Interview Welly: “If someone’s spending money, I’d like to put on a show for them”

Growing up a post-punk disciple, the Southampton native was “appalled” to attend shows and realise he’d lost his paper round pennies to underwhelming offerings. “I just thought, ‘I can’t believe I’ve spent so much money for you to look really miserable’,” he remembers. “If someone’s spending eight quid [on the ticket], and eight quid on a pint, and five quid on a bus, I’d like to put on a show for them.”

It’s a mission statement his own outfit more than lives up to. When they take to the stage later, the “sha la la”s of Tony Christie’s ‘Amarillo’ which soundtracks their entrance have barely faded before someone’s pint flies through the air and a pit cracks open. As the quintet storm through ‘Deere John’ and ‘The Roundabout Racehorse’, Welly (clad in a PE kit, and achieving a vibe somewhere between Jarvis Cocker and James Acaster) gleefully reminds the audience that a triangle solo by keys player Hannah – much like the impassioned horse impression we get from guitarist Joe – comes included in their ticket price.

The band’s ease on stage is testament to the hours they’ve already clocked up; they booked over 100 shows before any management took interest, and now continue to traipse across the country in Joe’s Honda Jazz to sell their wares. (They’ve consequently logged a similar amount of time in fast food joints – Welly favours a Greggs jam doughnut, for those interested: a rare sight of colour and “more fruit than a sausage roll”).

If you look at any act that moved [music] on, they took what was most relevant in nostalgia for that period, and then what was most cutting edge in, usually, dance music,” Welly says of his vision for the band’s future. ‘Big In The Suburbs’ certainly ticks the nostalgia box, pulling from ‘80s names like The Romantics and Pet Shop Boys, as well as from pillars of Britpop and noughties dancefloor fillers. “I think the only way people resonate with music now is if it’s got something they can grapple onto from history,” Welly muses. “It needs to be very familiar, with just a bit of something that’s the zeitgeist.”

Though writing those decade-spanning tunes is his favourite part of the project, hearing his words shouted back at shows ain’t half bad, either. “That’s the feeling you beg for when you’re sixteen,” he grins, “when you watch Arctic Monkeys playing Glastonbury, and [Alex Turner] plays one chord and the crowd just does it.” Although it’s not quite the Pyramid Stage, tonight’s audience do just that, throwing themselves into debut single ‘Shopping’ and Pulp-flavoured favourite ‘Soak Up The Culture’ with wild abandon. They, at least, are more than willing to brave a drizzly Wednesday evening to see a new band. You can always listen to ABBA on the way home, after all.

‘Big In The Suburbs’ is out now via The Vertex Music. 

Tags: Features, Interviews, From The Magazine, March 2025, Welly