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ladylike photographed by Brooke Edwards
With roots that dig deep into folk, post-rock, indie and dreamy psych, ladylike weave a patchwork of sound that is distinctly earthen and tender, electric and incisive.
Composed of Georgia Butler (guitar, vocals), Spencer Withey (guitar, synth, backing vocals), Archie Sagers (bass), and James Ely (drums), ladylike are rising as a band making music that feels refreshing, gentle and urgent. Exploring new ideas yearned for across the UK alternative music scene, they offer an antidote to years of angular post-punk sitting at the epicentre of emerging popular music. The recent and established successes of bands within ladylike’s world such as mary in the junkyard and Big Thief respectively suggest that the tides have turned in this exciting new era.
'Horse’s Mouth' encapsulates the balancing act of life as a twenty-something with creative ambitions that far surpass the monotony of grey Monday mornings, four-wall confinement, and empty email well-wishes consistent with full-time employment. Shifts in tone and time signature create an intriguing meander through the song that crescendos into crashing cymbal stabs and Georgia’s delicate vocals repeating the line “work yourself to the bone.” This lyric is reflected in the material of chalk in the accompanying music video that conveys a somewhat affirming note to self: nature erodes itself by way of the tide and chalk, just as people erode themselves through waves of woe and work. The single’s winding and roaming melodies are much like the artwork’s depiction of idyllic hills that urge you to step into greenery and unwind from the drudgery. 'Horse’s Mouth' is unpredictable and captivating; an organic reflection of the band’s process of writing in the room together and pouring care into their practice.
A string of hype-building live performances and the rapturous reception to their self-produced and self-released debut single 'Southbound' catapulted ladylike onto Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent longlist and Green Man Festival’s shortlist, securing them a coveted slot on the Rising stage this year. We caught up with the band before their show in the Brecon Beacons, and learned that their self-sufficiency has been a product of necessity and creativity. With Spencer mixing and recording their music, James providing tech’s access to university studios and Georgia designing their debut artwork, the band have maximised their collective talents. Their honest approach to scrapping songs that don’t feel authentic has surely been key to shaping ladylike’s unique and considered sound.
With 'Horse’s Mouth' supported and released by indie label Something. Records, upcoming slots at festivals including Rotterdam’s Left of the Dial, and a hometown headline in October, ladylike are set to continue building on the momentum that has carried them this far, this soon.
ladylike formed back in 2022, can you give us a little background to the beginnings?
Georgia: It kind of started as a post-lockdown thing - but we’d all been playing in bands before. Me and Spencer have been friends for a long time; we went to uni in Guilford. We met James a few years before, and then me and James moved to Brighton at the same time, so we just started making music together. We begrudged inviting Spencer to our jams for a while, didn’t we?
James: Yeah, we asked a few people but they couldn’t commit or didn’t want to do it. Then we got Archie in before Spencer.
Georgia: Then after Archie came in we were like, “we should probably ask Spencer now.” It made a lot of sense and it brought a lot together. We spent a lot of time writing and playing music that maybe didn't really feel authentic at the time. I think only after a good eight months of playing together were we like “oh, this is actually our sound - not what we were playing”. Now we're kind of on a bit of a roll, hopefully, with the music we want to make.
I caught you guys a while ago at Green Door, and it’s cool that you now have two singles out there but obviously lots of material waiting to find its way through.
Georgia: Well, we’re very, very good at getting rid of songs.
Spencer: And not revisiting songs.
Georgia: As soon as we don’t like it, we don’t like it - especially me. But I think that's actually quite good, because it kind of forces us to just keep writing until we write the right thing. I think we waited a really long time to bring music out because we didn't want to bring something out unless we really, truly felt like it was what we wanted.
Well, it’s been eight months since your first single 'Southbound' arrived. Aside from slashing a bunch of other songs, what’s been brewing over this time?
Georgia: We’ve just been writing; we write everything together now in the room. So, we’ve just been spending time together, writing, hanging out, playing shows - we just did our first little support tour with The Bug Club.
Nice! And, how’s the new process of writing in the room together?
Georgia: We enjoy it. We’re four quite passionate people
James: And busy people!
Georgia: So, it’s really hard to get together. I think we’re quite unique in each of our pockets of sound which is why we kind of can only write in the room: James has got a particular style of drumming, Archie's got a very particular way of playing a six string bass, and Spencer’s got a particular way of doing noise. Writing together means we can collectively make it together.
James: It’s all so worth it in the end.
Georgia: We all care a lot.
Spencer: I mean, you don’t really get much time to write songs on your own, anyway.
Georgia: True. Life do be busy.
Right? That resonates hard.
Georgia: It’s so hard to navigate! We’re all working full-time or studying full-time, and we all want to be involved in the music scene and watch bands as well. It’s hard to do that and also be able to write music all the time and also then play shows.
The release of your second single 'Horse’s Mouth' is definitely cause to celebrate. I love its evolving structure and evasive lyrics; it makes it hard to pin down any single theme.
Georgia: When we write, we don’t talk about what the song’s about. I’ve found that if I can't write any lyrics within the first ten minutes of us writing it in the room then I'm not going to finish them because it won't feel authentic; like I'm writing on top of something. “Horse’s Mouth” was very natural for us.
I think you saying it feels quite evasive is probably quite true. So, Archie plays a six-string bass and plays a lot of chordal stuff so it kind of feels like it's treading in Spencer’s territory. Sometimes what I'm playing will tread into a bassier territory. Like, everytime we play live someone says “oh, you don’t have a bassist?!” But it’s actually quite nice because it feels like we don't have limits to who should be playing what part.
It certainly makes for an interesting, layered sound. I also think the single’s music video is awesome. What was the process?
