** Plus ** Counterfeit, Poppy, Chastity Belt, Press Club, Proper, Twenty One Pilots, Nervus, Petrol Girls + loads more
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October 2019 upsetmagazine.com
The Faim Of Mice & Men The Menzingers
“The perfect soundtrack with which to meet the apocalypse” KERRANG - KKKK
“Black Futures could do for British rock music what Daft Punk did for French EDM in the Nineties” THE INDEPENDENT
“Arguably the debut album of the year already” CLASSIC ROCK - 9/10
“Black Futures embrace sonic anarchy on their full-length debut” METAL HAMMER - 8/10
OCTOBER 2019 Issue 48
HELLO. What can you say about blink-182 that hasn’t already been said a million times before? Legendary doesn’t even come close to describing a band who have been a staple of the scene longer than many of you reading this have been alive, and yet still they’ve never lost their spark. Even with a reshuffled line-up, there’s still magic running through their veins, so we’re obviously cockand-indeed-ahoop to welcome them to the cover of Upset for the first time this month. That’s two in a year, Mr Hoppus. You should probably take your own drawer for when you stay over. They’re not the only long term faves rolling up this month, though. There’s finally a debut album from The Faim, The Menzingers are back in predictably fine form, and Of Mice & Men have a fearsomely good record to tell us all about. Add to that all the fun of Reading 2019, and we’re in for a big one. Enjoy!
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Abigail Firth, Alex Bradley, Beth Casteel, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jake Hawkes, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Martyn Young, Paris Fawcett, Patrick Kinsella, Steven Loftin, Sam Taylor Snappers Beto Barkmo, Daniel Rojas, Frances Beach, Ian Laidlaw, Jamie MacMillan, Jess Flynn, Jonathan Weiner, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett P U B L I S H E D F RO M
RIOT 4. READING 2019 14. NERVUS 16. COUNTERFEIT 20. PETROL GIRLS ABOUT TO BREAK
32. THE FAIM 34. CHASTITY BELT 38. OF MICE & MEN 42. THE MENZINGERS 48. PRESS CLUB REVIEWS
FEATURES
50. BLINK-182 53. 65DAYSOFSTATIC TEENAGE KICKS
24. BLINK-182
54. SOEUR
22. PROPER
W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.
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THIS MONTH IN ROCK
Everything you need to know about Nervus’ new album. p.14
EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
Reading 2019
Reading Festival. One of the standout moments of the music calendar, it’s a melting pot of some of the best bands and most exciting artists. As you’d expect, we were there to capture all the fun. This is what went down... 4 Upset
Counterfeit are back, and they’re promising it gets better. p.16
What does Ren from Petrol Girls take on tour? Find out here. p. 20
Twenty One Pilots prove why they’re one of the biggest bands in the world During their headline set the previous night, The 1975 couldn’t have been more open, more welcoming, more in love with the occasion. Twenty One Pilots aren’t so certain. See, Twenty One Pilots don’t trust strangers. As underdogs and outsiders, they’ve built their clique with trust. Their Bandito Tour has already seen them lap the world once and was a marvel of surprise, storytelling and intimacy. Like ‘Trench’, it was for the people who found themselves in the music of TOP. Tonight though, The Biggest Cult Band On The Planet headline Reading Festival and it’s a brave new world for the group. Sure, they’ve done festivals before but they were always out to turn heads. At the top of the bill, all eyes are already on them. Reading isn’t so wild about newcomers either. As every light dies, Josh walks out, torch in hand, and asks the crowd to follow them. ‘Jumpsuit’ sees them coming out the gate with a snarl while ‘Heathens’ quivers and shakes, a toe-in-the-water to see how much pace the festival can handle. ‘The Hype’ sees Tyler finally crack a smile, betrayed by the camera lens and he’s off the stage for ‘Holding On To You’, using his friends in the front row to lift him up to get a closer look at what’s out there. He must like what he sees. A snippet of P. Diddy’s ‘Bad Boy For Life’ sees them declare, “We ain’t going nowhere, we can’t be stopped now.” Threat or promise, that’s left undecided. From here on out, Twenty One Pilots start to play. ‘Stressed Out’ is delivered with the same urgency and excitement that helped it define a generation. “We have such a deep respect for your festival culture over here. It really means a lot to us for you to let us be a part of that,” starts Tyler. “So this next one I dedicate to you as a thank you note,” he continues before a heartfelt and surprisingly beautiful cover of Oasis’ ‘Don’t
Look Back In Anger’. Those who live every lyric of Twenty One Pilots and those who think they recognise that one from the radio suddenly have a common ground. Singing together, they’re all friends now. Now the fun can really begin. “How’s my hair? My wife trimmed it right before I came onstage. She did a good job, it’s looking fresh, right?” Tyler asks with a smirk, a subtle dedication to the person who inspired the heartburst of ‘My Blood’ before things open up further. Twenty One Pilots want to see dancing, so they get security guards in the front row to show the festival their moves. Turns out dad dancing is always funny and good at removing inhibitions. “This is your festival. This is your show. You can do whatever you want,” starts Tyler. It’s a promise that continues through the lion’s pride anthem of ‘Cut My Lip’, the clique proudly displayed on the huge video screens before a track by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike lets the whole place get goofy with a hopping, primary school dance routine. Tyler and Josh are pop stars who shine in the spotlight, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be silly with it. As ‘Trees’ brings things to a close, Josh and Tyler are once again on the crowd as confetti rains down and fireworks light up the joy. Scrambling back to the stage as the festival carries the refrain, the pair can’t quite believe it. Even from the back, you can see the loss for words. Friends or strangers, it doesn’t matter how things started. “We’re Twenty One Pilots. And so are you,” Tyler manages. Right on cue, another sky full of fireworks takes off, shifting the spotlight but there’s no hiding anymore. They’re one of us, and Reading belongs to them. P
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Jamie Campbell Bower is a man of many talents. He acts, models, writes but, of course, he’s also the frontman for rock outfit Counterfeit. When they first appeared in 2015, and with debut album ‘Together We Are Stronger’, they held a wave of anger; clothed in leather jackets, tight haircuts and scowls that burned. This time around, Jamie and the rest of the band have decided that enough is enough. “I’m excited to begin a new chapter of the band, and of my growth as a person,” he says excitedly. “I think by the end of the last
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Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Patrick Gunning.
