Interview Westside Cowboy: “It’s really important to feel that healthy sense of pushing each other up”

While that sense of fun clearly hasn’t abated in the two years since, what has changed is how seriously the quartet are taking things: the microphones might have been a joke, but Glastonbury certainly wasn’t. Having beat thousands of entrants to win the festival’s 2025 Emerging Talent Competition, WSCB are set to perform on one of Worthy Farm’s main stages in just a few weeks - an experience which they still can’t quite believe. “Even at The Great Escape, I remember tuning on stage one day and thinking, ‘oh my god, I’m in a band!’” Aoife recalls, her eyes widening as the others laugh. “For me, [the realisation] was after we played the Beach Stage,” says James. “I went to speak to some friends, and our publicist tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘I’m sorry, but we need you for some photos’,” he shakes his head disbelievingly. [On reflection, this interruption may well have been our fault, sorry James - Ed].

“There’s been a load of amazing, more experimental music that’s come out of [the UK] - especially Brixton - in the past five to ten years, and a lot of that is a little more cerebral. But being in this band has almost been a bit nostalgic; it’s been fun to try and get back to that feeling of when you’re a teenager and you hear Pavement or Pixies for the first time - that instant excitement at what you’re hearing - and maybe try to do a bit of that.”

Emotional connection and cultivating community are as much core parts of their modus operandi as they are the music itself: under the banner No Band Is An Island, they’ve put on local shows and created a merch line, the proceeds from which go to Medical Aid For Palestinians. “The Westside Cowboy ethos is that we want to make music for anyone and everyone,” explains Aoife, “and you can’t have an ethos like that without recognising that people are being stripped of their own homeland and being murdered. Then you’re not making music for everyone; you’re making music for anyone who has the privilege to listen to it.”

At some point - between a packed live schedule and exciting upcoming release plans - the band hope to expand the initiative, using it to support other charities and youth music projects in their home city. “It’s really important to feel that healthy sense of pushing each other up,” Reuben says simply. “If someone lives three doors down in Manchester, and can write a song that is earth-shattering, then we think ‘oh, maybe we can do that one day’.” By our reckoning, Westside Cowboy are already half way there.

Westside Cowboy’s debut EP, ‘This Better Be Something Great’, is out on 8th August via Nice Swan Records/Heist Or Hit. 

Tags: Features, Interviews, June 2025, Westside Cowboy