So who even has time for an airport barfight?
Words: Ed Osborne Images: Samantha Corcoran
There’s a lot of post-punk around at the moment, especially in Manchester, but nothing I’ve heard so far sounds quite like YAANG. They’ve embraced 80’s new-wave influences, helped by their use of a drum machine and sampler rather than conventional acoustics, matched with guitar playing aggressive enough to push straight to the front of any tune. The band had a busy 2023, balancing a string of high-energy gigs with the release of two buzzy singles, ‘Too Much Money’ and ‘Pressure’, as well as filming a music video for the latter. I chat to them about their approach to music and gigs, and see what’s next for them in 2024.
For a band so high-energy and up-tempo, they’ve taken the new year at a more measured pace. For good reason – they’ve returned to gigging in March with a new live set, which all are excited about. “We were feeling a bit trapped in the setlist. Our last gig was [us] shaking off the pressure of ‘just ’cause we’ve written a song it has to be on the setlist, and we have to play it all the time’. That’s not true, and its limiting – the new set is exciting and has a lot more flow,” Davey (vocals, drum machine) explains. A new live set obviously means new songs, which have “a lot more dynamics”. When I ask if this means a reincorporation of the dance and new-wave inspired electronica of YAANG’s early releases (all of which, apart from ‘Lose Hold of You’, are no longer on streaming services), Davey is quick to clarify that they won’t be indulging in any nostalgia for their past: “We’ve gone through a lot of iterations… the dance style’s gone now. Since then, we’ve been testing the waters in different genres and different styles just to see what fits. The new stuff…
‘ it’s evolved into a different beast now.”
Asked what that different beast might look like, Ben (bass) explains that their output since he joined in 2021 has been a “transitional period of trancey, punky stuff”, followed by the more direct punk of ‘Too Much Money’ and ‘Pressure’: “now it’s finding the right balance and evolving the sound, rather than doing one or the other”. “There’s actually melody in these ones! Harmonies and actual songwriting going on, rather than just energy!” adds Davey, laughing. This self-deprecating dig at the sprechgesang (spoken singing) of ‘Pressure’ and ‘White Socks Yellow’ might sound like he’s trying to distance the band from that sound, but to me it’s testament to how comfortable the band are with their sound, anticipating and embracing the criticisms that might be levelled by outsiders.
Being comfortable in their art doesn’t mean they’re content to stay in the sonic space they’ve carved out for themselves though – their revitalised approach to songwriting shows they’re antsy not to stay in one lane for too long. Another lane the band are careful to avoid is that of the ‘Manchester band’ – an act that becomes so enmeshed in the city’s musical mythology that they become a parody of it. I asked the obvious questions about the influence the city has on their music, but YAANG were interesting enough to avoid any easy answers.
Davey reflects that “the Manchester bands and the legend of it all is the reason that I moved to Manchester…but when you get here if you claim that as your personality like I did in a small town, the Mancunians are like ‘fuck off!’ You quickly learn to expand your horizons…Manchester is very eclectic in its music and I don’t think it has ‘one sound’ today.” Oliver (guitar) agrees, “I don’t think the Manchester thing has consciously influenced us”, with the caveat that “you can never really tell where your influences come from most of the time, it’s not really up to you, but it’s definitely not something we talk about.” All three members are from small towns in the midlands and share a love of the opportunities and busyness found in the city, but are keen not to get caught up in its historical trappings: “it’s just like a costume at that point…we don’t want to appropriate that”. When asked which places have influenced their sound, Oliver turns to the small town near Kettering where he’s from: “I think where we’re from and the music we’ve been around has influenced us in a way where it’s like, we know what not to do. …In the band I was in when I was young, we never played with a band that was anything more than complete dogshit – and I’m not excluding us from that!” Learning from the failures of himself and those around him has been useful – not to mention entertaining – but Ollie admits he had to look further afield – both in space and time – for his sonic influences.
“This is gonna sound like a pretentious answer, but I don’t really listen to new music. …There’s so much stuff that already exists that I’d rather catch up on before listening to something new. I’m really into hearing where stuff comes from, so I’d rather discover that [original sound] than a band that’s around at the moment.” He mentions Peter Buck of R.E.M., mod-rock, and Sparks as influences that he tries to incorporate into YAANG’s more contemporary sound. “Because we have a drum machine rather than a drummer, anything we play guitar-wise will sound completely different to any other band because it has a different beat behind it. …That completely takes [the songs] out of their original context.” It’s an effective way of cutting out the middle-man of the last twenty or thirty years of guitar music, stripping everything down to bare bones and original sins, and reinvigorating it with modern production and the robotic sheen of a drum sampler.
The band does still have its ties to the present-day as well though, one of them coming through their immersion in Manchester’s grassroots music scene. Davey is hyper-aware of what’s around him musically even when not rehearsing or performing, finding inspiration and instruction in his everyday: “I work as a sound engineer in a small venue, so I see a lot of good bands and a lot of up-and-coming bands, a lot of big egos and a lot of humble people. It’s allowed me to be a sponge and soak it all up, realising what’s too much and what the crowd aren’t responding to.” This day-to-day immersion in everything the scene has to offer is clearly exactly what Davey, and the rest of the band, want, and their experience over the last three years of making music as a three-piece hasn’t dulled their creative appetite. When asked what their experiences of the music scene have taught them over the past few years, their lessons are clear: “wait for our time, continue to graft, build our craft, and not give up. …I’m getting older now, but I’ve learnt that I genuinely love it, and that’s worth more than fame or money” is Davey’s assertion, while Oliver’s is similarly encouraging: “It’s kind of taught me to be patient, even though I’m quite impatient most of the time.…Your time will come, don’t get disheartened by other bands being where you want to be.” Its an outlook in tune with YAANG’s unwavering commitment to creativity and pushing their own musical boundaries, but surprisingly contemplative compared to their often resignedly pessimistic lyrics, as Davey, Oliver and Ben belt out on the eponymous single-
“I paid too much money for this shitshow!”
As their 2024 really kicks into gear with a string of March and April gigs, YAANG also tease the possibility of a physical release come summer: “a four track EP with some stuff that’s already out and some that isn’t, that you can get from record stores in Manchester”. They’re also keen to play anywhere and everywhere, with Ben stressing their availability for “weddings, birthdays, and funerals”. Whatever the occasion, I’d recommend you get in touch – bands like YAANG don’t come around very often.
