The Maccabees: DIY’s August 2015 cover stars revealed!

By looking close to home, The Maccabees have made their best record yet, and they they’ve got the ‘Marks to Prove It’ in the August 2015 issue of DIY.

Out this Friday (7th August), free via UK stockists, online and on Apple Newsstand, this month’s issue tracks down the scattered backstory of The Maccabees’ latest LP, from Elephant & Castle’s ever-changing surroundings to strangers’ tales told throughout its songs.

The face of Elephant and Castle is already changing: the disappearance of the Heygate Estate is only the tip of a gentrification iceberg. Snazzy, ostentatious complexes with roof-gardens and whimsical names like ‘Elephant Park’ are popping up all over the place, while yet more long-established housing estates remain on the firing line for demolition. “In this time period, it’s starting to change,” says Hugo White. “Huge buildings are being knocked down, and there’s regeneration kicking in. It’s weird to be right in the middle of something that’s happening to.” “It’s sort of emblematic for the rest of what’s going on in London,” chips in Orlando Weeks.

“[Here is] slightly secret,” adds Orlando. “Elephant and Castle has got an identity, it’s not like other bits of London. It’s not glamourous. None of it is eye-catching, tourist destination kind of stuff, but it knows what it is. It’s comfortable in its own skin.”


“There’s a sense of transience to it,” adds Felix White, referring to the swathes of city slickers and drunken home-goers that rush over the roundabout every day and night. “Once you’re half-accidentally embedded in the area you start seeing the layers within it.”

Read the full cover feature in August’s issue of DIY and online from Friday 7th August at 12pm GMT.