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M n O t I B lam e Wo rds : Ali Sh utl er. ine r. jas , Jo na tha n We Ph oto s: Da nie l Ro
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My Y o u t h
blink-182 have spent a big chunk of 2019 touring to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 1999’s ‘Enema Of The State’. An instant and enduring classic, it was the first of three albums that took the band from Warped Tour pop-punk heroes to one of the biggest bands in the world. “’Enema’ is an album that we’re proud of and it really did stand the test of time,” starts Travis Barker. It was the first blink record he drummed on, and at the time, he had no idea he’d be in the band for the long haul. “I was poor, I was sleeping on people’s couches. I have a friend who’s always said, ‘man, I just want to be a rock star, and I want to play in front of millions of people’. Can I share something with you? My only goal in playing music was to somehow find a way to play my drums and still make enough money to eat and have somewhere to sleep.” “It’s an absolute joy to play that album front to back,” continues Mark Hoppus. “Looking back on it twenty years later, there’s nothing that I would change about it. I still think that every song on there is a banger.” Six days after the final show of the run, they’re releasing their new album ‘Nine’. Anyone expecting nostalgia needs to look elsewhere though. Sure, the band are proud of their legacy, but they’ve still got plenty left to say. The best way to honour their story so far is to carry on as fearlessly as they’ve always done. “When Tom [DeLonge] left the second time, Travis and I had a conversation because we could very easily ride off into the sunset and play greatest hits sets into infinity, but that’s not what we wanna do,” Mark continues. blink could spend the next few years continuing to do anniversary tours for ‘Enema’ followed by 2001’s ‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’ and 2003’s ‘Self-
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“WE’RE COMING INTO OUR OWN” Words: Patrick Kinsella. Photos: Beto Barkmo.
Seattle quartet Chastity Belt ended their last tour abruptly, a flurry of shows cancelled as lead singer Julia Shapiro decamped for her friend Kate’s house in Asheville, unsure whether she’d continue with music. “Yeah, it was about that. Should I quit music? Why am I doing this? But also, like, what else could I do?” While Shapiro openly admits that she’s always questioning, always ruminating, this particular stream of thought came from disillusionment with how music had changed for her and her band. “When we first started, it was so different from what we’re doing now; it was a lot more pure. Now it has all these other things attached to it, it’s more business-y than creative, so much emailing! And that takes up more time than actual songwriting and making music, so that’s kind of un-fun. It’s because we’ve gotten bigger and added more people to our team. Essentially it feels like we’re running a small business, which we are. A lot of people think we’re just fucking around and I’m like, ‘you don’t understand’. Some days I’m like, ‘what have I actually done today?’ and then I realise, I was emailing for hours.” It was only a few months, yet in their nine years together it’s the longest time they’d ever been apart. When they did get back together, they slipped back into groove remarkably quickly, square pegs, square holes. “We wrote four songs very quickly
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HOW TO 38 Upset
SURVIVE Words: Beth Casteel.
It’s been a decade since Orange County outfit Of Mice & Men became a beloved staple in the alt-metal community. Since their initial introduction into the scene, they’ve proven themselves to be a mainstay, despite adversities that
would eventually come their way during their storied career as a band. Plagued with line-up changes, they’ve held strong, and following the departure of frontman Austin Carlile in 2016 released their fifth album with bassist Aaron Pauley stepping
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Farewell
YOUTH
It’s a little after midday in Cincinnati, Ohio, and The Menzingers’ Greg Barnett thoughtfully explains down the phone line: “I lived here for the first three years of my life, but I don’t really remember it. It’s surreal coming back here to a place you have a connection to but don’t have a connection to. “I walk around hoping to feel something special, but I’m like, ‘Nah, this is just like anywhere else’,” and it sounds like a Menzingers song that hasn’t yet been written. The band are playing in Cincinnati as part of their summer US tour as they continue the relentless schedule that has taken them around the world following the release of ‘After The Party’ two and a half years ago. That album, the band’s fifth studio offering, took The Menzingers to new heights with the all-too-real struggle of punks trying to age with dignity to the soundtrack of some of their catchiest, well polished, tunes to date. That album casts a big shadow as a defining moment in the life of The Menzingers and Greg is first to admit they weren’t sure where they were going to go next. But ‘Hello Exile’ has them holding a mirror to themselves and looking deeper than ever before. Wrestling with the stinging heartbreak of ‘Strangers Forever’, lamenting political upheaval in ‘America (You’re Freaking Me Out)’ or describing
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Words: Alex Bradley. Photos: Jess Flynn.
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