INTERVIEW: Becky Laverty (Roadburn Festival)

Founded in 1999 and celebrated as an inimitable showcase of heavy and experimental music, Roadburn Festival has been on Get In Her Ears’ radar for some time. Although we’ve never attended the Netherlands festival in person, each year we take note of the eclectic line-up and kick ourselves for not organising a trip to Tilburg to see the unique presentation of new and established artists from alternative music scenes.

This year, GIHE favourite American multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer Madeline Johnston aka Midwife is one of the festival’s Artists in Residence. She will perform three different sets across the weekend (17th-20th April), including a premiere performance of her collaborative EP, Orbweaving, with slowcore/shoegaze visionary Vyva Melinkolya. Other GIHE faves on the line-up include Penelope Trappes, LustSick Puppy, Faetooth, The Body & Dis Fig, SUMAC & Moor Mother, Tristwch Y Fenywod and Witch Club Satan.

Whilst we are enamoured with the idiosyncratic and unusual sounds of each of these artists, we were also curious to know how the team behind Roadburn put together these immense line-ups every year, as well as their side programme of Q&A events and discussions. Originally attending the festival as a fan back in 2013, Becky Laverty is now a key member of the Roadburn booking team. Her enthusiasm for showcasing experimental and heavy music is evident from the moment we begin speaking on Zoom and so is her unwavering dedication to the Roadburn community..

“I’ve met so many people through Roadburn who have enhanced and enriched my life in ways I could never have imagined,” she shares. “Of course people might think that’s an obvious thing to say – this is my job – I spend hours, weeks and years of my life thinking about this festival. But I felt this way even when I was just attending Roadburn. I would meet people and make connections with them and it was always a magical experience to be at the festival. Now that it takes up more of my life, I feel that even stronger.”

Originally from East London, Becky now lives in a town called Glossop on the edge of the Peak District. “I’ve started putting on shows here which is madness,” she laughs. “The Saturday before Roadburn, I have Thou playing in a pub in Glossop. When they announced the tour dates, people were losing their minds. They were like ‘Where the fuck is Glossop? Why aren’t they playing somewhere normal like Leeds?’” We joke that she’s determined to put Glossop on the map and with her extensive experience in booking and press communications, she’s the right person to do it.

Taking a leap of faith like this is something that has fortunately paid off many times for Becky. Before she became a freelance music publicist, she worked in admin at a University. She would occasionally help friends who were in bands to organise shows and tours, but she had never seriously considered a career in music. It was a brief conversation in the back of a tour van that effectively started it all for her.

“I had booked a tour for two UK bands – a grindcore band called Narcosis and a sludgy band called Mistress – and I went on tour with them,” she shares. “The drummer from Mistress is a guy called Mick Kenney, and he was setting up his own record label with his long time friend Shane, who is the bass player in Napalm Death, and he asked me if I knew any journalists.” Becky laughs as she recalls reading the press release that Mick had drafted and telling him it was “rubbish”. She ended up re-writing it herself. “I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did know some journalists just from being involved in music and meeting people in bands. So basically I just started emailing people. Then other bands started approaching me and offering to pay me for this work and I said yes and kept going.” Since then, Becky has worked for Earache, Relapse and various other labels as a freelance publicist over the years too.

It’s this combination of tenacious music fandom and learning on the go that led Becky to meet Roadburn’s Artistic Director, Walter Hoeijmakers. She’d been attending the festival in a work capacity for a few years by this point, which led to the pair being introduced. Shortly after that, Walter came to London for a Roadburn related trip and asked if he could crash on Becky’s sofa. “He hung out with my cats and we went to see Godflesh together,” she remembers, two things that cemented their early friendship. “Then a couple of weeks after that, he called me and asked if I would be interested in working for Roadburn, and I was like ‘YES, I would!’ – so I went and told my partner and they were like ‘a job doing what?’ and I realised I had no idea. Hopefully it was something I knew how to do, because I’d already said yes.”

The role that Becky had accepted was that of International Press & Communications for Roadburn. “I’ve always said that the ‘communications’ part of that title did a lot of heavy lifting. It basically means you can be emailing anyone about anything,” she laughs. “So although a big chunk of my job was publicising the festival and inviting press, I started to take on more things every year. I started to arrange the side programme, which consists of artists Q&As and panel discussions and things like that. I was in close contact with Walter throughout, and he would ask my opinion on bookings. It was a quite natural process where my role just got bigger and bigger. It was a bit of a fuzzy time during the pandemic, but it was around then that my role [as a booker] became more formalised. So I’ve been doing that for a few years now.”

