Self-described as ‘miserable hardcore for the socially maligned’, Manchester based 90’s style hardcore band (think Econochrist, Leatherface) SPILLAGE are releasing their debut EP this July via Prejudice Me Records, Pumpkin’ Records, Brassneck Records, Nothing To Harvest Records, No Time Records, and today we’re stoked to give you their newest track called “Morning Song”, along with the band’s first hand commentary about their work, local music scene, Covid-19’s impact on music and arts community, as well as special ‘help list’, featuring help organizations operating to help those, who are struggling, for various reasons.
“𝐿𝑦𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑, 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑚, ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, (𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ) 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑘 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑓𝑓.”
Whilst this is my first band, the other members have also played (or are continuing to play) in Better Reality, Black Star Dub Collective, War Party, Tout Suite, Dead Subverts and tons more. The record will be available on both black and clear/smoky 7” vinyl through us, Pumpkin Records, Prejudice Me, Brassneck Records (all based in the UK), Nothing To Harvest Records (Greece) and No Time Records (US). We recorded it in September last year at Worsethanbad Studio in Bristol and mastered at MOA Mastering in Bulgaria.
We are Bo, Dom, Fran and Tom and we all live in Manchester, UK. We started when Tom’s old two-piece band Tout Suite broke up because the drummer (our friend Adam) moved out of the country. He wanted to start a more melodic sounding band, like Leatherface or Dag Nasty. He quickly recruited Dom on bass, the two of them having been in hardcore band War Party. Bo joined on drums because he was wanting to play punk again after Dead Subverts and Black Star Dub Collective had split up for a while.
Tom then asked Fran on vocals to join when he was really drunk at Adam’s leaving party, but as he’d never been in a band before Fran said he’d think about it. Three or four days later at a gig Fran agreed to join, but Tom had completely forgotten the asking him. It all worked out for the best though.
We had our first practice in September 2018 but wanted to get our shit together properly before playing any gigs. Our first gig was July 2019 opening at the Pumpkin Levy Punk Weekender here in Manchester, a festival Bo is involved in.
As for other projects, we all try to be pretty active within the scene, Bo co-runs Pumpkin Records and has been in tons of bands like Dead Subverts, Blackstar Dub Collective and The Something Somethings, Tom co-runs Lovely Hens Promotions and also plays in Better Reality, Fran co-runs Prejudice Me with his wife and Dom has recently started his own label/distro and has started putting on gigs by the name of Mosh Team Promotions (although his first night was scuppered by recent events!).
Continued below…
The 7” was recorded by our friend Ian (Worsethanbad Studio, guitarist in Atterkop) in Bristol the day after we played Never Fall Into Silence Fest and mastered by our other Friend Matt (MOA studio/Pumpkin Records). We like to think that the lyrics reflect our personal struggles in 21st century UK, as well as our frustrations at the state of our government.
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑦𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑥𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦, 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑒𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠, 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑/𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑏𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑒.
The reality of it all is stark in comparison with the narratives projected (people committing suicide, survival sex, homelessness, domestic abuse and all pretty grim subject matters).
Manchester punk scene
For some reason Manchester has always had a reputation for having a really rubbish punk scene, but this definitely isn’t the case right now! A lot of really good bands, labels distros and promoters are active right now. It may be because we don’t really have a dedicated ‘punk/hardcore’ venue like a lot of other UK cities but we have lots of awesome venues like the Peer Hat (w hich is like our local pub too because it’s right underneath our practice space), Fuel Café Bar in Withington, The Eagle Inn in Salford, The Klondyke Club in Levenshulme The Old Abbey in Hulme and loads more!
There are so many good bands too, such as Fatalist, Mother Banshee, Gurnal Gadafi, Bruise Control, Crywank, Follow Your Dreams, Red Mask (formerly Salvo), Vitriolic Response, Glarus, Terror Claws and Tom’s other band Better Reality. Definitely worth checking them all out!
Covid-19 pandemic
This whole thing just seemed to come out of nowhere and lockdown, although we could see it coming, has restricted everything so much that we can’t function as a normal band anymore. It’s quite strange because obviously all gigs and festivals have been cancelled, so all live venues (especially the DIY ones) are really struggling financially. On the flip-side physical record sales are really increasing as more people are staying at home and listening to music instead!
The whole situation is awful, this virus is impacting on the most vulnerable people in more ways than just health.
𝐷𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑚, ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑.
Because we want to make sure everyone is safe and we sing about some pretty horrible stuff, so we’d like to list some help for people who are struggling. Please note that these are UK resources:
- UK Domestic Violence Helpline – 0808 2000 247
- Mental Health Crisis Team – Check local services or call 111 in the UK (999 if you are actively suicidal)
- Acorn Tenants Union
- Rape Crisis
- Drugs and alcohol advice (or local needle exchange information)
Future plans
Obviously most of our plans are on hold at the minute. We were due to play 0161 Festival at the start of May (Manchester’s antifascist festival) but that had to be cancelled, which we were all gutted about. However, we’re trying to be creative under UK lockdown and continue to write songs. We’re hoping to record a new demo soon and hopefully this will evolve into a new record. The only gig we have definitely locked in is our friend Iain’s Join or Die DIY Promotions 2nd Birthday Bash in November. We’re all super eager not to just start playing gigs, but just to start practicing again!
More bands worth a check
Loads! Apart from the local ones mentioned above, check out Poisonous Cunt, Stray Bullet, 20 Liter Yoghurt, This End Here, Atterkop, Falaun, Gay Panic Defence, Lentil Institute, Overwhelmed.
