💘 ADULTS ON THEIR FAV QUEER ICONS 💘

💖 Where did you all meet? How did the South London quartet set up? 

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals):

Joe & I had been playing about a bit with some pals & written a few songs.

I met Joely at uni. We bumped into one another at DIY space for London & we kinda went from there.

Dan, our original bassist, moved to Manchester. We had a bunch of different (like seven?) bass players . . . We had known our lovely Carl through DSFL & Wolf Girl & For Sake of Tapes (who put out our split with favs bitch hunt), Carl agreed to join us in mid-2021. 

💖 You evoke quite a nostalgic vibe. One of your recurring topics is the reminiscence about the tail end of your 20s. Your lyrics are joyful, silly, & occasionally sad as you sing about breakups, parties, alcohol, & loneliness. 

What inspires you to play music?

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals):

Being in a band is fun & playing with pals is fun! I guess the songs are just what’s on our minds at the time. & the mid-twenties sure are a weird time!

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals):

The joy of gigs & music & seeing other bands killing it. Hand-in-hand with the human need to create & share [& moan].

💖 Your sound has a vintage math rock vibe to it, with its crunchy guitars, fast drums, & yelping vocals. You also describe yourself as an “emo-noisy pop band desperately clinging on to the ghosts of 2009”.

Who are your main influences in music?

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals): That whole silly scrappy indie pop scene like Johnny Foreigner, Tubelord, Ace Bushy Striptease, Los Camp & Dananananaykroyd with silly tunings & yelpy singing. Martha with their anthems & politics. Chumbawamba for their ethics. 

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals): Abba for their jumpsuits.

💖 You released a self-made video clip for “Alex, keep yr hands to yrself” which was filmed on an old-school digital camera. 

What place occupies DIY in your ethos?

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals): DIY space for London was quite a big influence. People were looking out for one another & running things for free. Trying out new skills & learning how to do things with pals is really important to us. 

💖 For anyone interested in pedals & equipment, what are your individual setups?

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals):

Tom is really cool. He built his own pedal board & painted it & all. Carl made a small board too! Mine is pretty basic… I don’t even have a pedal board but I’m working on it. I love all the tech stuff really.

In chronological order, I’ve got a tuner, YO & I recently got myself a boss CS-2 compressor, gifted from my pal Lawrence. He loves to gear so I was chatting with him as I was looking for something to give me a boost, a little EQ & clarity for their solo moments & he sorted me right out. So that stays off except for the key moments or if I want some yelpy feedback stuff.

My very favourite pedal is my Boss blues driver. It is the sweetest sounding thing & as with all boss pedals, there’s plenty secondhand about. I had that as my only pedal for a long time… too long really, but it’s so great & indestructible.

My last pedal is an earthquaker hoof, which is a fuzz that has loads of versatility. It can go from a really lovely balanced fuzz, that keeps your tone to a grizzly mess. I discovered it the first time we recorded with rich. We had one that we used for the lead line of armadillo & we used it again for the majority of the album I think. I caved & bought my own.

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals): I’m currently rebuilding my board. Come ask me about it at a show!

Carl (He/They; Bass): I use a Bass Big Muff pi fuzz pedal & a tuner at the moment.

💖 What’s your favourite song to play live, & why?

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals): Filling Up The Feelings because it’s fun & catchy & I don’t have to do much singing!

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals): Ha! I was gonna say Armadillo for the same reasons. Those 2 songs are so much fun to play & the making of them was all just good memories for me. Love em.

Carl (He/They; Bass): Both of those are really fun to play. MSN of the EP is too. I like Things We Achieve & All We’ve Got of the album. I love all the really fast ones I guess, they’re good to rock out with. But I do like the slow ones too.

Joe (He/Him, Drums): Things we achieve, MSN & Armadillo are fun to play & wasn’t like that is one of my favourites & a nice break cos it’s slower! 

💖 Who’s your fav Gay icon?

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals): If I have to pick one, Grace JXones. A complete icon & I’ve been blown away every time I’ve seen them live. But pretty much all of my icons are queer. Queer art is the one, isn’t it. I’m scared to answer this, it could easily just reel off a massive list…whoops.

