The Sound of Bristol: LICE
Posted on: 04 Nov 2016For the third instalment of the Sound of Bristol series, we get down to the nitty-gritty with LICE, a punk quartet who met during their studies at the University of Bristol.
Public Service Announcement: Bristol is suffering from an outbreak of LICE.
Over the last few months they have been digging into Bristol’s scalps and scuttling into its meatuses, busily burrowing into every acoustic nook and cranny that the city has to offer. And, what’s worse, the epidemic hasn’t been contained. Nit combs at the ready.
Gareth Johnson, bassist for the parasitic punk four-piece, who, since October, have enjoyed an EP launch and crushingly sweaty shows at the Crofters Rights, Louisiana and at Simple Things, appears relaxed about their proliferating pestilence. “It’s been steady. It’s not like we’ve done a Royal Blood and shot to the top of the charts, signed to a massive label and toured the world,” he downplays. “But it’s been alright, it’s been pretty fun.”
The singer sitting to his right, Alastair Shuttleworth, is slightly more upbeat about their recent exploits and their resultant infestation within the city’s budding music scene: “When we started out with our first shows it felt like we were basically just playing to our mates.”
“That’s all we still play to,” Gareth interjects with a smirk.
“But now it feels like all the other bands in the city know us and we’re a bit more a part of it,” he continues, “which is nice because there are some insanely talented people here, so it’s cool that they want to do shows with us.”
The cooperative ethos shared by these Bristol bands has allowed friendships to form between them - which, in turn, allows for relationships which are more productive in their reciprocity. Gareth uses the example of LICE’s friendship with BAD BREEDING (who, admittedly, are not from the city), to expound this, explaining that it was only through being allocated a support slot on their tour that he was able to offer the opportunity to return the favour at a Halloween show in Bristol- and when they heard where it was taking place it could hardly be refused.
The gig in question took place last Friday in the Crypt, a disused church in the centre of Bristol. LICE performed - in full fancy-dress, with Alastair hidden beneath a bed sheet as a budget (holy) ghost and Gareth performing with a hollow pumpkin coating his cranium - bathed in an ethereal green light, after sets from local mates Van Zeller and BAD BREEDING, who agreed to play for nothing more than petrol money.
Alastair picks up on this atmosphere of support, suggesting that “there is definitely an infrastructure or a community of people who are very willing to help each other.” He goes on to namedrop local hero Oliver Wilde, who had put this down to Bristol’s relative lack of money compared to London.
“There aren’t the big labels which are centred in London, so everything here is based around DIY shows,” he continues. “As such, it basically just depends on how willing bands and people in the city are to help each other. Which is nice because they just are. We’ve been welcomed in.”
“It’s different in Bristol to London,” agrees Gareth, “because in London there is the scene which they’re all trying to accelerate away from really quickly because the main aim is to get signed to a label big enough to make a career out of it. Here people do not give a sh*t about that. Here you’re just doing it to have fun and to play more shows.”
The stark contrast which they draw between the two cities informs more than just the sentiments of their respective musical scenes, but the more general mood alive in each. According to Alastair, “Bristol is a happy bubble where everything is great all the time.”
Gareth only agrees up to a point: “Artistically, yeah. But that all has to be motivated by something and I think that’s why punk is making more of a comeback, because people are p*ssed off with the government, and want to say something about it.”
It is from this context of social unrest that bands like IDLES and Shame have sprouted, self-confessed ‘angry’ bands who turn all of their ire towards the state. The question as to whether they themselves are angry provokes a more polarised response from the two LICE-men present.
“I’m not angry,” Alastair can barely get out before-
“I am!” cuts Gareth.
This disparity in outlook reveals insight into where LICE’s music comes from. Qualifying his more optimistic stance, Alastair outlines the sentiments with which he writes his lyrics: “A lot of the songs take their cue from Ben Wallers of Country Teasers, who essentially came up with these evil characters and wrote rants from their perspectives - so they’re dark but also meant to be pretty funny as well. When I go onstage and shout in people’s faces, it feels like a release but I don’t find myself p*ssed off with things in everyday life.”
“I think people just carry around this capacity to just f*cking despise other people, which comes out in flashes,” he goes on. “We don’t like to acknowledge it because it’s quite ugly, so that’s what a lot of the songs are written about.”
For Alastair, the flashes in question appear to occur solely when he is performing: anybody who has seen LICE and stopped around for a chat afterwards would attest to the scale of the Jekyll-like metamorphosis into the spitting, snarling stage presence from the otherwise picture of politeness who, Gareth jokes, “would even compliment his own torturers.”
The bassist goes on, “He never gets angry so he has to do it at some point. Most people get p*ssed off at something every hour and just let it out, but Ali just seems to save it all up for the next gig.”
“I do like the contrast; I find it really interesting to see people who are really different offstage,” Alastair agrees. Sometimes we’ll play a gig to people who don’t know us, and afterwards I'll see somebody just along at the bar who clearly saw us and seemed to like it, but doesn’t want to tell me that they did because they’re worried that I’m going to scream at them.”
“Hardly anybody wants to talk to me post-show,” adds Gareth, “because I’m this angry, hairy, sweaty mess.” Anybody who has seen LICE can attest to this too, with his often-terrifying onstage antics indelibly seared onto their retinas.
The bass-player owes the transformation to this ‘angry, sweaty mess’ (pictured above) from the short-haired, clean-shaven Circa Waves fan he was two years ago pretty much entirely to the band, and its nucleus in befriending guitarist Silas Dilkes. “As a result of meeting Silas, I started listening to better music which got me more angry,” he explains. “It was Silas who told us to listen to the Birthday Party, to listen to Nick Cave, to listen to Total Control, to listen to the Country Teasers. It was after we had written a couple of songs in that vein, so it made sense to listen to the same sort of stuff.”
“Silas moulded us in his image, in terms of music taste,” agrees Alastair, “we’re all pretty similarly-minded now. Apart from Bruce.”
Drummer Bruce Bardsley staunchly remains the group’s resident metal-head, left cold by many of the (post-)punk bands who the rest of LICE admire and play with. He didn’t even like the Fall, who they supported back in May.
But whether metal or punk, happy or angry, supporting some mates or playing a sold-out solo show, together Alastair, Gareth, Silas and Bruce make up LICE, a band cohesively committed to having fun. And it is beginning to spread beyond Bristol. No scalp is safe.
Article by:
An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