The core booking team for Roadburn now consists of Walter, Daan who is the Head of Music at the O13 venue in Tilburg, and Becky. When asked what kind of process the team undertakes for selecting artists to play the festival, Becky insists that most of it is based on intuition and a “gut feeling,” as well as Walter’s artistic overview of what he wants to do. “Sometimes he has an idea for a band, or an idea for a direction he wants to go in, or a particular scene that he wants to explore a bit more, then we build the festival around those ideas,” Becky shares. “So that does vary year-on-year in what direction we’re going in.”

“There’s months and months of conversations about the artistic direction and what will and what won’t work. It’s a lot of gut feeling. Of course we have to sell tickets, so we have to look at what people want from the festival, but it’s definitely based on an artistic vision much more than what’s commercially viable at any given time. One of the things that we really draw inspiration from is the underground, and a lot of the bands that play Roadburn, even on the main stage, have come up through the underground. It’s very rare for a band to come crashing out of nowhere and appear on our main stage.”

The marvellous Chelsea Wolfe played the main stage at last year’s Roadburn, but she had originally played the festival ten years prior on a much smaller stage. Becky explains that Midwife, who first played in 2022, has had a similar journey. “Her music is so gentle in a lot of ways, so delicate and very intimate, it’s almost like she’s singing just to you,” Becky recalls. “So we knew that she was a special artist from that show, so to have her back as an artist in residence this year is fantastic.”

Something that Becky and the Roadburn team are particularly proud of is how the festival has evolved and shifted the idea of what “heavy” can be. Whilst stylistically it can be argued that Midwife’s musical style is not necessarily “heavy” – it’s often sparse and ambient – the emotional gravity that permeates her music is – therefore making her the perfect candidate for a Roadburn performance. Becky explains that there’s no “formula” that can be replicated when it comes to defining what specifically constitutes a “Roadburn band” – it’s based on that important “gut feeling” and a well established level of trust and respect between the members of the booking team.

“As individuals, not just in the Roadburn team, but as music fans, most of us have very eclectic taste,” she shares. “Last week I went to see FKA Twigs, who I love and who is amazing. I’m sure if she came to Roadburn she’d have a lovely time, but I’m not sure that her performance would work at Roadburn. We have this saying that we’ve said amongst ourselves for a long time but it’s become a bit of a slogan to describe Roadburn now, which is ‘redefining heaviness’ – and I think that’s one of the core things that we’re looking for. So whilst I think FKA Twigs has a certain kind of heaviness and some of her music is quite bleak in places, I’m not sure that it fits the type of heaviness that works at Roadburn.”

Becky goes on to explain that a specific set that she feels was a “turning point” in redefining what heaviness in music could be, was when Emma Ruth Rundle played the festival as solo artist on a smaller stage back in 2017, and returned to play the main stage in 2022. “Emma performed, just her and her guitar, on what is now called The Neck stage, which is a 700+ capacity room,” Becky recalls. “It was rammed, but she just held everybody captive for an hour. For me, this was also as heavy as something with big riffs or blast beats or screamed vocals. This had an emotional heaviness to it. So sometimes, whilst there’s no fixed guidelines, that’s one of the sets that I often have in mind. It was undoubtedly heavy and it was also very gentle and very beautiful.”

Something else that Becky feels is unique and important to Roadburn is the specially commissioned projects and one-off collaborative performances that the festival presents to its attendees. This year, SUMAC and Moor Mother will present their album, The Film, on both the 17th and 19th of April. The piece is described by Moor Mother as more than an album or a collection of songs, with the core focus being to “create a moment outside of convention…in an industry that wants to force everything into a box of consumption.” Accurately promoting and celebrating eclectic projects like this is something that Becky and the Roadburn team feel especially passionate about. The team takes great care in capturing the essence of these performances through the language they use in their promotions and the aesthetics they adhere to across all areas of press and communications.

“To expect people to turn up and watch something entirely new from an artist that they don’t know for an hour and to be completely captivated by that – maybe we are asking a lot,” Becky reflects, “but I think people come to Roadburn knowing that that’s part of the experience. If you want to experience something totally brand new and see where this music is going to take you, then that opportunity is there. It’s really special.”

Something else that’s special to Becky are the curated playlists that fill the venues between artist’s sets at Roadburn. Walter originally created these playlists himself, but he has since handed this responsibility over to Becky and her colleague Joel.

“I always say I have no musical talent, but Emma [Ruth Rundle] said to me ‘that’s nonsense, your talent is your ears,’” Becky beams. “I’ve always been a music fan, I would say to the point of obsessiveness as a teenager. When you’re a teenager, did you not just want to pick the music that people listened to and tell people about the artists? That’s essentially what my job is now. Sometimes on our socials people are asking ‘does anyone know what that song was that played just before so-and-so came on?’ and I can be like ‘I do know actually, because I made that playlist!’ so I get to be that obsessive music fan. I think there’s loads of people out there like that and now I have an outlet for it.”

