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Phoxjaw interview: “I go from hyperpop one minute to drone and black metal the next”

“We’ll never make an album like notverynicecream again,” says Daniel Garland, “but we’ll still do Phoxjaw albums that are bonkers.”

For every Turnstile or IDLES that blows up and achieves worldwide recognition, there’s a myriad of equally exceptional acts in the alternative rock/punk/metal maelstrom that are in danger of slipping through the cracks of mainstream exposure. There’s no greater criminal example of this than Bristol based genre decimators Phoxjaw.

Their artistically unhinged approach, as demonstrated on their beastly sophomore effort notverynicecream, combines the lushest and most depraved of soundscapes into one overwhelming sundae. That might not make them the easiest band to pigeonhole and package for crossover consumption – it does, however, make them one of the most exciting and original groups in Britian right now.

Chatting over Zoom with vocalist/bassist Daniel Garland, who sits in a beany hat, black t-shirt and (when he stands up) SpongeBob SquarePants pyjama bottoms, the eccentric whimsy of their noise-rock meets indie-grunge machinations becomes all too evident. Sipping directly from a bottle of Bailey’s (which he describes as “like a milkshake”) on one of the hottest days of the year, he details his first retrospective listen to their immense labour of love which dropped at the end of last month – “It was weird because I’d only ever listened to it in a Google Drive, and watching the tracks go down on Spotify, and listening to it as we crafted it, I must say that I really like the boldness in some of the decisions we made and how outrageous some of them are. Whether it works for you or it doesn’t, I like the fact that we took some of those risks, and I hope they pay off.”

Those risks, as he describes them, are embedded within the compositional framework of their latest project which utilises a plethora of varying synthesizers, loops and effects, while drawing on influences from the likes of Biffy Clyro and Glassjaw to Mastodon and Deftones, with even a sprinkling of Queens Of The Stone Age and a dash of Reuben. Don’t worry, if that sounds like an ungodly, overwhelming mess of ideas – it only indicates that you are sane.

In the plainest language possible, Phoxjaw are a rock band, and that vague all-encompassing banner is paramount to appreciating that there are very few safety nets or points of reference when it comes to their sheer disregard for sonic parameters. “My last band was quite proggy, while Josh & Kieran (Gallop; the guitarist/drummer brothers) were in a metalcore band and Alex (guitar/backing vocals) was in a glam-rock group. We’re all such big fans of eclectic music. I go from hyperpop one minute to drone and black metal the next, so I like the idea of Phoxjaw almost being this sort of polymath. It can turn and change and evolve and I just never want to be in a room where it’s like, ‘We can’t do that because it’s not cool’. I mean, that’s not the way. I think we don’t take ourselves very seriously, it is a serious band, but we like to make fun of stuff in music a little bit.”

The aforementioned wit and whimsy of the group, as well as their cryptic lyrical opaqueness and visual aesthetics, bears striking similarities to the type of British absurdist humour found in series such as The Mighty Boosh (to which their new album’s artwork bears a strong resemblance) – “We’re all big fans of The Mighty Boosh and Monty Python, so I think there are elements of sketch humour in our music. I honestly think that the visual side of the band, in our videos, is all influenced by that and our own wackiness. We want people to be wondering, ‘What are they doing now?’ We’ve even said that when we get to album five, we want to make the bald album where we’ll all just shave our heads and be bald for that record cycle. We have all these concepts in our head of just stupid things we’d like to do. We just like to laugh at ourselves. There are so many bands that are so serious, and they try so hard. I just don’t feel like I could do it, I think that would actually be too silly, but then again, we have done some serious videos so I’m being a bit of a hypocrite really.” (He laughs).

With tracks ranging from bizarre earworm bangers centred around ice cream witches and the power of the sun, to melancholic emo-shoegazing pleas to a friend battling drug addiction, all the way to a dissonant, operatic noisecore assault from the point of view of the last fish in an over-polluted ocean, there’s a vital understanding of both musical and conceptual sequencing displayed on their records, with Garland elaborating – “We write what we’re feeling at the time, so I could really want to make something heavy, and once we’ve come up with a bunch of songs, after a period of time we analyse how does this sound as an album? What is it missing? Is there too much of this or that going on? We want our albums to be bit of a journey. Don’t get me wrong, one day we could just flip it on its head and do something brutal and a bit more one dimensional, but I think right now we’re just trying to make these albums that take you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. A real fun record, in essence. At the end of the day, we just want to make really fun music that we want to hear.”



Another curious and intrinsic factor is the group’s self-sufficient nature thanks to their guitarist Josh Gallop who also serves as in-house producer and engineer; manning the boards for every subsequent release thus far. When it is put to Garland whether they would ever branch out and invite an outside perspective into the fold, he plainly states – “We’re a lot more open to the idea now than we ever have been. We’ve been approached by a few people before, but we spend so much time on the albums, Josh and I together, late at night. Not just the recording sessions but going over everything, messing with tones and sounds, so I feel like we’d be paying someone for their time, but it is also cool to have a limit where we could be like ‘Come on, boys, get it done’, whereas on the new album it went on and on and on. And I was not very well mentally speaking throughout the process of making this album, and it got to the point where I physically couldn’t finish it. It’s almost like we abandoned it even though it was as 100% finished as it could’ve been. We just didn’t even know if it sounded good anymore. In regard to producers, I do know Josh loves Eric Valentine, and I personally would love to work with Alain Johannes, or any of those desert guys.”

