W: Adora Mekuleyi. I: Olly Bromridge. P.A:Esme Balkinska

We’re shamelessly, unapologetically female-fronted in an industry drowning in boy bands.

It’s always a bit naff writing about your own band, so when ASBO turned around and asked me to write a piece on my band The Havocks, I was terrified. However, I’ve decided to treat this as a diary, an autobiography if I want to be pretentious, which I won’t be, so come on, forget it, meet my band, The Havocks. Spelt purposefully. 

The Havocks came to be on a walk back to Clary’s from The Troubadour, an iconic venue which we played this January. It was warm, April 2024, and Clary turned to me in Clary fashion and said, “Do you want to start a band? We’d be way better than all the guys we go out with.” And so we did. The Havocks was formed off the backs of Clary and I’s creative ‘genius’ April 23rd, we started like all bands, in matching outfits on Instagram, photos taken on my old digital camera. Jessie, on the other hand, was fate-found when I started working at The Marquis (which, conveniently, is also our favourite venue).

When people ask about our sound  it’s the most terrifying thing ever.  Having interviewed bands myself it’s weird to hear everyone clear crinkle cut answers, our inspirations range from The Long Blondes, to BabyShambles, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Libertines, The Slits, X-Ray Specs… So usually when people ask a cocky answer of “indie rock innit”, is what we (mainly Clary) say, before rattling off the list.

A key element of The Havocks? We’re shamelessly, unapologetically female-fronted in an industry drowning in boy bands. (Yeah, I’m calling them boy bands.) Not only did we want to be our most ‘feminine’ selves, but we wanted to write songs about existing as women, inside, outside, and right in the middle of the music scene."

From Female Fronted a biting call back on the stereotypes of being a girl band, to Angel centering on the romanisation of the ‘perfect girl’ showing up in metaphors centred around England, to Union Jack cause there’s nothing wrong with a catchy tune about a shit ex,  to Vulgar, which is about us re-shaping our own narrative turning S-E-X-U-A-L into V-U-L-G-A-R.

The Dream. To be remembered in the way we remember The Long Blondes and The Slits, if you caught them you caught them, if you discovered them later you’re lucky, you might run into them at the pub and have a second look.

So that’s us, The Havocks. Explained and narrated by me, Adora: bassist, local admin girl, and not-so-prolific songwriter. Come check us out. We promise to bite.