The passion, excitement and dedication from Becky and her team to making sure festival goers get the full Roadburn experience is something we admire profusely here at GIHE. We joke that we’re considering booking a last minute flight to attend this year’s edition and Becky is quick to support this decision. “It’s a slippery slope though,” she laughs, “because once you’ve been, you will want to come again. I know everybody says that, but it’s true. Most people come and are immediately like ‘I want more of that!’ Once you’re addicted – that’s it.”

 

You can find the full line-up info & tickets for Roadburn via their official website

Follow Roadburn on Instagram, Facebook & X

 

Photo Credit: Nona Limmen (Official Roadburn 2025 Visual Artist)

Kate Crudgington
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INTERVIEW: NYX (Sian O’Gorman)

By harnessing the sublime power of the collective human voice, the NYX drone choir have crafted a unique form of psychedelic rebellion. Originally formed by New Zealand-born composer and director Sian O’Gorman, the ensemble – made up of multi-talented vocalists, artists, musicians and movement specialists – use electronics to layer and manipulate their vocals, creating their own idiosyncratic sounds and expanding what a traditional choir is capable of.

I have witnessed the immense musical alchemy of NYX many times. I saw them perform their collaborative work Deep England with Gazelle Twin – originally at London’s Oval Space back in 2018 – and I’ve seen them showcase their own work at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Their sound enraptures, inspires and intrigues the more that you engage with it. The collective have now harnessed this deeply emotive listening experience on their debut eponymous solo album, which they have just released via their own label.

NYX is a body of work that has been years in the making. When I spoke with collective members Alicia Jane Turner and Philippa Neels on our Soho Radio show back in 2023, they hinted that we could be expecting a solo record in the near future, as well as sharing stories about their experiences of recording the soundtrack for the Diablo video game. The last time I spoke with Sian O’Gorman was in 2021. We took a deep dive into her own experiences of listening to and creating music, as well as her inspirations for forming NYX.

A lot has happened since then – most recently Sian curated the score for acclaimed BBC drama Dope Girls – but one thing that has remained a constant is her holistic and deeply human approach to singing. This becomes especially clear when we begin discussing the vocal workshops that she facilitates: “Tones, Bones and Drones”. The workshops are for singers and non-singers of all ages and genders and are focused around using the voice as a “vessel for connection”. They have been a part of her practice for a long time.

“Singing is free and anyone can do it anywhere. It seems such a shame that it’s locked out of most people’s lives,” Sian reflects. She finds it strange that people will go to a gig or a club and move their bodies and dance together despite not being technically “good dancers,” but the idea of singing or using your voice in public doesn’t seem to be as socially accepted. “It’s always made me really sad that there aren’t many public spaces for people to use their voice in a way that isn’t speaking,” she continues. “Speaking is very cognitive and thought based and heady. The way that some people speak and use their words is very embodied, but I would say in general, we’re only really using a very small percentage of our voices.”

Sian is quick to acknowledge that sometimes these opportunities – like joining a choir – are limited to those who have a technical singing ability or who can read music, but she also thinks there are other barriers to this type of expression too.

“There’s something about the voice that’s just so intimate to people,” she extrapolates, visibly passionate as she does so. “Every single time you think you’ve said something wrong, or used your voice in a way that wasn’t how you planned, or you made a noise that you think you shouldn’t have – the actual muscles shut down. They contract and it becomes harder to loosen them. So when people say they can’t hold a note, well, it would be the same for me if one day I just woke up and decided I was going to do the splits. It’s going to take me a while to get my muscles ready to build up to that. Your voice is just the same. The muscular system just needs attention and practice, and playfulness as well.”

Playfulness is at the core of what Sian encourages during her workshop practices. She explains that some attendees are too nervous to even make a noise or maintain eye contact with others when they first arrive, but the nurturing atmosphere she creates with the group gently encourages them to express themselves, culminating in a collective “sigh of relief” once they have overcome these fears.

“It always devastates me when I hear someone saying ‘Oh I’d love to come to your workshop, but I can’t sing’ – and I’m like, ‘mate, that’s the whole fucking point!’,” she laughs. “There’s so much benefit in using your voice. There’s neuroscience research and research across all sorts of mental and physical health issues that proves that singing – both on your own and in groups of people – is incredibly beneficial to your own well being.”

“Everyone that comes to these workshops has some level of vocal tension that they are working with. So it’s a very beautiful meeting ground [where we] drop all of our expectations and just have a playful time together, remembering the essence of being human and the essence of using your voice. Being in a group with others [like this] always teaches me that humans do have the power to create good stuff. We can make good things together really easily.”

Together with her fellow choir members, Sian has captured this “essence” on NYX’s spectacular debut self-titled solo album. Inspired by the duality of the mythic ancient goddess they share their name with – who personifies night, but gave birth to light and day – the ten tracks that form the record take listeners on a breath-taking journey through the vast spectrum of human emotion.

