Interview with Cruel Hearts Club: ‘Our next single will be heavier, a nice shake-up to our usual stuff’

London-based grunge-pop trio, Cruel Hearts Club, released another single ‘Dirty Rotten Scum’ last month, a 90’s infused track with growling bass hooks, fuzzy guitar work and anthemic drumming, laying down the foundations for a raw and emotive vocal performance from frontwoman Edie Langley.

From London’s dirty neon streets, they describe the song as being about ‘a gloriously messed up yet defiant love story’ involving ‘low-life car-crash lovers living heady and hard, caught up in their own rum-soaked broken world, at times both heavenly and heart-breaking’. Edie Langley says the song is ‘partly semi-autobiographical but only because we take snippets from our lives, lost in London (born to Australian parents, they grew up in Buxton in Derbyshire, before moving to London 11 years ago), you know, that guy who’s been your world’.

As the song goes: ‘These city streets – we walk for hours, no sleep, so you tell me your stories of your glory days and it’s kinda cute, when sunlight comes we run out of rum but it’s ok, we’ve got rollies and chewing gum and it’s all we need.’

The band comprises Langley and her sister Gita (guitar and synths) and Gabi Woo (drums). The Langley sisters, who co-wrote ‘Dirty Rotten Scum’, were previously in another band called Lark: ‘The music was more electronic but we thought the name was a bit shit,’ Langley laughed. ‘We wanted to have a new push and every band name in the world was taken! Anything I liked, Gita hated! We ended up putting words together that we loved and this name felt good.’ Three years ago, they were looking for a drummer and when they asked around, a friend suggested Woo.

They will record a single over the next couple of weeks that Edie describes as ‘heavier, a nice shake-up to our usual stuff’: ‘We’d like to release another single or EP within the next two months. The EP would be ‘Dirty Rotten Scum’, ‘Blame Me Too’, ‘Suck It Up’ (all released this year), this new one and ‘Sink It Slow’, which we’ve played before, it’s guitar heavy. It feels time to put out something physical, we’d like to do vinyl, too. After that, if we can, we’d like to release a new single around every two months.’

She acknowledges that lockdown was hard, not least because she was also home schooling: ‘The first few weeks, I did a lot but then I watched a lot of crap TV! I reset myself with it!’

‘Hey Compadre’ was inspired by female drug cartels in Mexico

Another track, ‘Hey Compadre’ (Hey, man), which came out last year, was written by Gita and inspired by reading about female drug cartels in Mexico. ‘We made it trancey,’ Langley laughed. ‘We were meant to be going to Mexico this month, we’ve got friends in Puerto Escondido, we love it there.’

‘Blame Me Too’, about a love triangle, and which came out earlier this year feels like the most raw of their songs to date. Langley agrees: ‘Yeah. we took our demo and added a few bits. A few days before lockdown, we took it to The Albion Rooms (a recording studio in Margate. The video to ‘Dirty Rotten Scum’ was also filmed in Margate, a place Eddie says she ‘has a thing about’.) and did it in half a day. I’ve got a soft spot for it.’

As ‘Blame Me Too’ goes: ‘Alone in the crowd, you pull me out, I’m no good on my own, if there was ever any doubt, you dirtied my heart when you walked away, I guess you didn’t know that it was dirty anyway.’

Cruel Hearts Club have supported The Libertines, Iggy Pop and Sting, the latter of whom has asked them to support his London Palladium residency next year. They’ve also played the Isle of Wight Festival, Camden Rocks and Hit The North whilst having their music played on BBC Radio 1 and Radio X. They are hoping to put on a socially-distanced gig in Camden in London next month. She’d also like to see more drive-in gigs: ‘My boyfriend just did a huge drive in gig on a football field or a stadium in Newcastle. I’d be happy to do that if it meant we could play again and that people could go back to gigs.’

If she could tour with anyone, she picks the disbanded indie rock band, Hole. ‘If they reformed, I’d love to tour with them. Gita would say Lana Del Rey and Gabi likes The Strokes.’

She is a big fan of Liverpool-based singer Zuzu – ‘she’s really good’ – as well as of Brighton-based indie rock band, Black Honey: ‘I’m loving them, they’re rock ‘n’ rolley. They write really good pop indie songs.’ Her father makes musical instruments and she and her sister grew up listening to an eclectic mix, including Bob Dylan, ABBA – ‘I love ABBA!,’ she exclaims – and The Beatles: ‘I’ve been everything,’ she laughed, ‘from a chav to emo girl and everything in between! The bands that made me want to be in a band were emo bands. I didn’t start playing the guitar until about nine years ago but you can do so much more with it, I much prefer writing on it to the piano. I love my pink guitar with the tape on it!’

(Photo from left to right: Gita, Gabi and Edie)