Georgia: The video was quite separate. Kyle McCarthy, who made the video, came up with the idea of using chalk as a theme. We didn’t talk to him about what the song was about but the video actually really resonated with us and sort of does really fit how we see the song. We've been seeing it as more like a video interpretation by Kyle, because it's not something that we created; it’s very much his creation, but it coincides really nicely with the song.
It’s beautiful. The shots of the holey chalk and the tide - essentially nature eroding itself - coupled with the lyrics “work yourself to the bone” worked so nicely together.
Georgia: It’s nice for us that people have their own interpretations that still fits with the overriding theme of the song. That being, working relentlessly hard at something and not knowing what the end result is going to be. Kyle captured it. For us, it was quite precious because before the music video, there's nothing we've done as a band that had been done externally. Everything is self-produced, Spencer records and mixes, I did the artwork for 'Southbound'. Everything we've done before that point, we've done ourselves totally. It was good to show us that we don't have to do everything in house… but we do like doing everything in house anyway.
Spencer: It was good to give some control away. The colours worked really nicely with the artwork too.
Georgia: I did a lot of mock ups for the 'Horse’s Mouth' artwork and got a bit lost and didn’t know how to continue. We sent all the ideas we had over to Esmé Gardner but wanted it to just look like something she would do. She actually already had the painting of the chalk pieces. And, then we did the chalk-white flexi disk so it all fit around chalk somehow.
Spencer: Is there a gig at Chalk?
"Horse's Mouth" artwork by Esmé Gardner
Surely it’s next after Green Man?! Huge congratulations to you for making it to the Rising shortlist. How are you feeling about playing the festival?
Georgia: This the first thing that we've probably all been nervous for… I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and we know a lot of people that are going to be there, but, yeah, but it is a bit nerve-racking.
Spencer: I’m more nervous for the video session!
Georgia: On the Thursday we do a Green Man video session which goes on their YouTube, which, historically, have been quite well viewed. So I think that's maybe more nerve-racking because it's there for eternity compared to the set that anyone just happens to be at at 12:45 on the Rising Stage.
Archie: I’m just excited to try and bump into Osees at the bar.
Georgia: Or bump into Adrianne Lenker!
James: Or bump into Lime Garden!
Georgia: We’re excited and we’ve been talking a lot about it. We applied for it but my mum’s getting married that week so I was like “oh, I’m not going to be there anyway,” but Archie said we needed to apply. I think one thing with us is that we keep our expectations low, which means that we're always really, really happy and surprised by good things happening.
James: We actually expected the worst, which ended up being a great thing.
What was it like playing the shortlist show? I’m imagining a battle of the bands vibes.
Georgia: It was a good show and really busy but in the green room it felt a bit like Britain’s Got Talent. But we went into it knowing we weren’t going to win and were just going to play a gig in Wales which was cool because we hadn’t played a gig outside the south of England - and now we’ve played Cardiff! It was a really fun show. But we’ve never played a festival before so I’m just like… where do I put my stuff? Where do I plug my gear in? We’re going to have to pretend to know what we’re doing. Every time we talk about Green Man is basically us convincing ourselves that we can do it.
It’s going to be amazing. You’re also playing the first ever Brighton Psych Fest! I love that it’s made its way here from Edinburgh and Manchester, and skipped past London.
Georgia: It’s nice because psych has never really been London’s scene so it’s cool to keep it outside of London.
Spencer: There are so many day festivals in London as well. It’s nice to have something in Brighton that’s a bit niche, or alternative.
Georgia: There’s great psych in Brighton as well put on by Acid Box. We just didn’t know we were psych! But we got a lot of that on 'Southbound'.
James: I dunno, I think we are sort of psychy. Not like hard fuzzy psych, but it’s more like the avant-garde, dreamy, shoegaze stuff. I always think of psych as dreamy - psych isn't always just loud. You’ve got a lot of fuzz because fuzz was new when psych was a big thing but I think it was more about writing interesting songs that didn't confine to specific structures. We like reverb, we love a bit of delay. Yeah, maybe we are a psych band?
Spencer: We’re definitely not a post-punk band.
That’s something you’re certainly not.
Georgia: When we first started writing songs we were quite conscious about what was around us already. I think when we maybe got better at writing songs is when we were like, “it doesn't matter what's around us already.” We definitely are still inspired by what's around us, what's happening and what's current but yeah, I think our better songs are when we haven't been thinking about that.
James: We just kind of jam and listen to a lot. Somebody starts something and then we all just play and then we refine it.
Georgia: And then I tell James to play his invisible cymbal - we can’t tell James not to play so if we want him to not play a section he has to play the air because he won’t ever not play otherwise.
James: It’s like being a drum machine. At every gig I have a drum solo but nobody knows!
Green Man is your moment! Speaking of festivals, what are your favourite parts of being a festival goer and festival player?
Georgia: We’ve got Green Man, Psych Fest, Left of the Dial, Supersonic in Paris… we’re getting out of the UK and out of the south of England!
James: Honestly, I got a bit sick of festivals recently because I’ve been to a few and they’re really fun but it’s going to be nice to be the artist and change it up a bit.
Georgia: We went to End of the Road together for the last couple of years and they were some of the best times we’ve had and saw some of the best bands but it’s going to be nice to have a different experience from it. To play is just gonna be pretty cool. And we get a flushable toilet
James: It’s going to be exciting. I once snuck into the artist bit of a festival with one of my friends but that’s the closest I’ve got. The toilets were pretty nice.
Georgia: And I’ve never been to Green Man but have always wanted to go. Archie actually bought a ticket for it ages ago, and now we’re going and don’t need a ticket! It’s pretty cool.
Buy 'Horse’s Mouth' on limited edition white flexi disk, and catch ladylike at their next hometown headline show on Friday 11 October at Alphabet, Brighton.
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