NYX use their ‘Bright Tongues’ in unison to inspire a deep sense of ‘Awe’ within their listeners, shifting seamlessly between celestial sounds and potent bursts of primal noise. It was important to Sian to capture the complexities of NYX’s sound in this way, as she didn’t want the collective to be viewed through a singular lens, both musically and aesthetically.

“I think especially after Deep England and the work that we did with Diablo the computer game, it was becoming quite clear that we were being cast as these very cool, very dark witches,” she shares. “I really love that, and that’s very much a big part of me and of us – but I think it’s very limiting to just have that dark witch connotation and description when it’s women and gender non-conforming people using their voices in ways that aren’t traditional. It’s quite easy to just be like ‘you crazy witches’ when really I think there’s so much more breadth and so much more possibility in embodying all of the spectrum of emotions. So through this project – because we’re presenting our own body of work – we can choose what colours of that spectrum we want to share with the world.”

This freedom has bled into all areas of NYX’s solo record, from the “breadth” in sound that Sian describes, to the vibrant eye-catching album artwork created by NYX member Shireen Qureshi. Sian believes that her friend and collaborator has managed to capture the “deeply psychedelic” quality of NYX’s sound through her art.

“[Shireen’s] paintings just draw you into this really intensive, magical, liminal space and they shock me a little bit sometimes,” Sian reveals. “She really dances this line between the psychedelic and the very human, and I think that’s the other thing; a lot of this music is deeply human. It’s been crafted and manipulated through electronics, but it is very viscerally human sounding.”

“I think the colourful aspect of it is [also] really important to me, because I really visually see music,” Sian continues. “When I’m composing, or when I’m listening, or when I’m performing; it is a very visual, quite psychedelic, quite altered state of consciousness. So it felt really important to get those colours in. It’s really for people to go on their own personal journey with it. One of my favourite things ever is people sharing a story about what they saw or imagined [when they were listening to our music]. I think that’s the benefit that comes with having music that doesn’t have any kind of specific lyrical content.”

Talking about this visual element and feeling of transience that underscores NYX’s music prompts a formative childhood memory for Sian. “I remember being at school, and the teacher would put on a piece of classical music and didn’t necessarily say what it was, then they got the class to write down what they imagined was happening and that’s always stuck with me as being a very powerful way of consuming music. Offering it to people. They can sense what frequencies we’ve put in from our bodies into the music, but then it’s up to people to kind of interpret that as they will. It’s the same for us when we’re performing it and the same for me as I’m listening to it – a lot of these songs we’ve been performing for six years now – and some of them just mean a totally different thing to me than they meant six years ago.”

This shape-shifting extends into the physical positions that NYX assumed when they were recording the songs for their debut album, particularly for the track ‘Awe‘. “I always love recording in a circle,” offers Sian. “It’s not technically a very good idea and it’s actually really annoying to mix because you’ve got ten different microphones, but I like the energy of standing in a circle. I think it’s got that kind of ancient connective magic and the focus inwards is really powerful.”

“So, we were all standing in a circle and I just had the synth part running on a loop and then everyone went round and improvised and occasionally I’d get people to kind of blend together and sing over the top of each other. So in a way, it really felt almost like a sharing circle, so someone would just share and then everyone would hold them in that and be fully focused and fully present with that person until they’d shared what they’d needed to share. I think the version [of ‘Awe’] that you hear on the album is six minutes, but we probably did that exercise for about forty-five minutes, which is a really magical way of doing it. There’s probably about four or five different versions of that song that we could have made.”

Another song that demonstrates NYX’s unique collective talents is ‘Silent Union’. Sian describes the moment of getting the song to sound “perfect”, but she doesn’t feel fully comfortable with that word, as NYX don’t aspire to be “perfect” in any way, shape or form.

“I think that’s also another thing that makes us slightly different from most vocal groups – people aren’t chosen based on their capacity to blend with others, we’re all in the group together because everybody has their own personal musical vocal practice and electronic practice as well. In most choral groups, certain timbres of voice would be chosen for their capacity and their way of making sure the collective sound was even. So when we’re all singing together, I think it’s really nice that you can hear individual voices pop out from one another.”

This is one of many things that Sian is proud of about NYX’s debut album. She is evidently enthused by the fact that this body of work has developed in a natural way and how it’s harnessed what she believes to be something that feels “uniquely us”. She also acknowledges that releasing a record on their own label has come with its challenges. She speaks with a deep sense of gratitude about the community of friends and professionals who helped bring NYX’s creative vision to life, including Philippa Neels, Andrew Ellis, Isis O’Regan, Elizabeth Bernholz, the team at State51 and many, many more. She also shares that learning about and interacting with the technical infrastructure of the digital platforms that listeners use to engage with, share, and consume new music has left her “struggling” at points.

