Interview with Knuckle: ‘That’s Knuckle’s real strength – the ability to talk about dark and difficult stuff without bringing you down but without glamourising it’

Huddersfield garage blues rockers Knuckle have released their new album Life’s a Bench, Then They Put Your Name On It, the brilliantly diverse follow-up to 2019’s Life Is Hard When You’re Soft Inside, exploring addiction, love, loneliness and being your own worst enemy.

The band comprises Jonny Firth (vocals and guitar), Ben Wallbanks (drums) and Rob Crisp (bass): ‘I was in a band called Cry Baby, Cry but Rosie the singer went on tour with Peter Gabriel, so I wanted to form a new band,’ Firth explained. Wallbanks jumps in: ‘We were at Jungle Night a bit drunk and Jonny wanted to call us Battlescars or Knuckle but Battlescars was worse!’ Firth also has solo work on Bandcamp as jonnythefirth.

The diversity on the 13 track album – they tap into their vintage rock, blues and soul leanings, throwing in a dash of punk – has been inspired in part by Firth’s love of The Beatles: ‘My favourite Beatles album is the White album, which is really diverse,’ he said. Life’s a Bench, Then They Put Your Name On It is a characteristically raucous affair from the trio, at times furious, gentle and hilarious, a complex documentation of their own lives and those around them in their home town.

Every track tells a very distinct story, set to massive riffs and tongue-in-cheek wordplay, tackling difficult issues. It’s their ability to deal with the ugly side of life in a humorous way that sets the songs apart: ‘The first album was called Life Is Hard When You’re Soft Inside and the new title follows from that,’ Firth said. ‘When you’re on a walk and you see people’s names on benches, you wish you knew them, you want to know who they were. I saw a post on Facebook that said: “This bench is dedicated to Dennis but he fucking hated the place (laughs)”, that’s where it came from.’

‘It’s the little voice in your head, the devil on your shoulder, the fact that it’s called ‘Scum’, it knows it’s bad for itself’

‘Scum’, the opening track on the album encapsulates that perfectly, a downtempo, simmering blues- infused stomp that bursts into fuzzed out, distorted riffs, courtesy of a Big Muff pedal, showcasing Firth’s stadium-worthy voice in full flight as he tackles addiction and depression with his singular, darkly funny wit: ‘We were talking about this on the way over, weren’t we, Rob?,’ Firth said. ‘I wrote this when I’d had too much wine. You know that inner monologue, I wrote it from that point of view.’ Crisp nods: ‘It’s the little voice in your head, the devil on your shoulder, the fact that it’s called ‘Scum’, it knows it’s bad for itself.’ Firth weighs back in: ‘There’s a lot of addiction that people have here, I do as well. It’s quite liberating saying: “Actually, I’m happy with my faults”. You’re your own worst enemy and critic, aren’t you?’

Their close bond and admiration for each other comes through on our Zoom: ‘I have to take the songs to Rob, the genius in the band,’ Firth said. ‘I only know two and a half chords! The band wouldn’t be the same without them, we love each other. I’m privileged to be in a band with two awesome dudes.’ Wallbanks is equally complimentary: ‘Jonny brings the song and Rob frames it,’ he said.

They ramp the tempo up on ‘Sick At The Fair’, a nostalgic rollercoaster about young love that channels Manic Street Preachers, with Firth lamenting in the track “Oh, I was sick in your hair”: ”We were at a music festival, the Beat-Herder in Lancashire,’ Wallbanks said. Crisp jumps in: ‘They set a tent out like a working men’s club, that’s the obvious place to put us (laughs). We were there with our Red Stripe, had too many and ended up on the Walzers. We got off and threw up all over each other – brothers in arms!’ Firth is laughing: ‘I thought I was gonna die on the Walzers!’ Wallbanks laughs: ‘You’ve never had a night out unless you’ve had a night out in Wakefield with Jonny,’ he tells me.

‘There’s a positive energy about it, the chords, the instrumentation’

‘Meet Me At The Station’, the mid-album wistful ballad, has a slight country vibe, with its swaggering, shuffling drums and sublime, lap steel guitars. I had assumed it was a break-up song but it turns out to have an even more poignant backstory: ‘It’s about a family member who took his own life,’ Firth explained. ‘You think if you could have reached out, maybe you could have changed it. People should speak up about it, about what’s inside. It’s saying one day you’ll see your family in the next life.’ Despite the backstory, there’s something about the way the outro builds that feels optimistic, it’s almost a call to arms to enjoy what you have when you have it: ‘There’s a positive energy about it, the chords, instrumentation, that’s Knuckle’s real strength – the ability to talk about dark and difficult stuff without bringing you down but without glamourising it, it’s very honest,’ Crisp said.

There was a slightly longer gap than anticipated between albums one and two, as life got in the way, from getting married and starting families to launching t-shirt brands (Jonny Firth’s Wild West Yorkshire label) and standing on CWU picket lines (Wallbanks is a postie supporting the strikes), they have poured all of this living and hard won experience into their second album.

One of Wild West Yorkshire’s most popular t-shirt designs is their ‘Shakey Wakey’ retro milkshake t-shirt and it turns out that they have other plans for the name, which is the local nickname for Wakefield: ‘We’ve got an overdrive pedal, we’ve only made a few, called Shakey Wakey, it’ll be heavily used on the next album called Life’s… A Congestion Charge,’ Firth deadpanned.

