A quick chat about Still Here by Brutalligators

Paul Wade and Luke Murphy interviewed by Lily Rae

Hello Brutalligators! How are you doing?

Luke: Life is relentless, isn’t it…

Paul: Living the dream…but at what cost?

First off, congratulations on a fucking banging album. Tell me a bit about what inspired the new songs. What were you listening to? What were you reading or watching that got you here?

L: To be honest, it’s pretty hard to answer this because we wrote this album over so many goddamn years. We ended up making a Spoitfy playlist of all the tracks that have inspired, just so we can keep track! I know for me, I got into an extremely deep Future Teens and Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties hole. But then, bits of Bartees Strange, Sly Withers, and even some Knocked Loose crept in there too. And of course, you can’t forget the persistent influence of Los Campesinos!. I read The Universe Replied: An Oral History of Romance Is Boring, about 18 months ago, and goddamn that band is damn near perfect.

P: I loved the book Sellout by Dan Ozzi so many perfect and wild band stories in there. Id say some of the bands that have inspired me in different ways over the last few years are Wild Pink, Mewithoutyou, The Talking Heads, Sinai Vessel, Deftones, Fucked up, Los Campesinos!, Advance Base, Chat Pile, Mannequin Pussy to name a few. But in terms of this record specifically I’ve always thought we are at our best live when the songs are direct and so I wanted the new songs to have an urgency to them when we were writing them. 

It's a marked mood change from This House Is Too Big, This House Is Too Small - maybe more confrontational in places. Are you in different places for this album? Has it changed how you look at the previous album?

L: Well, the last album was such a specific, wallowing place. We came into this really wanting to do something grounded in acceptance. At the same time, there’s still so much questioning going on in our lives that I know a lot of that crept in there too. I do think this one feels more grown up, and less like a whiny emo kid trying to deal with divorce…

P: Im really proud of what we did with THITBTHITS but we still wanted this record to sound and feel different. Id say that whatever is going on in your life is always going to creep in to whatever kind of art you are making. That’s why acceptance felt like the right theme for the record. Accepting who you are, finding acceptance it others, and accepting the things you can and can’t change 

My standout tracks so far are Hold Fast (The Goo Goo Dolls would be proud), Can't Sleep and Safe Haven. Does each of you have a favourite song on this record? 

L: Hands down ‘Nice Try’. That one is a song I’m so proud of. Not only does it sound quite different to anything we’ve done in the past, but lyrically I felt like it was a perfect snapshot of the relationship between Paul and I. Paul gave me the lyric ‘Last year was the worst of my life, but at least I didn’t die. Fuck you, nice try’ and I built something around that. I think Paul is the best lyric writer in the band. I just come in and fuck shit up afterwards.

P: I think probably Wrong Words because it was the last song we wrote for the record and it kind of came out of nowhere. I’d borrowed a resonator guitar from my sister in law and i was messing around on it trying to write the kind of indie rock track that you could imagine being played on college radio in the 90’s. And the main riff came pretty quickly and i sent it over to Luke and I can always tell from their initial reaction whether its gonna be a goer or not and they were gagging for it. Its definitely a bit death cabby but in a way that pleases me a lot. 

I love how you build stories out of little snapshots, whether it's a pair of shoes by the door or the sticky floor of an indie disco. Do you base a lot of lyrics on real things that have happened? 

L: 80% of what I write is lifted straight from real life. I really suck at creating fictional narratives (although artistic licence is definitely strong in most of my shit). But I’m such a big fan of bands who can ground lyrics in moments (like Fightmilk with your ‘a dog bit me on the arse’ song 😅). Fun fact, the sticky floor of an indie disco was my short-lived queer indie disco, Darkest Timeline Disco.

P: I think songwriting about fictional people and stories is a real skill and one that we have yet to master. I just fill up my notes app with one-liners or parts of lyrics as they come to me, and then pull out the good ones when we start writing.  

Drummer Rhys Kirkman played a huge part in recording, producing and mixing this record. How was this different to recording at, say, Bookhouse? Are there any band dynamics that come into play around what you all want it to sound like?

L: Aside from the four-day process of Paul finding the right tone for his guitar? P: My guitar is a tone freak and she gets what she wants L: I think we all loved recording with Tom at Bookhouse (and Rich Mandell as well), but there’s something special about recording with Rhys. Especially when I was recording vocals, there was utter trust there, which made it so easy. I didn’t have to second guess anything when he was like “nah, do it again” because we both knew it wasn’t the best take I could do. Everything was so smooth and easy.

P: Rhys knows more about all of our instruments than we do, his instincts are almost always spot on and he really cares about getting it right. And he really smashed it with this record. Basically, Rhys is band daddy, and we are all safe in his strong, loving arms. But in terms of what we wanted it to sound like the benefit of recording songs in blocks of two over a few years meant that we approached each song separately.

That was the big difference from the first record where we wanted it to have a unified sound and feel to it but with this one we just let the songs be what they needed to be and didn’t try to over think it. It also meant we could sit with them and then go in and make changes without the pressure of expensive studio time. 

Congrats also on your first release with Fika! How have you found working with Tom to put this record out?

L: I’ve been such a huge fan of Fika since my days of being an indie-pop aficionado, so it feels pretty awesome to be releasing an album with him (despite being the heaviest thing he’ll ever release). He’s such a calm, collected dude. Nothing phases him. But to be on the same label as adults, Sunturns, Little Hands of Asphalt and Fightmilk? It’s a goddamn dream.

I'm a big big fan of your artwork and videos. Have you gone for a specific theme for this album? And is poor Simo OK having gone through so much abuse for the Train Wreck video? L: Simo deserved everything they got. 

P: I think we could have and maybe should have gone harder. 

L: We kind of fell into everything from an artwork point of view. We had grand plans of doing an insane photoshoot that never came together (organising getting four busy middle aged emos together is impossible). Paul has a schtick of lying facedown on the ground for photos, and I thought that would work beautifully for that feeling of being done with everything, but also kind of accepting stuff going on around you. The fact that Margot (Pauls cat) walked into a shot just made it perfect.

P: I very deliberately let the grass grow in my garden for months and months so we could achieve the shot and it was not because of lazyness ok! The idea for the video was pretty simple, what if you let out all your train wreck base instincts for a day and what chaos would ensue. Then when I found out a theatre company in Chesunt was selling an alligator suit it all fell into place beautifully. 

Luke and Paul, you're DIY stalwarts by this point - you're doing so much to encourage and promote DIY bands through podcasting, clubnights, promotions, vinyl subscriptions, and others. People coming to DIY punk for the first time might not see the amount of work that goes into it. How would you explain the world of DIY to a new Bruts fan?

L: It’s my lifeblood. Seriously, this scene has saved me multiple times over. I really didn’t know who I was before I met Paul and discovered this little corner of the scene. It’s helped me discover who I am and be utterly comfortable in it, because everyone in the DIY community is so welcoming. I also love that the DIY community in the UK is so varied. You can have indie bands like Fightmilk or flinch alongside screamo/hardcore bands like Every Face Becomes a Skull and Death Goals alongside weird art-punk projects like Comic Sans. As long as you’re a nice person, you’re welcome.

P: We’ve all been in bands before but none of us have experienced being part of such a unifying and positive scene like this previously. None of us are getting rich from this (although most of the bands we play with deserve to be the biggest band in the world!) so the friendships we make and experiences we have are what we get out of it and it makes it worth it. Because ultimately if it wasn’t for the people that put on shows, take photos, start labels, make zines, design posters, produce podcasts, create a discord etc etc for no money then there wouldn’t be a scene. It’s all there because people love it and value it so much. So go start a band. 

You guys are awesome live. What's a song you listen to to get hyped up before a show? (You can say one of your own, but everyone will look at you funny). 

L: Pete Faint’s Vocal Warm Ups. 

P: We like to take it to the Matthews Bridge to get hyped. 

L: I’m currently petitioning for Area Codes by Ludacris as our hype up/walk on song.

Every single song title on Still Here is two words. What's your favourite non-Brutalligators song title made up of two words?

L: 5 Flucloxacillin by Los Camps

P: Im going to have to say my current favourite because otherwise this question will consume me and i’ll spend a week thinking about it. Demon Time By Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo

If Still Here was a physical feat, ie peeling an orange in one piece or kicking a car door off its hinges, what would it be?

L: Missing someone’s set because you’re outside smoking

P: Mowing the lawn so you can see the daisies 

How can we Brutalligators fans support you??

L: BY BUYING THE ALBUM (oh wait, everyone who’s reading this has a copy). By coming to a show! Or just coming up to us at a show and giving us a cuddle.

P: You should definitely come to our annual yuletide extravaganza known as Brutallixmas on Dec 19th at the Victoria London. We are lucky enough to play in the most positive and supportive scene with so many amazing DIY bands so come to a show and see it for yourself.