“I really wanted to do it just as us, and not go through anyone else. But then you start doing it, and you’re like ‘Oh, this is why there’s offices full of people working on one release’”, she laughs, reflecting on the process. “I think a lot of the time, it’s shown me just the kind of annoying social media barriers that get put on you unless you’re already at a certain level [as an artist],” she shares. “Apparently, it’s much easier to get your streaming numbers up if you get playlisted and get pre-saves on your songs, but in order to get pre-saves on your songs, you have to have 10,000 minimum listeners. So there’s functions on the apps that you can’t even use until you’re at a certain level. A lot of the time, it does feel like the algorithm is against you. You’re making all this stuff and you’re like ‘is anyone even hearing it?’ so it’s been hard, actually. It’s been a lot harder than I thought.

But, in saying that, a lot of it is just kind of surrendering to the fact that we’ve made this body of work and we’re really proud of it, and all the people that were involved absolutely love it as well. It’s just so lovely to hear the feedback from the people that we know. Again, coming back to that thing of people listening to it and being like ‘wow, I was listening to this and I felt like this…’ that to me is the most important thing. We’ve also had this television soundtrack for Dope Girls come out at the same time, which has been a massive learning curve as well. It’s really nice to have both of those bodies of work come out together, so now that if someone does search for us, they can hear a big range of sound.”

NYX will be demonstrating their expansive collective talent at their upcoming headline show at London’s ICA on Friday 23rd May. It will be a celebration of their new album and I can’t wait to experience it.

To close our conversation, I ask Sian what advice she would give to artists who are considering releasing their music on their own label. True to form, she actively encourages people to connect with each other. “Just try to get out there and meet people,” she offers warmly. “Talk to people, connect with people, and see how you can collaborate and skill swap. It’s just finding people to help you, finding these relationships and keeping them going.”

Buy tickets for NYX’s London headline show at ICA on 23rd May here

Listen to NYX’s debut album here

Follow NYX on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, X & Facebook

Photo Credit: Joseph Lynn 

Kate Crudgington
kate_getinherears

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INTERVIEW: ALT BLK ERA

Battling their demons and bringing the noise, ALT BLK ERA’s debut album Rave Immortal is a tenacious blend of jagged electronics and racing beats designed to dissolve the pain of their past. Released last week via Earache Records, the record cements the genre-defying sister duo’s status as ones to watch in the alternative music world.

The last time we caught up with Nyrobi (20) and Chaya (17), it was 2023 and they were on the cusp of releasing their debut EP, Freak Show. The five tracks that formed it displayed their vivid personalities and antagonistic spirit – with Nyrobi’s vocals possessing a fiery ‘SOLAR’ energy and Chaya’s voice veering into more mystical ‘LUNAR’ realms. With Rave Immortal, ALT BLK ERA retain their heavy and undefinable sound, but they veer directly into rave territory to exorcise feelings of fear and inadequacy – providing a potent statement of self autonomy in the process.

“I think the concept of it…going from really human emotions – our struggles and our pain and our worries – and being able to transcend that and have it become larger than life, I just think that’s something quite important,” offers Nyrobi, when asked what she’s most proud of about ALT BLK ERA’s debut LP. “It’s important to feel like you can escape reality and that’s what the album does.”

Rave Immortal is largely inspired by Nyrobi coming to terms with living in chronic pain due to a disabling illness that she was diagnosed with during her teens in 2020. It was cathartic for the pair to write the record and to recognise how much they relied on each other as sisters during this time. Nyrobi has only recently been vocal about her experiences of disability online, so what was it that made her feel like she was able to speak out about it this on the record?

“Originally, I chose not to speak about it because I was afraid that people would say ‘don’t book her for this show, she’s disabled, she’s in pain and tired all the time’, or that people would think that we only got the MOBO nomination because it was a sympathy thing,” the vocalist reveals. “So now that we’ve played Download, we’ve played Glastonbury and we’ve headlined a stage at Reading & Leeds, it feels like we’ve done enough to prove that I can do anything that I want to do.”

This defiant spirit is something that has resonated with ALT BLK ERA’s fans. It was important to Nyrobi to use her voice and her platform with the band to highlight the resilience of the disabled community. “My disability doesn’t restrain me in other ways that people might think,” she shares. “My disability, it just came out of nowhere. The doctors are saying that it’s likely to just disappear one day too. Before I announced it, I’d be out and about in town and I’d have my stick or something and people would come up to me and ask if something had happened to my leg, and I’m like ‘oh my goodness, I don’t want to lie’ so now I feel really refreshed that it’s out in the open and I can be myself.