I’m always in awe of candid/sincere artists. I think I appear to fail to take anything seriously, it’s probably confidence. It is so cool & inspiring to be like ‘I made this because I felt like this & I want people to feel this & it is important.’ cos it is. Growing up & discovering Sleater-Kinney had a massive positive impact.

💖 What bands are you loving at the moment, & what was the last album you all bought?

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals):

New Fresh “Raise Hell“. What a bunch of talent, making all my favourite songs. The new Live Do Nothing & Cheekface albums are brilliant, & the last record I bought was either Ezra Furman (for myself) or self-esteem prioritises pleasure for my pal Mary. I really wanted the SE father figure tee but I can’t find it… if anyone finds one or makes one please hmu !

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals):

I love dream phone. They do this amazing cover of Britney’s hit me baby & it’s 100x better than the original (sorry pals). Also loving Yawners, Rio Arga, Slash Fiction & chat pile atm. The last record I bought was the new lande hekt record which is luuuush.

Carl (He/They; Bass):

The last album I bought was the new Chorusgirl one, Colapso Calypso. Silvi’s songwriting is just amazing & their sound is really distinctive while drawing on lots of great ‘80s & ‘90s stuff. I also bought Caleb Nichol‘s new album Ramon when we played with them, that’s fab too.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Remember Sports & Future Teens recently as both played London in the last few months & were just excellent live. Tom & I saw Whitelands play for the first time in a while recently & they were great, they’ve got new music coming soon too.

Joe (He/Him, Drums):

I have been listening to a lot to Joyce Manor since we covered one of their songs. Also Big Thief, LVL Up, All Cats Are Beautiful & Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Think the last record I bought was Fortitude Valley album, which is great. 

💖 You talk in your lyrics about the importance of mutual aid & support when it comes to mental health. Do you find being in a band/playing better than therapy? 

Tom (He/him; Guitar/Synth/Vocals):

Lol no. Being in a band is fun & good, and having a strong support network is also good, but in my opinion, therapy is different & also important. Working towards de-professionalising mental health support which doesn’t rely on the state is good, but don’t start a band to try & cure yourself. That doesn’t mean we can’t & shouldn’t help & look after one another, & various forms of mutual aid are good for this (funds, medicine, MH support, clothing, housing etc).

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals): Yeah, I think a band is so positive & definitely get involved in one if u want to play music/get creative! It is great & means so much but that doesn’t mean it’s easy on the mental health all the time lol. There’s lots of reflection & self-work needed to look after one another & be a good pal when you’re in vulnerable & strange social positions. There’s lots more coverage & openness from artists cancelling tours etc for mental health reasons in the past few months & the reaction to that & the discussion it creates is a positive thing.

💖 You mention issues like homophobia, transphobia, & toxic masculinity in your songs. Do you feel like it’s an occurring problem in the scene? What 1 thing could everyone be doing to make the scene a better place?

Joely (She/They; Guitar/Vocals): Representation is key. It all falls apart if you’re still the only X person in the room. in particular, it would be amazing to see more diversity in sound & production. It’s an old boring point but that is still jarring & crappy.

Representation is key. It all falls apart if you’re still the only X person in the room

💖 You released a couple of singles this year, the latest one being “Tfl has a lot to answer for”. An indie-pop/punk banger which is a “reflection of drinking way too much in your mid-20s. Staying up too late, burning yourself out & how it impacts on your relationships & mental health”.

You’ve recently released a fresh new album titled “for everything, always”. Tell us about your release! What’s the feeling to it/what’s it about?

It’s a scrappy, silly, joyful & sometimes sad look back at a band in the tail end of their 20s. A way to grapple with breakups, parties, alcohol & loneliness & looking hopefully into the future.

It combines lots of our favourite bits of indie pop, punk, emo & some little bit of 2009 math rock. We tried to make the record, themes & structure more coherent than things we had done before, but it’s still the same 2 min songs with yelping dual vocals, speedy drums & fun noisy guitar lines.

💖 What’s next for you lot? (please include links to where we can listen to you)

We are sorting more shows for 2023 🙂 & our new album is available here !! <3 :

https://sadults.bandcamp.com/

💖 Links to any social media 🙂

@sclubadults on IG and Twitter

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