As you know, I love discovering and sharing with you all the punk bands I come across. If it’s still early days for this site, I regularly receive submissions by email or via Instagram offering me to listen to the productions of new punk bands, whether pop punk, punk rock, emo, even rock, and indie… Among these, there was one that surprised me, that of Insects, a trio doing “punk stuff with an electronic vibe” and hailing from the tiny Isle of Man, located between Northern Ireland and the north-west of England. Of course, the UK is famous for punk bands of all kinds and from all eras, but I have to admit I didn’t know any from the Isle of Man. So both the location and the band’s style intrigued me.
After a first listen to what they had produced, I wanted to learn more about them and their music creation process. As it happened, they were preparing the release of their new EP. So, I proposed doing a brief interview to introduce them to you and let you discover their quite surprising style and form your own opinion about this group that pleasantly surprised me with their unconventional style. No more suspense, here is the interview with Luke, Rich, and Tom, the members of Insects, on the occasion of the release of their new EP “Burn It Before It Lays Eggs”.
You come from the Isle of Man in the UK, it’s a surprising place to find a band that mixes punk with electronic, so it seems to me from my French point of view. How did you come up with the idea of doing, at first, “electronic things with a punk vibe and now doing punk things with an electronic vibe?
Luke: Definitely a question for Rich as he wrote and produced the first two EPs and the album!
Rich: I’ve played, listened and written this kind of music my entire life. I basically live and breathe pop punk at this point, almost to a fault. I needed a change a few years ago or more accurately I needed to freshen up what I was writing. I’ve always wanted to experiment with vocoders and synths intertwined with pop punk so that’s kind of how I ended up with the first 2 EPs.
Tom: I think that the island has such a varying music scene that it has encouraged us to play a different style that doesn’t sound like anyone else, which is good because we don’t like sounding like other bands “ahaha”
Related to this, can you tell us about the formation of the band, how long have you been playing together? Is the local music scene conducive to the development of your band and music style?
Tom: They said they needed a sexy, ferocious drummer and logically they came to the conclusion that I was the man
Luke: I don’t know who Tom is talking about ‘cause Rich and I are clearly the sex appeal of the band! Me and Rich have known each other for the best part of 15 years, but until 2022 we’d never played in a band together. I happened to be in a covers band with our drummer Tom and Rich wanted to play the songs live, so we sort of started playing together after that. There’s definitely a scene on the Island, and thankfully we’ve all got connections in the UK so hopefully in the near future we can get over to the mainland to play some shows!
Insects – Credit Brandon Cain
What are your main musical influences and how do they reflect in your music style? For both punk and electronic music?
Luke: My main influences are Neck Deep and Greenday, which you can hear a lot in the bass parts and chord progressions, and a lot of early 2010s metalcore which is really really evident in my lead guitar parts!
Rich: My go to would be Blink 182 or Alkaline Trio but whatever I’m listening to at the time can play a role. I’m a massive The 1975 fanboy so that’s definitely a factor, I love my old shit too such as INXS and The Cure.
Tom: I am actually not as much of a pop punk fan as the other two. However, I grew up listening to old school punk constantly. I love the Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones and Buzzcocks, and I think this can be seen in my fast and loud drumming style.
Your new EP it’s coming out very soon. Can you describe your creation process? Where did you find your inspiration?
Luke: The EP started off with Rich showing me a very rough demo for the track Neosporin, and from what I remember it was never planned to be an EP! I personally don’t stop writing and due to some unforeseen personal happenings I had a lot of time on my hands, so I just kept writing new material and sending instrumentals to Rich for him to work his magic on! I know the title track ‘Burn It Before It Lays Eggs’ was originally a throwaway track I wrote to test out a new drum plugin I had, and Rich just ran with it!
Tom: It was very taxing. Luke and Rich seemed like they were always busy so obviously there was a slight feeling in the back of my head that I should do something to help. But I didn’t.
Luke: He occasionally provided comedic value.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced to produce this EP, and how do you work to overcome them?
Luke: For me, apart from Rich wanting to make a million and one changes during the mixing (I’m joking), doing the whole EP ourselves! We recorded the vocals in Rich’s attic room, I recorded all of the guitar and bass parts in my parents’ spare bedroom whilst staying with them briefly, and then we mixed and mastered the EP in my home studio. It took us 9 months in between various personal issues and working full time but we’re happy with it now!
Rich: He’s not joking, I’m very picky.
What is the message or main theme you want to convey through your music?
Luke: I’d just be happy if people see I’m enjoying playing music again which at one point wasn’t the case!
Rich: Don’t do drugs. Or just not too many. Worship Satan everyday for he is the bestest friend the church has ever had. He has kept it in business all these years. Look after your brain.
Tom: I think that it is just Richard’s heart being poured out in the lyrics, and it’s so emotive and beautiful.
Are you planning a tour to support the release of this EP? In addition to this, what venue or festival would you dream of playing your setlist at? Is there one of these places in a French-speaking part of the world?
Luke: No tour planned, but we do have an EP release show with some other sick bands at our local rock venue!! Playing at Hellfest would be absolutely sick!
Rich: Yeah, Hellfest would be rad. Rock en Seine would be nuts too. We’re hoping to maybe sort a few shows across the water at some point.
Tom: Hell yeah I’m always up for a tour. Whether people like it or not is up to them, but I’d like to see if they do.
What are your plans to grow your audience and make a name for yourselves in the industry as an emerging band? Do you have any specific promotion initiatives or collaborations planned to support your growth and your EP?
Luke: I’ve been in contact with multiple indie publications, with you guys being the primary one (a little message that makes me happy – Lionel PPRU), which we’re incredibly grateful for! We’re hoping to have a couple of music videos filmed and released shortly after the EP hits the market and we’re just going to annoy the hell out of anyone and everyone we can with the songs!
Finally, can you share an anecdote or standout moment from your journey as an emerging band so far?
Rich: when I began this project nearly 4 years ago I genuinely believed they would never be performed live. I’ve put my entire mind and soul into writing these songs, so being able to perform it with these pair of buffoons is as you guys say “c’est très magnifique”.
Luke: Playing our first show as a 3 piece having put in hours and hours of practice was pretty special!
Tom: In honesty, just playing the songs live – it’s been such a journey and it’s so nice to play them in front of a crowd and show off what we’ve done
If you want to add something, just go there
Fun fact: penguins can shoot poop bombs. Firing poop out of their butts at a speed of 5mph. (Ok, this one I wasn’t expecting!!!! Lionel PPRU)
And that’s it! I hope the discovery of this pop-punk-electro band and its universe has been as rewarding for you as it has been for me. We wish them the best of luck for the rest of their musical adventure. To listen to them, click here:
