Suffolk three-piece the Winonas — James on guitar and vocals, Kate on bass and vocals, Paul on drums and vocals — dropped their second record “Dead Romantic” on Valentine’s Day. Ten tracks, self-recorded, self-mixed, self-mastered. Eighteen months after their debut “Glass Skin,” the band from Bury St Edmunds is doing things the way they want, on their own terms, from James’s spare room.
The album was supposed to happen differently. The original idea was to put out a song a month through 2025. They managed four before pulling the plug. “We found that we were chasing our tails a bit too much,” James explains.
“We didn’t want the quality of our music to diminish just to rush out a new song every 4 weeks.” After April, they stepped away for a few months and picked it back up in September.
The DIY thing here is the actual production method. Drums had to be tracked in a studio because, as James puts it, they simply don’t have the facilities at home for that. Everything else — vocals, bass, guitar, whatever else ended up on the record — was laid down in James’s spare bedroom. Paul handled mixing and mastering at his place or, somewhat brilliantly, during his lunch breaks at work. Kate did all the artwork and design.
Songwriting works through a simple relay system. James writes and records demos, brings them to practice, and the band collectively shapes them into finished songs. No outside hands involved.
“Dead Romantic” stretches wider than “Glass Skin” did. There are acoustic songs, dance-leaning tracks, guest vocalists. James acknowledges the reactions: “So many people have been surprised by songs such as ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘The Mirror’ as not being ‘our sound.'” His position on it is pretty clear. “If we think the song will work as a Winonas song then we will do our best to get that song out into the world despite expectations.”
Several tracks from the album have already landed on radio stations internationally. The plan for the rest of the year is straightforward — play as many shows around the country as they can, plus radio appearances and podcast sessions, many of which are already lined up.
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But the Winonas aren’t just a band. James also runs Punks Dead Promotions, which started with monthly shows at Hank’s Vegan Restaurant in Ipswich and has since expanded across East Anglia.
Quite similar to IDIOTEQ (ha ha), their model is simple and unprofitable — for James, at least. “I put on shows where I don’t take any money for it at all. The venue charges for entry and I allow them to keep the money to support the venue.” He makes sure every band on the bill knows the deal. “Everyone understands that without the venues we won’t have anywhere left to perform. All of the bands are just happy to play to an audience hungry for new and exciting music.”
It’s a lot of organizing and promoting for zero personal return, but James sees it as his way of keeping local music alive. He also points to a broader shift working in his favor. “The increased cost of tickets for bigger bands and festivals these days has helped push people towards local music scenes. There seems to be a continued growth in underground music and that has benefitted the bands a lot.”
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Currently, Punks Dead has seven shows booked for the year. The lineup includes a gig in Ipswich featuring an American punk band from Boston mid-tour, a show in Bury St Edmunds, two in Cambridge — one an all-day event to raise funds for the Six Six Bar, the other in support of Love Music Hate Racism, a cause James got more involved with after the Winonas played one of their events last year.
There’s also an all-day show in Colchester at the Three Wise Monkeys, plus a couple of smaller evening gigs at another venue in town.
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Running the shows means the Winonas can slot themselves onto bills when it makes sense. “It makes for a more fun evening for me,” James says, which is about as honest a reason as any.
The network keeps growing. Bands from Brighton, Oxford, Hastings, London, Northampton, and now the US have traveled to play Punks Dead events. The payoff goes both ways — bands they’ve hosted have invited the Winonas and others to come play their own towns.
“It’s a strange thing putting something personal out to the world especially when you have no idea how that will be received,” James says of the new record. “At the very least, every time someone takes the time, it means a lot to us.”
A spare bedroom, some lunch breaks, and a network of venues held together by people who’d rather play than profit. That’s the whole operation.
