Neu Get To Know… Tough Cookie
Emotive alt-rock born from an East London basement.
Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.
Hot on the heels of releasing their debut mixtape ‘The Countryside Is Good For You’ - which landed at the tail end of 2025 - East London-based outfit Tough Cookie are wasting no time in setting their sights on the year ahead, having kicked off Hello 2026 (DIY’s very own January blues-busting gig series) in blistering fashion. Marrying early ’00s slacker sensibilities with Radiohead’s emotional heft, their first outing introduced the quartet with, in their words, “an honest account of navigating moments of vulnerability, disconnection, and escapism”. Now, they’re ready to delve even deeper, as they prepare a follow-up that’s altogether more raw. Get to know them a little better - via Black Eyed Peas, cancelled hotels, and Lord Of The Rings - down below.
If Tough Cookie was a TV ad, what would your tagline be?
‘No crumble, all bite.’
What are your earliest musical memories?
I think we all remember the first ever show we went to, and that feeling you get from watching live music, and how inspiring it was. August’s was Black Eyed Peas!
Growing up, what were your musical educations like? Give us an insight into those formative years.
We all started by teaching ourselves - learning riffs by ear at home, inspired by the artists on our bedroom walls. We later studied music at school or college, where we decided to take it seriously; most of us then met in Leeds. But the real learning came from playing together, making a lot of mistakes.
You’ve described your debut mixtape ‘The Countryside Is Good For You’ as “a journey of self discovery amid chaos”. Are there any particular lessons you learned over its writing and recording process, musical or otherwise?
Don’t overthink: trust your gut and don’t let people outside the circumference of your band make you doubt yourself. Art grows and so does taste - and that’s okay. Looking back on the process of recording ‘TCIGFY’, we overthought too many things and it turned out more polished than we intended. Our next record will be led by mood and feeling. We closed the blinds and wrote in the dark: it’s a lot more introspective, and we couldn’t be happier with it.
“Trust your gut and don’t let people outside the circumference of your band make you doubt yourself.”
What’s been a) the most challenging, b) the funniest, and c) the most surprising thing about hitting the road to tour the mixtape?
A - The long drives during winter with no heating, getting ill, and not sleeping.
B - That time we drove for hours to Birmingham to get to a hotel after playing a show, only to find that we went to the wrong one. When we finally got to the right hotel we were told that we arrived a month early! We were lucky to find a few beds that night anyhow. It was so late at night and we were shattered, but we all just burst out laughing.
C - Seeing the audience sing all the lyrics so quickly after the release, as well as songs we’ve not put out yet. The response has been so affirming.
You started this year by topping the bill on the first night of DIY’s Hello 2026 gig series! In your humble opinions, what (other than gigs, ofc) is the best way to beat the winter blues? And what else have you got in the pipeline for 2026?
The Lord Of The Rings franchise extended editions - this is how we’re coping. Looking ahead, we have a lot more shows and music, as well as some exciting events/exhibitions we plan to put on alongside some incredible artists. We want to bring art and music closer together, giving visual artists a place within a scene that often overlooks them. Art plays a huge role in how we write and create music.
Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?
It’s literally in the name - August makes a mean gluten free cookie as well!
‘The Countryside Is Good For You’ is out now via Gravity Records.
Records, etc at
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