So, I just thought I can be honest on our debut album. I wanted to write about it and I wanted to be a voice in that community. We have so many disabled fans. Before I told anyone about it online, we had someone in a wheelchair come to our show in Manchester. I don’t know what compelled me to tell them [about my disability] but I told them and I thanked them for coming out, because I know how hard it is as a disabled person to leave the house. I just wanted to say that I really appreciated them coming to the show and I shared that with them. They didn’t know how special that was for me, they were probably like ‘why is she talking to me?’”

Nyrobi laughs with the last sentence. The support from both Chaya and the band’s fanbase has motivated her to push past her chronic pain and pursue her dreams of being an artist. We’ve seen this dream materialise in front of us too. We were blown away by ALT BLK ERA’s tenacious spirit when they played live for us at our Get In Her Ears gig night at The Shacklewell Arms in July 2023, supporting Straight Girl. Their riotous energy and powerful stage presence has since led to bookings at some of the UK’s biggest festivals, as well as playing for Radio 1 DJ Alyx Holcombe’s own live music night, MANTRA. Both girls express gratitude for these opportunities and are humbled by the community aspect of both Get In Her Ears and MANTRA.

“Alyx has been one of the few industry people that have supported us,” Nyrobi enthuses. “We’ve experienced so many gatekeepers and people telling us that we’re too young and we’re not ready, but she played ‘Mosh Girl Summer’ on Radio 1 in 2022, when we were 16 and 18 years old. She was supporting us from the first year of our music career. So to play her MANTRA night, we really wanted to make sure it was as big as possible. It was also just really good fun. The crowd was so good and the energy was perfect. You know when good people just bring other good people around them? It was just proper warm and fun without any strings attached.”

For Chaya, one of her favourite things about playing live is getting to perform Rave Immortal track ‘Catch Me If You Can’. “We’ve had that song unreleased for quite a while and I’m so happy we’re releasing it because it’s such a banger,” she enthuses. In terms of favourite tracks, Nyrobi notes that ‘I’m Normally Like This’ is still a big crowd-pleaser, but ‘My Drummer’s Girlfriend’ is a standout track for her because of the “opportunities” it’s given the band, which included a collaboration with American indie rock legends Wheatus.

Frontman Brendan B. Brown saw the girls play live at Download Festival back in 2024 and they connected via social media after they missed an opportunity to talk face-to-face backstage in the press tent. Back then, ALT BLK ERA hadn’t released ‘My Drummer’s Girlfriend’ as a single, but the girls sent it over to Brendan to see what he thought. Before they knew it, Wheatus were flying over from New York to work with the girls on a remix at Spotify Studios.

“Working with Wheatus has just been huge, we learned so much from them,” Nyrobi shares. “We were really honoured to have them travel so far to work with us on our song. They were so respectful. They were so caring and they gave us so much advice. They took it 10/10 seriously and they treated us with so much respect, it was almost surprising. We didn’t expect that. I feel like it’s quite rare to find people that are so genuine and full of love in the music industry, but they actually really cared. They weren’t gate-keeping or anything.”

This ethos of collaboration, equality and respect is something that translates both on and off stage for ALT BLK ERA. The lyrics to their songs center around celebrating your individuality both online and in real life, as they encourage their fans to express themselves in a safe space and speak up if they need support or help, particularly at gigs. ALT BLK ERA are currently on their own UK tour and they’ve set up a Discord channel to keep in contact with their fans. “People make friends in there,” Chaya shares. “We do ‘fit checks and everything, people show us what they’re going to be wearing to shows. We’ve got some ALT BLK ERA jacket patches happening as well!”

For Nyrobi, it’s incredibly important that ALT BLK ERA shows are safe spaces. “We just want to make it really clear that us and our whole team are on your side,” she shares. “We’re not standing for any foolishness. Even if I’m performing and someone looks uncomfortable and they’re trying to signal me, we’re gonna have to stop and find out what’s going on. Because one [bad] experience can really stop someone from going outside, going to gigs and being seen, you know?”

Fuelled by this determination, it looks like ALT BLK ERA are set to dominate more stages and gain even more momentum in 2025, and Nyrobi is keen to keep the ball rolling. “You’ll have to interview us before our second album and see where we are then!” she says – a statement we’ll happily hold both her and Chaya too.

Grab a physical copy of ALT BLK ERA’s debut album Rave Immortal here

ALT BLK ERA UK Tour Dates 2025
Jan 28: Oxford, Truck (In-Store)
Jan 29: Brighton, Resident (In-Store)
Jan 30: Kingston, PRYZM

15 Apr: Manchester, The Deaf Institute
16 Apr: Leeds, The Key Club
18 Apr: Sheffield, Corporation
20 Apr: Birmingham, The Flapper
21 Apr: Southampton, Heartbreakers
23 Apr: London, The Underworld

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Kate Crudgington
kate_getinherears

