Thanks for chatting with us Lewis! Can you talk us through the beginnings of Knuckle Draggers? 

So, going all the way back, I grew up in Sunderland in the Northeast, which is a place that has had loads of great punk bands coming out of it. It's a style of music that I was exposed to from a young age, bands like Red Alert, Leather Face, Angelic Upstarts, Toy Dolls, just to name a few. After meeting Shay through our other band Flustered, he got me into the second-wave punk bands that I’d previously not listened to that much, bands like The Exploited, Discharge, GBH, those kind of bands. We’ve been doing music stuff together for a while, so when I started this project, it just made sense to get him on board.

Knuckle Draggers EP was released last month! Congratulations! I love that your debut release was a full body of work. Why did you go straight for the EP rather than singles?

I guess because there are so many influences within Knuckle Draggers, I just wanted to get across all of the different styles that wouldn’t have been possible if it was in only one song. To go through them, the first song ‘The Trouble I Crave’, has a driving double kick pattern, which is kind of a reference to ‘Overkill’ by Motorhead, but then also has some acoustic guitar parts that you’d more hear on a Jake Thackray song. Then ‘Old Decrepit Ends’ is more a cross of new-wave or gothic rock with a bit of rockabilly. There’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ which is just a typical two-minute punk song. ‘Hardwired’ is maybe a bit more inspired by Killing Joke. So there’s all these influences and I just wanted to get that all in one body of work. On vocals, I’m really into the style of Glenn Danzig, but also other kinds of baritone vocalists like Jim Morrison and Julian Casablanca. I really wanted to encapsulate that vocal style in a contemporary punk setting.

That makes a lot of sense. There’s definitely an anchor across the songs but you can hear the different influences. You’ve given us the full Knuckle Draggers set.

Hopefully it’s given people a full idea of what the project is. We want to take it further as well, we’ve talked about doing a dub song and lean into more electronic styles, like jungle and garage. Whether or not we actually go that far remains to be seen but we would certainly like to push it. 

The EP is awesome, particularly love the closing track ‘Hardwired’ that starts with a dancey drum beat and cold-wave bassline and closes with a spacey poppy effected vocal. Which track do you lean towards?

I want to give a shout out to the producer, Oskar Augustsson, who we also play with in Suzie From the Tanning Salon. A lot of the sounds in that song are very much credit to him, he did a lot more than just produce it - he co-arranged it. The sounds that we were able to get wouldn’t have happened without his influence. I also think the more gothic sounds have been illustrated so well in the artwork, which was done by Naomi Boiko-Stapleton. 

But in terms of the songs that I hold dear, I’d probably say ‘Old Decrepit Ends’. It’s the more catchy song and as far as songwriting goes, it’s one I feel quite proud of. We’ve opened with it at the few gigs that we’ve done so far.

It’s cool to hear that the producer had such a positive influence. Did you talk about this ahead of the studio or did it emerge organically?

Oskar and I are very good friends and we have a lot in common musically, so we were very much on the same page as to which direction the EP was going to go. I'd thrown together some very rough demos to show to him. So once we got into the studio - which was his bedroom - we were very much on the same page there. It was a very DIY project as well, all done between his bedroom, which was in Brighton, and then he moved while we were working, so then his bedroom in East London.

A double bedroom EP! I know that you’re first and foremost a drummer. How does it feel moving from behind the kit and singing upfront?

It’s something that I’ve done before, but not for a long time. Before starting Knuckle Draggers, I had been writing songs for quite a while. I figured that the project would be a good vehicle to be able to sing those songs because I didn’t think they’d work in any of the projects that I was currently in. It just made sense to start something completely new. 

At the first show it was daunting being at the front of the stage instead of being behind the drumkit but it was great. The gigs were received well which really helps. We’d had the time to polish the songs. Obviously, the backing tracks are fully produced so they sounded good and we really enjoyed the shows.

Well your Brighton debut was a whirlwind whistle stop 14-minute tour of the EP. I assume because that’s all the songs you have?

Was it? Wow! Yeah that’s right. That’s all the music that we have. There’s more stuff in the works but at the moment, that’s all we have. To be fair, 15 minutes isn’t uncommon for a punk gig.

That’s true! Can you tell us a bit about Brighton’s punk scene?

In my other band Flustered, I guess we’ve dipped our toes. A lot revolves around spaces like the Cowley Club and there are a lot of great punk bands in Brighton. We’ve not played with any of them yet, but hopefully in the future I’m sure we will. I guess with using backing tracks and not having drums, it’ll be interesting to figure out where it will fit. Of course, it can fit anywhere, but it’s quite exciting.

Listen to Knuckle Draggers EP and keep up to speed with Knuckle Draggers.