Sublimation via their own label Holy Howl Records. It’s exciting, upbeat punk rock with heart of gold that’ll appeal to punkrockers worldwide!

We spoke to Mattias Robertson to get a proper introduction to the band.

How would you sum up The Friday Prophets for someone who’s just discovering you?

I would say that we are a punk rock band from Stockholm that tries to unify the harmonic part of punk rock with the more gritty side of it. Then I would recommended some songs to check out! Which songs? I would say Reason, Where Are You?, La La La and With You. That oughta be enough for a start!

What inspired you most when writing your album, In The Key of Sublimation?

First of all, I would say music in general. I listen to a lot of music and it just inspires me and makes me want to pick up the guitar and start writing something on my own.

Regarding the sound, there have definitely been some albums that have been particularly influential and these are: Lifetime‘s self-titled album, Green Day’s Dookie, Against Me!‘s Transgender Dysphoria Blues and The Bouncing Souls‘ self-titled album and How I Spent My Summer Vacation. To me these are exceptional records, the kind of records that you can rediscover again and again. Continue reading “Band Spotlight: The Friday Prophets [Interview]”

Booze, Music & Saving Your Sanity

Sober punk Jon Turner shares the story of Petrol Bastard, and why you don’t need to be drunk to be punk.

Guest article by Jonathan Turner, chief of the excellent SoberPunks blog. This is part of our #MentallySound series, discussing mental health in music.

Somewhere back in August 2015 there was a standard weekend happening for me. Standard in that it had become the norm ever since the birth of Petrol Bastard in a Huddersfield pub in 2012; a crazy techno-punk band borne of a manifesto drunkenly written up between me and my bandmate Ben:

  • Fast music only
  • Live recordings only
  • Repetitive lyrics so they’re easy to learn
  • Tons of swearing
  • Never write or record sober
  • Never gig sober
  • Never do anything sober

We both enjoyed some pretty hardcore drinking already, but this new set of rules made boozing the absolute centre of everything we did as a band. This was gunna be a crazy ride; a band BY the drinkers, FOR the drinkers. Songs about being drunk, written whilst drunk, and performed whilst drunk. WE ARE PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS AND WE REQUIRE BOOZE TO OPERATE. Continue reading “Booze, Music & Saving Your Sanity”

[spunge]: 25 Years And Still Going Strong [Interview]

Alan caught up with frontman Alex to talk about keeping things positive, playing the old songs and teabagging. Not that type of teabagging, relax.

Interview by Alan Corcoran.

Almost twenty five years in the game and the ska-punkers with the square brackets, [spunge] are still going strong. Latest single Liar is a blend of catharsis and upbeat rhythms. We caught up with frontman Alex to talk about keeping things positive, playing the old songs and teabagging. Not that type of teabagging, relax.

Firstly, seeing as I was there, I have to say congrats on your headlining slot in Boomtown this past summer. What do you remember from that night?

Awesome – nice and muddy wasn’t it..? We had a blast. It was our first time at Boomtown and with so much going on we didn’t know what to expect but the place was stuffed full… and we had a blast, seriously enjoyed it and as we only played a few shows this year it was great to play live for sure. Definitely one we would like to revisit.

One of my memories is of teabags being thrown into the crowd..is this normal at your shows or do tea bags just become part of the life of a maturing band?

Not really, it was more that the only thing left on the rider at that time of night was the tea and coffee… if we’d have played earlier it may have been cheese and beer… who knows… Continue reading “[spunge]: 25 Years And Still Going Strong [Interview]”