Firstly huge well done on the album, I’ve been listening to it a lot it’s really good – I’m interested to know what the visual influences behind it were?

So I wanted to make something that harks back to old school, Playboy, like Penthouse film magazines, all like a kind of lens that’s looking at women as objects, and take this idea of objectification and repurpose it for women and for the female gaze, so I made all the artwork with these beautiful women but made it more about them being the villains or the protagonists or empowered, and that for me feels really fun and liberating.

I love it, the Believer video was really cool – where was that filmed?

In the Tabernas desert in the south of Spain, it’s basically this place that is like a Spaghetti Western town where they shot all the Spaghetti Westerns in the 60s so they have all of the sets from all of the old cowboy movies, and you can basically just go there as a punter and buy tickets to the theme parks, whereas we just turned up with a camera and just started filming

So this is your first album since 2018, did you record it during the lockdown?

We actually finished recording it in January 2020 and got it mixed in February or March, so we landed it on the absolute end before lockdown, so glad because, god, I think it would have really reframed the tone of what we made, because we got to all be together and it was really fun, some of my last memories before lockdown is just us like having a massive laugh and dicking about and that just feels quite special, just all really fun memories we have of that time

And was this before your new drummer Alex joined?

So basically he joined technically in October, we started rehearsing with him in October 2019, we didn’t announce that we were getting a new drummer or that Tom was leaving until the Of Monsters And Men tour that we did in the middle of the album, so he joined and then Tom did the tour and Tom did the drums on the record, and then Alex came into the studio whilst we were making the record so we had like two drummers with us, so Alex is on the record but not on all the drum tracks

Okay sick, so you’ve announced your headline tour as well, you must be really excited to get back to playing finally?

Yeah I mean it doesn’t feel real yet, but maybe when we’re back in the studio rehearsing and listening to ourselves I think then I’ll be like yeah this is real

Which tracks are you most excited to do live?

I think I Like The Way You Die and Disinfect will be a good mosh, like I think I’m gonna cry the first time I see a moshpit

Any festivals this year?

We have got some pencilled in but we’re tight-lipped on announcing yet, but hopefully, we can dream!

So Why Generation? is a DIY print magazine, as an independent artist how important are these outlets?

It’s weird cause I grew up in a time where the physical format was the way that you consumed like I was on the edge of MP3 and iTunes, but even still zines fully lived, I literally bought copies of the NME until I was like in my 20s, and now it’s almost like the highest way you can regard someone’s work is buying it in physical so if you have the opportunity to support art in terms of print media then you should. And I think if you have a nice cup of coffee and sit down with some paper it’s really great

It’s so great and authentic, which kind of leads me on to my next question. I wanted to ask about the vinyl, I know you’ve worked with Craig Evans (Flying Vinyl + Blood Records), the new record he’s made for you is so cool; what was the process like getting that all together?

To be honest working with Craig is so easy cause he’s just like a ninja at doing stuff, I literally told him ‘yes,’ he suggested doing the zoetrope with photos, I was unsure, so then we pitched the idea to the zoetrope designer who smashed it. We did two different tweaks on the first design which was just like ‘put two of these colours in, space it out a bit’ and that was all we had to do, and it was amazing. The pictures are stills from the Run For Cover video, but basically, there’s a stripe we use on all of the album aesthetic, you know that kind of like 70s rainbow, so we added that in but Craig separated it between each of the visuals and also added the logos in different places

I love that because you’ve been working with Flying Vinyl for a while haven’t you

So I don’t work for them anymore, I used to be their Creative Director for three years, but Craig and I still work on a lot of stuff together he’s a really good mate of mine

Let’s talk about the lyrics to the album; any specific themes or influences?

Well, I definitely wanted it to be an honest portrait of the experience of a woman that was uncensored, and I also wanted it to have a feeling of empowerment and I think I did that on the song Fire where I was quite literal. Just the kind of shit all women have been saying on the internet or whatever for years, so yeah Fire is the most literal one where I feel like some of the others are quite introspective and more detailed. I’m not very good at making generalisations so weirdly feel quite proud of some of the ones that are broader.