Author: Shout Louder

Follow Your Dreams’ Manchester Punk Fest Interview

Enjoy this in-depth interview with Manchester hardcore genre-smashers Follow Your Dreams, originally to be included in the Manchester Punk Festival program.

Article by Sarah Williams. Cover photo by Hold My Pint.

Sadly, this year’s Manchester Punk Fest has fallen victim to the COVID-19 catastrophe. Before then, Shout Louder had been working to write this year’s MPF program, including a series of band interviews. Rather than waste everyone’s hard work, we decided to post the interviews for your enjoyment here (plus keep an eye on Ear Nutrition for an excellent interview with Shai Hulud).

To start, I had an excellent chat with Manchester genre-benders Follow Your Dreams. Evolved from old-school ska-core band Rising Strike, with TNSrecords‘ behind-the-scenes legend Kaz Hinsley providing vocals, Follow Your Dreams and one of the greatest up-and-coming bands in the UK punk scene right now. Be sure to check out their new full-length record The Half Life of Teaspoons out on TNSrecords now.

We spoke to guitarist / vocalist / all-round awesome dude, Tom Houseman, ahead of MPF. Continue reading “Follow Your Dreams’ Manchester Punk Fest Interview”

Haest’s Manchester Punk Festival Interview

We talk to doomy-hardcore DIY kings Haest about their tongue-in-cheek approach, originally designed for print in the Manchester Punk Fest program.

Article by Sarah Williams.

Sadly, this year’s Manchester Punk Fest has fallen victim to the COVID-19 catastrophe. Before then, Shout Louder had been working to write this year’s MPF program, including a series of band interviews. Rather than waste everyone’s hard work, we decided to post the interviews for your enjoyment here (plus keep an eye on Ear Nutrition for an excellent interview with Shai Hulud).

As one of the foremost up-and-coming bands on the current UK hardcore circuit, I was keen to speak to Haest. Based in their eponymous town of Hastings, they’re a sludgy, doom-laden co-project from members of Matilda’s Scoundrels, The Barracks, Knife Club and many others. No doubt familiar to Shout Louder’s regular readers (we’ve interviewed them in the past), they’re uniquely enthralling live, they’re also purveyors of excellent DIY music videos. They’ve recently released their first full-length album Anomie on TNSrecords.

We spoke to guitarist Dan Flanagan about all the joys of Manchester Punk Festival, their history and their tongue-in-cheek approach. Continue reading “Haest’s Manchester Punk Festival Interview”

Shout Louder Podcast: Ed Hall from All Silk Recording & Mastering [S3 E3]

Sarah speaks to audio engineer Ed Hall about dedicating his life to music, advice to bands looking to record and all things mastering.

In December 2019, Sarah travelled up to Colne, Lancashire to record a fresh interview for the Shout Louder podcast, with Ed Hall at All Silk Mastering House.

Ed is an incredibly knowledgeable, affable audio engineer, who’s dedicated his life to recording and working in music. Previously known for his bands A War Against Sound and Egos At The Door, he’s now playing with Edgarville but focusing on his business.

Ed has recently expanded his business to include All Silk Recording Studio, a new recording space in Rawtenstall, so that they can offer a full recording, mixing and mastering service. They also do live sessions that are an ideal starter for DIY bands.

Continue reading “Shout Louder Podcast: Ed Hall from All Silk Recording & Mastering [S3 E3]”

Punk Rock Tour Tales #6: Mateusz & Karolina from CF98

We talk touring with Polish skate-punks CF98: including trips to Japan, Punk Rock Holiday and the UK.

Interview by Sarah Williams.

CF98 have made major waves in the European skate-punk scene in the last two years, although they’ve been carving out a name for themselves in their Polish homeland for more than 14 years. Residing in Kraków, they’ve recently had a successful Japanese and UK tours, plus a slot at Punk Rock Holiday. They were due to join us for Manchester Punk Festival this year, so we’re hoping we’ll get another chance to see them soon.

In the meantime we spoke to guitarist Mateusz Poznański with interjections from vocalist Karolina Duszkiewicz about their touring wins and failures. We love CF98 – check them out live as soon as you can!

Of the touring you’ve done, what’s been your favourite so far?

The tour we will always remember is our Japan tour in 2019. That was our first trip so far away from home as a band and also the first band flight together! This was really huge deal for us, I couldn’t believe we would actually fly to another continent to play shows. We loved touring in Poland, UK, Denmark and Ukraine, but making a Japan tour possible was totally different. It’s so cool that we were invited by Waki and the RNR crew. Continue reading “Punk Rock Tour Tales #6: Mateusz & Karolina from CF98”

Japanese Punk Rock Bands You Need To See Live

Musicians who’ve toured Japan recommend the best live punk rock bands they saw over there: this a one-stop list of Japanese punk recommendations you need to check out.

Article by Sarah Williams. Cover photo: Shames taken by Cold Front Photography.

We’ve made a playlist of all the bands featured in this article – listen on Spotify.

For UK bands, touring Japan is the Holy Grail of punk rock. Success in DIY music cannot be quantified by financial gains or commercial exposure, but it can be measured by how far you’ve travelled to share your music with excited fans.

With the assistance of dedicated organisations like RNR Tours, increasingly more UK and European bands are playing Japan. We’ve covered them in Tree’s Fair Do’s tour diary and Tom West’s Japan Tour Survival Guide. Although many tours have been cancelled recently as a result of COVID-19, PMX made it over just before the global travel restrictions.

