Wolf Alice’s Ellie Roswell speaks on the refugee crisis

Ahead of a charity gig in aid of refugee children co-ordinated alongside Peace, Swim Deep and Years & Years, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell has talked about the current refugee crisis.

The gig was inspired by the demolition of the Jungle in Calais. Ellie told Time Out that “the current refugee crisis opened my eyes to a frightening realisation about the severe lack of compassion amongst British people.”

She also said that the idea was to “reiterate that we stand in solidarity for the refugees, that we want Britain to rediscover its benevolence and that we will and we can come together to echo these feelings until our government finds its sense of urgency in what is the worst refugee crisis since World War II.”

She continued: “I thought: why aren’t people talking about this all the time? Why isn’t this a priority? It was weird that it wasn’t being seen as the biggest fucking emergency […] I wondered how I could help. I have more Twitter followers than many people in government and I have all these friends in bands who care. We have this platform. It’s so simple. Put on a night that I would want to go to.”

Bands 4 Refugees is taking place on 5th December at London’s Kamio and is also set to feature appearances from Slaves, Spector, Superfood, Black Honey and Bloody Knees. It’ll see a core band made up of Swim Deep and Wolf Alice joined by a rotating guitarist and singer doing a variety of covers. Ellie says that “you can expect some Robbie Williams that’s for sure.” What a bunch of ‘Angels’…

Wolf Alice also recently gave an update on their second LP, which is set to see them “stay the weirdos.”