W/ Rachel June
Meet the grungy alt-indie band whose lyrics cut to the bone and whose sound refuses to be ignored. Dreamy guitars buzz and shimmer over booming drums that pierce the soul. This is a band on the rise - and not by accident. Their music drags you into a blurred, electric indie-rock abyss, equal parts chaos and calm, where movement is unavoidable, and feeling comes first. We spoke with The Youth Play to peel back the layers, exploring who they are, what fuels them, and what lies ahead in 2026.
Who are The Youth Play?
Alex - a group of 4 friends that met and started making music together in uni.
For someone that is yet to discover you, how would you describe your music?
Harrison - melodic alternative rock driven by pounding drums, thumping bass and dreamy guitars
What inspired you as a band?
Fin - shoegaze and post punk songs. Me and Alex showed Diego and Harrison bands like my bloody valentine and slowdive and we kept broadening that dreamy landscape whilst drinking beer and playing fifa round each others house
What Is Your Pre-Show Routine?
Diego - beers, tequila and vocal zones. One time before our gig supporting been stellar in Hamburg we all sang ‘in the air tonight’ by Phil Collins but we haven’t done that since, maybe that’ll come back.
Where do you feel you fit into the music landscape?
Harrison - we struggle to pin ourselves in a specific realm of the London scene, we’ve seen loads of bands that we love here but we think that we’re doing something different
What are your favourite musical genres, and are there any you dislike?
Fin - I think what makes us special is our love of all different genres, we all met through a combined love of shoegaze and the like but I listen to loads of psychedelic 60s music, Alex listens a lot of deftones inspired bands, Harrison loves dream pop and electronic music right now and Diego listens to the national, get down services and the yeah yeah yeahs
Is there a story behind the band’s name?
Diego - I came up with it when I was living in Barcelona doing a duet with my best mate from Ibiza, when I started studying in London and recruited these guys I said that was the name and we stuck with it. No big story sadly
What would you say is your greatest strength as a Band?
Harrison - our drive, commitment, chemistry and ability to agree on our differences.
What would you say is your weakness as a Band?
Fin - we all live in London which very expensive, we all work full time and have to also do band work which is another full time job on top of our day to day lives. This can prove challenging at times but we manage to make it work
What music artists would you say have influenced your work?
Fin - as we’ve said before we all like different stuff but collectively we like a lot of the same. When on tour and driving about our favourite artists to listen to were:
Mj lenderman
Suicide
Floodlights
Get down services
Brian Jonestown massacre
Pink Floyd
Sonic youth
Rowland s Howard
And the xfm podcast
Who would you most like to collaborate with artistically?
Diego - Justin vernon (Bon iver). I think his songwriting is brilliant I’ve listened to it religiously since about 2010
Song on repeat right now?
Fin - Vamos by Pixies
Harrison - it’s late by a beacon school
Alex - every dawns a mountain by tamino
Diego - fuck forever by baby shambles
What has been your biggest obstacle & how did you overcome it?
Diego - like every band that’s starting out I think money is our obstacle, we’re lucky enough to work full time around band work so we can afford to do tours and shows outside of London but every week when we practise that £15 each still hurts
What is your creative process when making music? Do you work with others or is it just you?
Alex - we all come up with different ideas, once a week we have a rehearsal and we all bring in ideas and record a version of the track. We come home and listen to that recording on repeat and rework that until we think the idea is a good song. They still change over time further on down the line we never settle on what we have and we’re always trying to see how it can improve, whether that’s some backing vocals harmonies or interesting fills from one of us in the band
This year, what can we expect?
Harrison - we’re releasing an EP ‘someday, forever’ that’ll be out on the 15th of August, we’re playing a headline show at the mascara bar; Diego’s local pub. And we’ve got some more gigs coming to fruition in the future that’ll tide us over. We’ve written a bunch of songs in the past few months that we’re currently in the process of demoing and we should have more music ready to keep on track with this current momentum and keep releasing.