As more UK and European bands are receiving attention from Japanese crowds, we thought it time to reciprocate and give column space to the Japanese bands making waves over here. No doubt a knock-on effect from Anarchistic Undertones promoter Ian ‘Tree’ Robinson’s trip to Tokyo with Fair Do’s last year, Manchester Punk Festival this year had booked four incredible Japanese gems: SHAMES, Stone Leek, Green Eyed Monster and Gibberish (who have one Japanese member). Although MPF’s fallen foul of the Corona catastrophe, there’s no doubt that the same bands will be invited again for a future event. Beyond these, there is a whole culture of uptempo, angry, exciting bands that many of us are yet to discover.

I asked UK artists who’ve toured Japan to recommend their favourite acts, to give you an trustworthy overview of what Japanese punk rock has to offer. Continue reading “Japanese Punk Rock Bands You Need To See Live”

Advice for Surviving Lockdown from Someone Who’s Overcome Severe Depression

#MentallySound: tips for managing coronavirus panic and isolation, from someone’s who’s survived their own mental hell

Written by Sarah Williams. Gratuitous cat photos by Cold Front Photography. 

As stricter rules have been imposed by government in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, my anxious friends and I have joked that ‘normies’ will suddenly know what it’s like to feel mad all the time.

Anxiety: sweats, shakes, racing thoughts, imagining impending catastrophe. Depression: solitude, sadness and worthlessness. We’re being told that if we don’t wash out hands well enough, it might kill our Nan. We’re scared to leave the house. There’s an omnipresent, invisible threat, lurking around waiting to take us out. Coronavirus panic has an awful lot in common with good ol’ run-of-the-mill depression. Continue reading “Advice for Surviving Lockdown from Someone Who’s Overcome Severe Depression”

Interview: Knife Club reveal their identity with video & album launch [Exclusive]

DIY punk rock’s most mysterious band, Knife Club, reveal their identities, tell us all their secrets and launch their new video and album!

Interview by Sarah Williams.

Knife Club are the most mysterious punk band of 2020 – teasing live shows and recordings without ever revealing who they really are. If you’ve missed the hype, we posted an article speculating about their identity (sorry folks: we were in on the joke the whole time).

Today you can finally learn the identity of the band! Our interview below sheds light on the whole affair. To celebrate, they’re launching pre-orders of their first full-length album We Are Knife Club – available from TNSrecords.

Watch this video right to the end, and read the interview below to find out exactly who Knife Club are and what they’re all about!

You can finally tell the world who you are! Introduce yourselves for us.

We are…! Continue reading “Interview: Knife Club reveal their identity with video & album launch [Exclusive]”

Punk Rock Tour Tales #5: Pat from The Decline

Pat from Australia’s best skate-punk exports The Decline shares his memories of gigging, in jokes, and on-the-road antics.

Punk Rock Tour Tales is a new Shout Louder feature, where we interview bands about their tour stories. Read them all here.

The Decline are a high-energy straight up skate-punk band from Perth, Australia. Unfortunately, their UK/Euro tour has been scrapped to due to whole pandemic malarkey, but we still had a chat with them about their past touring experiences.

They’ve recently released a rad album: Flash Gordon Ramsay Street on Pee Records (with international collab from Bird Attack, Disconnect Disconnect, Bells On, Cargo and Oxford Records). It fits right in the vein of Frenzal Rhomb, NoFX and Lagwagon. Questions were answered by guitarist / vocalist Pat, who first up said that they ‘love touring, drinking beers and playing legend of Zelda’.

Of the touring you’ve done, what’s been your favourite so far?

It’s very hard to say! Maybe Punk Rock Holiday in Slovenia? Maybe South America with Much The Same and The Fullblast. Maybe Australia or Mexico with A Wilhelm Scream. It’s usually the people you’re touring with or the people you meet who make it the best, rather than the actual place… maybe the USA with MakeWar. Continue reading “Punk Rock Tour Tales #5: Pat from The Decline”

Punk Rock Tour Tales #4: Snakerattlers

Dan Gott gives his finest advice on surviving a tour, plus an excellent insight into life on the road with Snakerattlers.

Punk Rock Tour Tales is a new Shout Louder feature, where we interview bands about their tour stories. Read them all here.

Snakerattlers are a unique duo from York, playing stripped-back garage punk with an acerbic edge. Twisting memories of sun-soaked desert dirt-rock, with echoes of blues and rockabilly, they’re a refreshing listen both live and on record. Intimidating and intriguing, uniformed and chaotic in equal measure, they’ve dubbed their style ‘rattlerock’.

We spoke to guitarist and vocalist Dan Gott about their experiences out on the open road.

Of the touring you’ve done, what’s been your favourite so far?

Definitely each time we play with The Monofones from Switzerland. We’ve just completed our fifth tour with these guys and each time we have more fun than the last. We consider them to be family. Continue reading “Punk Rock Tour Tales #4: Snakerattlers”

Memories & Highlights from Do It Together Fest 2020

Sarah’s personal highlights from the Do It Together Fest weekend, including bananas, oranges, pastry and some punk rock somewhere along the lines.

Written by Sarah Williams.

Thank you to everyone who attended Do It Together Fest. In collaboration with Paul Smith (Be Sharp Promotions) and Colin Clark (Colin’s Punk Rock World), we’d hoped to put together an event that celebrated the punk rock community, and what we achieved exceeded my expectations completed.

Firstly I’d like to announce that we raised a grand total of £880.72 for Mind! Thank you to everyone who donated, played our punk rock tombola or scoffed OGGS kindly donated cakes. Thanks also to every single person who attended, all the bands who played and everyone who lent a hand: you could truly feel the power of our community over the weekend, and every single person was a part of that. Continue reading “Memories & Highlights from Do It Together Fest 2020”