‘I had to ride it out and let the fucking wheels come off’

Firth studied ceramics and sculpture at university, where he met fellow Wild West Yorkshire co-founder Dan Payne. After several years of losing contact, they both reconnected through working on different artistic projects and got together over lockdown to launch Wild West Yorkshire. Payne also designs all of their album art and t-shirts, including their “Nora” t-shirt featuring Nora, Firth’s cockapoo-looking but actually mixed dog that he found in France, wearing a spacesuit.

His love of the Beatles has also seeped into other tracks, most notably ‘Imaginary Friends’, which has a really Beatlesey intro and underlying melody. It’s easy to imagine Paul McCartney singing it. It’s a bittersweet yet endearing track; unflinchingly honest, raw and tortured: ‘I was drinking a lot and my partner was trying to stop me, I was on that addiction trail,’ Firth said. ‘I had to ride it out and let the fucking wheels come off. It’s saying: “I want to drink, please don’t stop me”. I had an imaginary friend called Freddie until I was five and my grandad sat on him and killed him (laughs).’ There are Beatlesey elements in other tracks, such as ‘Pills’, which gives us fizzing synths and walking bass lines before spiralling into a defiant, helter skelter outro.

Songwriting is clearly a very organic process for them: ‘We’ve got thousands of recordings,’ Crisp said. ‘The way we write is really nice, we’ll jam songs. Jonny’s got lyrics flowing out of him but I never see him write any down!’ Firth laughs: ‘Maybe that’s the sculpture thing,’ he said. ‘We play a lot, that means that you don’t necessarily know where everything comes from.’

‘There’s something poetic about the old Yorkshire sayings’

‘Guestlist’ is one of the more lighthearted tracks on the album, taking a gentle yet lighthearted dig at friends who want to get on their guest list for gigs, featuring the witty line: “I’ll put you on the guest list, I’ll stand you next to your ex”: ‘It’s about people wanting to get on the guest list 30 minutes before a gig,’ Crisp said. Firth laughs: ‘Without your mates coming, there’d be nobody there! We love people who come to our gigs.’ His band mates look at him: ‘Jonny’s not allowed to work merch, he gives everything away!,’ Wallbanks said. ‘When people see Jonny’s on merch, everyone’s queueing up!’

They bring a wide range of musical influences to the band, including The Faces, The Black Keys and Black Pumas, an American psychedelic soul band from Austin, and ‘souley stuff’. Firth is also a huge fan of GA-20, an American blues band from Boston, Massachusetts. (The band is named after the guitar amplifier manufactured by Gibson.)

Their Yorkshire roots have influenced their songs in other ways, too, with Yorkshire sayings inspiring tracks such as ‘Better Door (Than A Window)’, incorporating some of the most gloriously sludgey, distorted guitars on the album: ‘”You’d make a better door than a window”, my nan would say that to me when I stood in front of the TV,’ Firth said. ‘This song’s about the idea of a big muscly guy in a rough pub in Wakefield who might knock me out (laughs). There’s something poetic about the old Yorkshire sayings.’ I say that I love them and that my grandparents were from Yorkshire and we go down a rabbit hole chatting about some of the best ones. ‘Don’t forget to put wood in the ‘oyle’!,’ Wallbanks said. ‘It means: “Close the door”. ‘I’m more south Yorkshire,’ Firth said. ‘Do you know “Have you been for a sneck lifter?!”‘ I say that I don’t. ‘It means the latch on an old door, it’s what my nan would say to my grandad when he came back from the pub (laughs). I’d write a book about them but I’m dyslexic!’

‘He worked on an oil rig, what an amazing voice!’

The closer ‘Jonny Got Knocked Out’ is a two minute tune so joyously triumphant that it will have gig goers bouncing all the way, despite the story behind it. Firth is singing it almost jubilantly; it has a blisteringly infectious energy that leaves the listener on a high. ‘We played in a little place in Leeds and were walking to the Corn Exchange when someone got out of a car and knocked Jonny out,’ Wallbanks said. Firth nods: ‘The police thought it was either mistaken identity or a gang initiation test. That’s my uncle (as a young boy) on the album cover – I’ve never looked the same since! But I got back up and we stayed out drinking for another four hours!’

If they could go for a pint with anyone, they pick an interesting mix of people: ‘My instant one but maybe he’d be a prick is John Lennon,’ Firth said. ‘Maybe Jimi Hendrix.’ Crisp has other ideas: ‘Grandaddy (an American indie rock band from Modesto, California). Jason Lytle, he sings it all. He’s great on Twitter. We’d go for a walk, it would be nice to go hiking with him.’ Wallbanks picks two: ‘John Bonham and Neil Young.’ Crisp is laughing: ‘The one time Ben shut up was at Glasto when John Paul Jones (the bassist and keys player in Led Zeppelin) walked past, he froze!’ Firth jumps back in: ‘I’ve changed my mind (laughs), I’ll have Levon Helm from The Band when they were Bob Dylan’s backing band. He worked on an oil rig, what an amazing voice!’

(Photo from left to right: Ben, Jonny and Rob.)