Interview with PLAY DEAD: ‘With ‘Mug Cake’, we wanted to get it out there, to show we were changing our sound’

London punk rockers PLAY DEAD brought out their brilliant sophomore album ‘Mug Cake’ earlier this month, which showcases a deeper maturity and grit in the south London trio’s sound.

The band comprises Joe (vocals and guitar), Ollie (bass) and Elias (drums): ‘I’m in college now,’ Ollie said. ‘Me and Joe met in school in year 8 and met Elias through “No I.D.”, an event that Joe put on.’

‘Mug Cake’ is an infectiously good and tightly put together EP comprising five in your face, story-driven tracks full of teenage woes and restless energy that showcase the darker elements and drawbacks of young adult life in London but without losing the nihilistic wit and ‘less is more’ punk rock ethic that has come to define the band: ‘With ‘Mug Cake’, we wanted to get it out there, to show we were changing our sound a bit,’ Ollie said. ‘A few are a bit more light hearted, others are a bit deeper. Our first EP was more childish, we were only 14 when we wrote it.’

First recorded in late October 2021 in a marathon weekend session at Brighton Electric, the EP kicks off with ‘Away From Here’, a favourite at gigs for its sobering change-ups in pace. It touches on the theme of social vulnerability that you don’t see on the surface with PLAY DEAD, reinforced by Joe’s lyrical urgency as he tries to escape somewhere of his own making: ‘It’s the only song I’ve ever written with a deeper meaning,’ Joe said. ‘It’s a conversation with myself at a low point about anxiety. It came naturally.’

Other tracks build on a familiar PLAY DEAD formula, infused with comic self-loathing put to skater-punk/post-Britpop guitar tones, as reflected in the story of Joe’s sorry inability to get a good trim at the ‘Barbershop’. ‘Offy’ centres around a typical teenage tale of boys attempting one last dash to the offy to save a miserable night, as depicted in Oscar Smart’s crisp film across several locations in south London: ‘It wasn’t based on a specific night out, just the urge to get booze but you don’t have your fake I.D. You’re scavenging around in a grim south London park!,’ Joe said.

‘We hadn’t even finished ‘Company Car’ when we came to record it’

The subconsciously charged lyrics in ‘Company Car’ are built around a dynamic, bass-heavy backbone, with parts that were only pieced together at the eleventh hour before the ‘Mug Cake’ sessions. On the receiving end of the band’s ire this time is the ‘type of man wearing a suit and riding an electric scooter around Canary Wharf always putting himself before anyone else, probably has too much money for his own good but still isn’t very happy with his life’: ‘There was no real plan with the EP, we hadn’t even finished ‘Company Car’ when we came to record it (laughs), we winged it a bit!,’ said Joe. ‘We didn’t even know if they’d flow as a track list.’

‘Barbershop’ is the liveliest and wittiest track on the EP, as Joe laments in the intro: “Barbershop, 9 in the morning, everybody’s snoring and my hair’s too long. I’m going out tonight but I can’t with a trim like this, my barnet’s fucking shit.” I ask him if he was actually at the barber’s that early in the morning. ‘Nah, it just rhymes,’ he said laughing. ‘I do wake up early, though. Every haircut I get, something goes wrong. We’ve all got bad haircuts!’ Elias chips in: ‘Ollie’s girlfriend cuts his hair,’ he said. Joe looks at him: ‘I wouldn’t let her cut mine! The song’s about the tradition we have of saying to the hairdresser “Oh, that’s nice, thank you” and paying them, even when we’ve had a shit haircut!’ It would be a great track to bounce around to live, with a chorus that is simple but incredibly catchy, with distorted guitars and relentless drums and Joe’s vocals, which switch between nonchalant and furious, just add to the comic effect.

Typically, their songs start from a chord progression: ‘The lyrics are secondary,’ Joe said. ‘We want to nail the instrumentation down first. When we get into a rehearsal room, we take videos, so I’ll come home with those and start writing some lyrics.’

‘Boil It Down’ explodes with a scuzzy, squeaky riff and I ask what pedal they used on it: ‘It was me fucking about with the guitar (laughs), sliding my ring up the guitar strings,’ said Joe. ‘We started writing it in Logic. We don’t play it live anymore, for some reason it doesn’t hit with people, maybe because in between the intro and the end, the chorus is just guitars.’ Elias agrees: ‘It doesn’t have a good dynamic,’ he said. Joe weighs back in: ‘It’s hard, you can’t predict where a song will go live,’ he said. ‘This song is sort of about “stone island folk” on a night out, about a group of lads staring you down and intimidating you. Living in London, you get dickheads doing that a lot.’

‘It’s melodic and catchy, it’s got a good energy live’

They’ll continue to give us their own brand of social commentary in some upcoming tracks: ‘We’ve got loads of songs that we’ve been playing live,’ Elias said. Joe nods: ‘We’ve got ‘Pretty Little Thing’ about people on Insta, influencers, that sort of thing, who will promote anything for a pay cheque. We’re looking forward to recording that. Ollie weighs in: ‘It’s quite a simple song, it’s run off one bass line.’ Joe agrees: ‘It’s melodic and catchy, it’s got a good energy live.’

They share a lot of musical influences, including Manchester punk rock band Aerial Salad and Croydon punk rockers Wonk Unit: ‘Alex at Wonk Unit (their frontman) has helped us with a few songs,’ said Joe. Ollie grew up listening to The Clash and Elias is a big fan of Massive Attack: ‘Morgen Simpson (Black Midi’s drummer) is ridiculously good,’ he said.

They’ve had some funny yet traumatizing moment onstage, according to Joe: ‘At a gig last year at Paper Dress Vintage, everyone had a few too many and, to cut a long story short, Ollie ended up singing the opening lyrics to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off’ in a death metal voice to a crowd that looked like they would rather be anyone else,’ he said. ‘At the time, it was mortifying but now we look back and find it the funniest thing in the world! The venue we most want to play is a basic one but it’s the O2 Brixton Academy; we’ve all seem so many gigs there and it’s very local to us, it would be a total dream.’

If they could go for a pint with anyone, Joe plumps for John Lennon: ‘That’d be a laugh, he’d be interesting – or Adele.’ They all laugh: ‘She’s like your mum,’ Elias tells Ollie. Joe laughs: ‘Yeah, she’s bubbly,’ he said. ‘I’ll say Adele, why not,’ said Ollie. ‘I wouldn’t mind going for a pint with Tricky the rapper, I think he’d be interesting,’ Elias said. Joe is looking at them: ‘I reckon with all of them that would be a bangin’ night out!’