Roll of the Dice: 4 questions with Breakup Haircut

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Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

Breakup Haircut is a pop-punk outfit from the UK.  They’ve got a new album out this Friday, and agreed to sit down for a round of Roll of the Dice. We rolled a FOUR.

1) Hey Breakup Haircut! I’m going be over your way soon. What’s the weather like at the moment? Wait! Don’t answer that, we only have FOUR questions! So Punk Dancing for Self Defence is 1) due out 15 Jul 2022, and 2) a pretty damn funny name for an album. How does it compare, continue, or differ from 2019’s What did you expect? I got it off the internet! EP?

It is a continuation and kind of a natural progression from where we were at. Part of it has
stemmed from us wanting to do Real Band Stuff, so whether it’s the most savvy move or not,
we’re doing this debut album. What’s more Real Band than an album, right? Also, we
just…had loads of songs to get down, honestly. The album is fifteen tracks – a mix of songs
we wanted to re-record, songs that were finished in the five months between our EP being
out and the world going into lockdown, and a bunch of songs we wrote remotely. We spent a
long time in lockdown going back and forth over Audacity and adding in lines for each other
because we couldn’t rehearse in person.
It’s hopefully not unreasonable to say that we have also improved as musicians between the
EP and this album. We can now play things a LOT faster than when they were originally
written, and have all learned a few new techniques along the way. It’s a really good feeling to
be able to see everyone improving their musical skills and confidence together as a team.
We’ve also experimented with the boundaries of genre and our writing process a bit. Punk is
a state of mind, you know?
We’ll see what comes next – right now we’re mainly focused on the album, the release party,
and going to bed for a week after. We’re all doing some important personal life stuff this
summer, so making space for that is important. After that, have some cool gigs lined up for
the autumn. How likely is it that all our release titles from now on are going to be references
to the Simpsons?
The weather out here is way too nice to be believable.

2) This may be a dumb question, but I’ve found sometimes that the answers are much more enlightening than expected, so… speaking of that 2019 EP, what’s the story between the almost three-year gap between it, and Punk Dancing…? Is it the pandemic, the process, a combo? None of the above? (laughter)

Almost entirely pandemic-related. We just couldn’t meet up to do stuff anymore – in a sense
the pandemic robbed us of a lot of the momentum we had, because we were starting to get
booked for some really exciting stuff, and all of it was cancelled. Some of it has been
rearranged and that’s been really cool, but there’s definitely a sense of loss there (for a lot of
people, not just us). We really rushed our first EP – it served us well but it nearly killed us all.
So many emails.
Pete and Sarah actually signed us to Reckless Yes before the pandemic, and we had every
intention of having the album out in late 2020, early 2021. With the lockdowns we only ended
up starting the studio process in late summer 2020, and then shutting down in winter due to
further restrictions and resuming again in 2021. We finished it last November and since then
we’ve just been playing shows and thinking about the release, which we’re eternally grateful
to RY for.

3) You project this kind of lo-fi, garage punk-y sound, and it is really fun. What are
some of the influences in both your musical composition, and your lyrics?

Ishani: I feel like our music fidelity is partly influenced by our gear. The first EP, we recorded
literally the day after our first gig and we did the whole thing as a massive live session that
spanned one day, and then added in vocals in our producer’s basement. It felt super analog
and organic. I don’t even think I owned a pedal back then. This time we recorded it in a
friend’s shed and it was cool to see the differences between the two, especially working with
multitrack. I think our sound is affected by us having very different influences. I’m inspired by
a lot of stuff, but I aspire to the lyrical wit and simple chords of the Mountain Goats and
Kimya Dawson. Overall I think it’s very important to be straightforward and make people
laugh. I think there is a lot of political power in humour.
Our process also shows through, I think. When I take a song to the band I’ve already gotten
the rhythm guitar and the words and topline written and I let them figure out their own parts
and bring their own energy to it with my suggestions. I always enjoy hearing how they flesh
out the stuff I write – they do it so differently from the way I would instinctively, and I love it.
It’s really humbling. Other songwriters in the band have completely different processes from
me – I can always tell which songs started off with who, but I guess I have the intel, so that
makes sense.
Ripley: I think with this band I’ve basically been learning songwriting skills on the go and it’s
been a really fun and interesting learning curve so far. I’ve always been relatively
comfortable writing basslines if someone just gives me a beat or a starting point, and love
the puzzle of playing around with basslines until everything just feels and sounds right. I’ve
found it really refreshing to be in a music project where I’ve felt truly empowered to be able
to bring song ideas to the group and people actually encourage each other and work
together. I sometimes find the lyrics part of songs quite stressful and difficult to complete,
compared to pitching riffs and compositions. But the others are always supportive and have
also had my back to help me with any bits I’ve been really stuck on or to give me the nudge
to be confident enough to commit to the lyrics I’ve written.
Lyrically, my inspiration basically is often from whatever I’m really interested in or upset by at
the time. So lyric subjects can thematically range from being very interested in local 1970s
vampire legends, to being upset by having a bad time with anxiety.
Musically, I take a lot of influence from 70s and 80s punk and post-punk, the fantastic energy
and passion from a lot of J-Rock bands, and modern indie-punk, melodic punk and DIY
bands. Recently I’ve been really into learning some classic metal, and disco basslines, as
they’re often really fun and complicated to play.
Delphine: I guess in my case these days, it really depends on how I am feeling at the time.
The music I listen to fluctuates with my mood but it’ll mostly be geared towards punk I guess.
I guess my early teenage years was right in the golden age of boy bands which was terrible.
However, I am fortunate enough to have an older brother with decent music taste so I grew
up with the likes of Pink Floyd, Metallica, Nirvana and AC/DC. The late nineties saw the rise
of punk and I guess I fell straight into that and never looked back.
Lyrically, it really is just what’s bothering me at the time. If I write it down, it stops bouncing
around in my head. I see it as some kind of coping mechanism to fight anxiety.
Jordan: Noughties metalcore is probably the thing I’ve listened to the most so I think that
seeps into my playing and I think pretty much every drummer my age who’s playing pop
punk has some Travis Barker and Andy Hurley in their DNA. For the album I tried to listen to
more pop music.
NB: We actually compiled a playlist of 10 influencing tracks.

4) With Punk Dancing for Self Defence out soon, what’s neck on deck for Breakup
Haircut?

A rest. We’re taking some time off immediately after our launch party because Ishani has to
get married and we all booked some time away. We’re playing some cool stuff this autumn,
and then we’ll figure out writing some new stuff together and what that’ll look like.
Honestly PDSD took maybe six months longer due to lockdowns. We’re not sure what’s up
next projects-wise, as this album has taken so much hard work and time to complete. We’re
basically not taking on any more serious planning until after we’ve launched the album
(album out 15/07, Launch Party 22/07 at the Lexington).
However we are looking forwards to working on some new songs, and playing some more
shows – hopefully some more out of town shows too later this year and in the new year.
Planning touring around day jobs can be quite tricky as some of our jobs are quite strict
about time off. However we’ll see what we can get planned and will let you know what we
come up with.