Photo Credit: Dean Chalkley

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INTERVIEW: Softcult

It was 2021 the last time that we caught up with Softcult‘s guitarist and vocalist Mercedes Arn-Horn. A lot has happened for Canadian twin sibling shoegaze duo since then. Together, Mercedes and Phoenix have released four EPs – Year Of The Rat (2021), Year Of The Snake (2022), See You In The Dark (2023) and Heaven (2024) – supported the likes of Muse, Movemements and Incubus on tour and they’ve played headline shows across the USA, Canada and the UK. They’re currently back in the UK and preparing to play to a nearly sold out crowd at The Underworld in Camden tonight (12th November), with support from dream pop four piece Bleach Lab (ticket link here)

Dressed in her Softcult trademark ‘Gloomy Girl’ hoodie, when we spoke with Mercedes via Zoom a few weeks ago, she was excited to be returning to England and ready to bring the swirling, heavy sounds of their recent EP to the stage for fans to enjoy live. We discussed the evolution in Softcult’s sound, the band’s plans for a full length album, and we also touched upon the importance of being open about mental health issues and practicing self-care…

It’s been a few months now since Softcult released the Heaven EP. what are you most proud of about this record?

It’s the last EP we’ll put out for a while, because we’re working on a full length album. With this one we tried to get a little more conceptual with it as a whole body of work. I think sonically and musically we pushed ourselves to go into some different directions and really lean into the more obscure parts of our sound. There’s definitely still bops and stuff on the EP, but we really tried to lean heavily into the shoegaze element and also lean heavily into the Riot Grrrl, punk element. I think we were pushing ourselves sonically to try new things and I’m happy with how it turned out.

What has the reaction to it been like from your fans?

If you listen from this EP to the first one, you can definitely hear how things have grown. So I really appreciate it when we hear that from our fans and the people that like our music. It’s nice when they recognise and can see the work and the musicianship that we’ve put into our newer stuff. It never feels like a jarring change from EP to EP musically, but it’s still evolving.

There’s definitely a heavier shoegaze quality to the tracks on Heaven, even in the way that the songs transition into each other. Was this intentional when you were writing it?

A lot of what you’re describing has to do with the fact that the first and second EPs were released those during lockdown, so we weren’t able to tour. Now, fast forward to the Heaven EP, we’re 4 EPs deep and we’ve got a lot of touring under our belts, so I think that we were able to play around with interludes live, that we don’t do on the record with our earlier works. It’s really cool to see how audiences react when you’re jamming on stage. It gets really mesmerizing, it’s almost hypnotising sometimes. With the song ‘Haunt You Still’, for example, that’s one of my favourite ones on the EP because we took the time to do a whole instrumental section that really builds and there’s no vocals until the end. I think we learned some of those tricks from being on the road and playing live.

Speaking of playing live, you’re going to be back in the UK in November playing a headline tour with Bleach Lab. What are your anticipations for these shows? 

We love the UK. I really feel like that’s where Softcult got our start, even though we’re Canadian, our first ever tour was in the UK and I felt so much support from the fanbase and the music scene there. I feel really lucky that we get to be a part of it in some way. It’s one of the best scenes globally, in my opinion. I love it. Especially coming over at this time of the year when things are really gloomy and gothy, it’s such a vibe.

I’ve been a fan of Bleach Lab for a really long time. They’re putting out new music too so it just feels like a good time for us to come together and share the stage. I am really excited to play these new songs live. This particular set that we’ve been working on, we’ve had the chance to play on other tours, it’s probably the last tour that we’re gonna do with this particular live set. I’m really happy with the way it flows, there’s a lot of live interludes and extended parts of songs. Songs that kind of flow one into the other in a really intentional way. I’m excited to bring it to the UK.

As well as your own EP this year, you released a collaborative track with Bristol-based heavy band Split Chain titled ‘(Re)-Extract’. Tell me more about that. It’s such a HUGE sound that you’ve both created together.

It just worked out so well. The song gives me Deftones and Nirvana vibes. We were honoured to be asked to do it. I love collaborating with people when I can hear that there’s something we could add to the track. We just tried to add really spooky vocals, I was definitely trying to live my Amy Lee fantasy on that one for sure. I’m glad that we got to be part of the visual too. Who knows, one day maybe we’ll be able to go on tour with them.

It has that Southern California nu-metal sound, but I will say though, as someone who isn’t from the UK, but who is obsessed with UK music, the UK just has something in the sound that is different from anywhere else. I hear it in Split Chain’s sound. There’s just this nuanced intelligence about the music in the UK. There’s something about it that’s really compelling.

As well as playing live, another way that you interact with your fans is through your zine called SCripture. In the most recent edition, you penned a really compelling personal essay about mental health and the impact of stress on the body. Can you tell us more about what inspired you to share this story with your fans?