Expanding on their self-reliance and the notable atmospheric differences between notverynicecream and their somewhat more streamlined 2020 debut full-length Royal Swan, as well as the already in development LP3, he reveals that “We demoed a lot of our next album in Altendorf in the windmill that you see in our music video for ‘apples’, while we stayed there for a week. When we go to record that album, we’ll go somewhere interesting, because the label would pay money for a producer to work with us, where we already have one in our band, so we could end up spending that money on renting a cave in the south of Spain. That keeps us excited about our records because every individual project ends up with its own ambience. For instance, our debut was made in this tiny cottage by the Devil’s Bridge in the north of Wales; a beautiful place beyond words.”

There’s a notable dichotomy between the almost British medieval motifs of their debut (no doubt inspired by the previously mentioned recording location) as well as its difficult musings on British history and pride, and the darker, internalised self-flagellation of their more recent output. “A lot of people became like ‘Fuck England’, and don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things about England that are quite embarrassing as an English person. The album was meant as a message of love I think, as we were going through Brexit and separating from Europe and people were embarrassed by that. I just felt like it was about being proud of who you are but not for the wrong reasons. I’m proud of the British sense of humour and going to the pub and seeing the smiles on people’s faces. These are the things that I love because the world is so negative these days. I’m a lover of the world and all nations. We should all hold hands and skip like we’re in Disneyland, that’s the world I want to see.”



This earnest, self-aware naiveté doesn’t necessarily gel with the cavernous despondency and theatrical nihilism on display across notverynicecream, with Garland admitting “It’s a messy, emotional whirlwind while Royal Swan was more triumphant and had more grace to it. The new album is truly like a great mistake, some of these songs were never meant to sound how they do, and it wasn’t intentionally set to become the bizarre record that it is for me. We’ll never make an album like notverynicecream again, but we’ll still do Phoxjaw albums that are bonkers. Josh and I have always said we’d like to put some gabba in a track.” (He laughs, but it’s clear that he’s not joking.)

As their UK headline tour commenced last week in Exeter and culminates with a sweaty debacle in Camden’s Black Heart – across from our offices – on July 3, the discussion turns towards celebrating the album in its truest fashion, and the difficulties which have arisen from recreating much of the studio trickery and manipulation in a performative setting – “One of the things that’s really different about this tour is the fact that it’s the first time that our band has had to play on track for some songs, which is something that I’m not really a fan of, personally. I like to be as live as you can be, but when you’re performing songs with arpeggiators going off everywhere and these crazy loops, it’s like ‘How the hell are we supposed to recreate that?’ It’s been a nightmare.” (He sniggers and gestures to a Moog synthesizer in the corner) “That’s on most tracks on the record, so there’s moments where I’ve to sing and play that, while Josh is having a hard time preparing because he’s using these synth pads and a keyboard, like on ‘shotgunlipstick’ he doesn’t even play guitar.”



The tour should hopefully also serve as a test-run before they begin making shapes to embark on their first in-the-works jaunt across the US, but it’s evident that Garland and his bandmates are constantly looking ahead – “We’ve just signed to a booking agent in the states so we’re in talks about a US tour, so that’s going to be a dream come true. To go to America for the first time properly is such a momentous achievement for us as a band, so that’s something we’re really looking forward to, because we must give this album its light. Although we’ve sat on it for a long time, the people haven’t. Once we’ve toured the UK then America hopefully early next year, we’re going to get back into the studio and start work on the next album as the ideas we have so far are insane. Even as demos they sound massive, so what’s going to happen when we get the amps out and start messing with our pedals?”

Since their debut Victorian Dolls 10” in 2017, Phoxjaw have strived to push the boundaries of heavy and alternative music in as many sprawling directions as creatively possibly, while notverynicecream serves as both their most unsettling and damaged yet simultaneously accessible work to date. It’s the sound of artists turning on their own creation and mutating it to the point of maximalist extremity and is designed and destined to be absorbed by eager, patient, hardened and curious ears. While they have yet to reach the deserved heights their unique cacophony should surely garner, Garland closes with the reflective realisation of their burgeoning status as underground heroes in the making, and the sense of purpose they achieve from their craft – “It’s the fans we have that help us to continue to do what we’re doing. We’ve got the most amazing fans. One of the things I’ve realised about Phoxjaw is that we’re a little bit more of a cult band than I thought we were, which is fine by me, because a lot of the cult bands are my favourites. Your Rush or Dillinger Escape Plan fans, those people are so into the bands, and they buy all the stuff and just really back it. We love doing this and it gives us self-worth in life. When I was younger, I used to feel like music was just a hobby and not really a proper thing as I grew up in a household where money and work was important, but as time has gone on, I’ve realised how important music is and musicians are because music really does help a lot of people. Even if it’s just that one album for a month that you’re spinning on Spotify, that’s helping you get through your week, that’s really special, you know?”

Zach Buggy

To buy your copy of notverynicecream, click here