Loose Articles have been on quite a journey over the last twelve months.
From sweaty gigs at Manchester’s Peer Hat boozer, all the way to opening for Foo Fighters and a debut record. The four-piece are a perfect snapshot of modern punk: anti-capitalist, feminist and queer, Loose Articles first studio LP, Scream if You Wanna Go Faster, encapsulates their joyous rage perfectly.
Natalie Wardle (bass/vocals) and Erin Caine (guitar) are holed up in their dressing room before opening for The Lovely Eggs at Manchester’s New Century Hall; rationing their lager supplies and getting in the pre-show zone.
They’re finishing up a run of shows with The ‘Eggs, culminating in this huge Mancunion homecoming: “The crowds have been ace and The Lovely Eggs are just amazing”, offers Wardle, her neon barnet thrown back as she supps a Stella (of course). The pair sing the praises of fellow Eggs support, punk poet Violet Malice, who has been juggling childcare and rock n roll touring with aplomb. “She’s been on tour with her kid, it’s incredible to watch, she’s a supermum! From our end it’s been really lovely, but it’s hard work,” Wardle continues. “It is very low-budget from us, totally DIY.” The band all work, and fitting big tour commitments around annual leave can be tricky. “It’s not right that you do the band full time whilst having to work full time to get by,” Caine – herself full-time teacher – chips in. “It can be really tough, and all of us are often begging work for more time off. We make it work though, because we love it”.
“We want it [Loose Articles] to be our full-time jobs, or at least a part-time job. Anything that pays us some sort of wage. At the moment, it’s a case of pretty much anything we earn from shows or merch goes straight back into the band”. As Wardle chats about the difficulty of earning a living through creative endeavours, two things become abundantly clear: there needs to be ostensibly better support for grassroots music in this country, but also it is crystal clear that Loose Articles have the fire in their bellies to give this everything and make it a success. It’s not a case of ‘shit or bust’, just listen to the tunes, they very clearly have the talent, but the raw determination and gritted teeth of this group to do it their way, and make a fist of it is both hugely charming and inspiring.
“Our booking agents are understanding of the work situation, and I do think the music industry is understanding in some way” Wardle continues. “When it comes to festival slots, we can always do them, because it’s a weekend, and plenty of industry people are either in the same boat as us, or have very recently been there”. You just have to listen to any number of the tunes on Scream to understand this band’s journey: ‘Mr Manager’, ‘Are You A Welder’, ‘Unpaid Intern’ and more detail the uphill struggle of working-class bands in today’s cynical musical universe.
Loose Articles’ punk intuition and their power is born out of working shit jobs for shit bosses, making barely enough to get by and channelling that feeling of inadequacy and 9-5 wage-slave-rage into something sensational. The angular Fall-style punk that shines through every inch of this record is nothing short of brilliant, and there is a feeling that having worked their arses off to be here, it’s worth even more.
“People think that teachers have it easy. We get off at three o’clock when the kids do and that’s that. Almost every teacher I know is working, planning, marking ‘till 7, 8 at night, then get in at 6 or 7am”. Caine teaches design technology at a secondary school, and her passion for sticking up for her colleagues is contagious. The pair have the ’all for one’ sensation of a gang about them, a trait that feels rare in groups these days: the band have each others’ backs, this shines through both in the record and when they’re taking to the stage later that evening. The energy that flows through the group is infectious.
We pivot and get on to football chat: ‘Kick Like A Girl’ was an early success story for the band and they are selling special edition CDs emblazoned with football heroes of theirs as part of the album rollout. The sport runs deep for these guys, and that element of the ‘lads lads lads’ pub-punk that they so brilliantly satirise comes from a place of love of ‘blokecore’ and football. “We follow FC United of Manchester. We used to be United fans and moved over when we discovered FC. They’re a bit more punk.” Caine continues her football chat clutching a Stella, as if we were kicking back in The Pev instead of the deep bowels of New Century Hall: “It’s a fan-owned football club, the chants are all punk songs and we’ve even played at the ground before. They’ve got a great thing going there, there’s a food bank, it’s all anti-corporate and we love it.” Wardle takes a touch and runs with it: “To be honest, any football match that’s in front of us, we get involved. It’s a great excuse to get together with people and have a beer”. Once more, the sheer joy that emanates from the pair is palpable – “We’d love to watch St Pauli in Germany, they’re similar left-wing punk vibes. Chuck us in a game like that and we’d be well up for it”.
The conversation takes a different turn as the pair muse on their association with the ‘Riot Grrrl’ movement: “I suppose we do get tied to that, a bit” Caine says, “and we do identify with it, it’s a movement dedicated to supporting women’s struggles in the industry and highlighting how much more we have to do than men to get the same outcome”. Wardle nods in agreement and adds, “not only that, but in our music we identify with women’s struggles totally. In any industry. We spoke about football before and our tune ‘Kick Like A Girl’ is basically letting you know women can play just as well as anyone.” Nods of agreement ripple around the greenroom like a Mexican wave: “And the Lionesses…” she whispers this next part, “well they’re better than the men.”. “Even though they have won more, they just don’t get the same recognition.”
Loose Articles’ looming album release was recently pushed a few weeks further into the horizon, with the big boys of the recording world muscling in to take up precious pressing plant places, but the band aren’t too fussed as it allowed them time to go heavy on the marketing and album prep. “We’ve got beer mats!!” the pair are gleaming at the boozer-based marketing tactics: “There’s a QR code on one side and the Stella band logo on the other” Who said the music industry has to be entirely cynical and boring, eh? That sense of fun bleeds into their tunes too, and plenty of witty quips and offhand remarks fill Scream to charming effect.
All of these aspects and faucets of Loose Articles bring them together as that perfect slice of post-modernist punk. It’s witty and off-the-wall absurd at times, but the way that is interwoven with their genuine and warranted grievances with the capitalist grindset, deep-rooted industry misogyny (see the sensational ‘It’s Art’) and the exhaustion that goes hand in hand with working and touring and touring and working, all comes together with an deft touch. This album is quite exceptional, and Loose Articles deserve the highest of plaudits for their skills, attitude and punk as fuck credentials. It’s a Loose Articles world, we’re just living in it.
featured image: Sinead Ferguson