The SCripture zine is definitely all about fostering a community around social issues, political issues, and now I think it’s a good time to talk about mental health too. That was the reason we started the zine. We like to tie topics of the zine together with songs that we’ve written and that’s what inspired me to write that particular zine issue. Some of our songs, ‘Spiralling Out’ for example, in retrospect, when I hear that song, I’m recognising more what it’s about now than I did at the time when I wrote it. Then when I was thinking about it, I was like “this is definitely something more people should be talking about” in general. Get more awareness of it and more educated on it too. I do think knowledge is power. You feel less afraid when you’re not ignorant to certain situations.

When we are open about those things it takes away the taboo about talking about mental health and especially talking about women’s health in general. It was a real eye opener for me how stress manifests in so many different ways physically in the body. It’s kind of something I’m a little embarrassed to say I didn’t really know how much of an impact stress can have on you on a physical level until recently, and I think that’s because I was ignoring it for a very long time. So, I think the best thing that you can do is really own it and be transparent about it with people, and you’ll see how many other people have had similar experiences and gotten through it.

That’s the reason why I wanted to be very candid about it in that particular zine. Because when I started opening up to my female friends about what I was going through, I was shocked at how many other women had very similar experiences. It did make me feel less alone and less afraid in that situation. Also, I think a lot of the time when you acknowledge those things, it helps your mind process what’s going on and that helps your body too, so there’s a lot of reasons to talk about it.

Women’s health, our bodies and in our minds, it’s all so tied together. I think a lot of the time Women’s health can be something that’s swept under the rug. It’s very reductive and I am aware of that through not only my experience, but other women in my life who have had to deal with stuff. You end up having to do a lot of your own research and you’re lucky if a doctor is in tune with that and sensitive to those things. With my particular issues, I never thought it was stress, but it definitely was. So dealing with that helped me on the physical side of things too. But my mind was going in a completely different directions and that definitely doesn’t help.

Being a touring musician can also bring its own unique set of stresses and mental and physical health challenges. What advice would you give to other musicians who might be struggling?

For me, I know that my thing is I don’t know when to slow down. That feels like something really difficult to do on tour. But some good advice that I got was just do one thing for yourself everyday that has no other motive, other than it’s just something that you want to do. So on tour for me, that could be going for a walk, getting a coffee, taking a nice long shower at the end of the day. Those are things that seem very luxurious or frivolous, but if you deny yourself these things that centre you and ground you, after a while you’re gonna notice that the stress just keeps building up and the anxiety builds up and there’s no outlet for it. Luckily for me, being on stage and performing is an outlet for me. Being on tour, while certain parts of it can be stressful, the good news is at least once a day you do have that cathartic moment where you can let things out. Strangely I don’t feel that stressed on tour. I think I get more stressed out when I’m at home.

I think everyone’s different, and different things stress you out in different ways, but for me, I love having creative outlets like writing music, performing music, writing the zine – those are all really good outlets for me. So I’d say take time for yourself, even if it’s just a couple of minutes a day to ground yourself and do something that brings you peace and makes you feel calm. You’re doing it just for yourself. It sounds small, but it does have a very big impact.

It can be difficult to ask for that space can’t it? Sometimes it can be perceived in a negative way, like you’re being “difficult”…

Not so much now, because we’re evolving as a society and as a scene, but there have been so many times when you’re made to feel like you’re being a diva if you need to set a boundary as a female artist. People can be so ignorant about that. I often see my male counterparts setting very similar boundaries with people – even with fans for example – if you feel like someone is taking up a lot of your space and making you feel uncomfortable – I feel like the second you say that as a woman, it’s suddenly like “oh she’s a diva” and you just don’t see that same kind of energy with our male counterparts. My advice to female artists out there would be don’t listen to that noise. Just stand your ground, do what’s right for you. You don’t owe anyone anything, but you owe yourself everything.

This will be your last tour for a while, as you’re in the process of recording your debut album. What can you tell us about the record?

We’re in the middle of recording it right now and we’re about half way done. We’re going to finish it before the end of the year and then release it next year. It’s really exciting. We just got our concept figured out and we chose a title and a rough track-listing in the past two weeks. It’s cool because we’ve been releasing EPs for the entire life of this band, but now we finally get to do a full length album. In some ways I love just putting out singles and having a way shorter timeline between releases so that you can keep creating. But in other ways, I do really love the idea of this body of work that’s just a whole concept, a whole era of music that’s laid out and a story that’s being told, and an opportunity to really world-build with the band. That’s the mindset we’re going into with this. Taking our time and really doing it right, since it’s our first actual full length. We’re really trying to sink our teeth into the creative aspect of things. I’m really excited about it because it is coming together. It’s almost like a blurry photo coming into focus and I can finally see what the photo is.

Thanks to Mercedes for taking the time to speak with us!

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Photo Credit: Kaylene Widdoes

Kate Crudgington
@kate_crudge

Kate CrudgingtonLeave a comment