Interview
Interview
Stage Times: The Wombats
From brutal crowds to triumphant Glastonbury sets, Matthew Murphy talks us through some of his most memorable onstage moments
Emerging onto the scene in the late 2000s as quirky indie darlings, The Wombats’ infectious blend of humour and heartbreak served as the soundtrack for a generation navigating life’s complications.
Their electro-flecked rock sound paired with frontman Matthew “Murph” Murphy’s candid recollections on love and loss, over the course of five albums their signature wit has gradually made space for introspection. Grappling with social anxieties and internal strife, the trio’s sixth full-length offering Oh! The Ocean comes as a reminder to slow down and savour the moment before it’s gone.
“One of the things that unites us is that we all love the struggle. We love the idea of wrestling with something in order to get to the best outcome… I think it’s more of a risk for us to do the same thing by this point,” Murph nods.
“We met up with John Congleton [producer], and he seemed insane enough to deal with us, so we went from there. Going into this album, the band dynamic was much healthier, and I felt like I was in a better place to be creative. If there was a problem, it got dealt with there and then, so it all felt very healthy.”
Pieced together in LA – close to Murph’s home and his young family – there’s a distinct sense of restoration spread across Oh! The Ocean. Coloured by the Californian summer, its twelve songs reflect on the realities of a life far away from the Liverpool streets he grew up on. A nod to how much has changed since they started this journey, 2025 sees The Wombats returning to UK arenas – including a huge headline show at The O2 Arena.
“The live stuff is just growing and growing, and honestly I don’t know what it’s down to,” the frontman shrugs.
“I think we’re fortunate that our band is weird enough to have space to mature. The songs, the lyrics, and some of the ideas have always been a bit odder than our counterparts, so maybe that’s what has set us apart and helped us in our career. Our music still seems to resonate with the older fans whilst finding new homes… I don’t know why that is, but I’m happy about it.”
Armed with a fresh perspective and a drive to make these their biggest shows yet, we sat down with Murph to chat through some of his most memorable onstage moments, from all-you-can-drink chaos in his hometown to an emotional return to Worthy Farm.
The gig that made me want to make music
The first ever proper live show I went to see was Radiohead, when they were doing the Under A Big Top tour. They were playing around the UK, and I went to see them in Warrington. It was a Sunday night, I had school the next day, and I remember getting on the train and feeling so excited. It felt so cool, and that feeling spurred me on. I realised that there was so much more outside of my little world of waking up and going to school every day, and there was something powerful about that. Honestly, that’s the first gig where I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is awesome. I want to do this’, but I think there’s always been a strong desire and need in me to be on stage whingeing about life and my feelings. That’s probably down to much more potent, possibly darker things than just going to live shows.
It was an all-you-can-drink night in a place called Hannah’s Bar in Liverpool. We all wore jester’s hats, and Tord [Øverland Knudsen, bassist] was really embarrassed. Obviously, it was a freaky night, because it was 10 pounds to get in and you could drink as much as you wanted. It was a student’s dream! It was weird, but that’s how we used to get down back in the day. It was in 2003, so we were 19 or 20 years old, and it was disgusting but so fun. We were one of around 10 bands who played that night, and I can’t remember if we played any songs that lasted the course, but I do remember that it was a wreck.
The smallest
Photo by Colin McPherson/Corbis via Getty
Well, there couldn’t have been more than 20 people at our first show, so that is certainly up there. When you’re touring though, you end up going all around the US doing radio shows to two or three people, and we did loads of gigs in Liverpool back in the day where just an old man and his dog showed up. That was always fine though, we would just try and convince that old man and his dog to come back next time.
Do shows like that knock your confidence, or is it a case of character building?
The majority of it is character building, and it’s a great reminder that we’re not in control of anything. It reminds us that sometimes it happens, and even the biggest artists in the world play shows like that. Outside of London, New York, and the bigger places, there will always be a show that doesn’t do as well as the others. That’s just the way that it goes, and it’s a good lesson that we’re not in control of our environment. It helps to shrink the ego, because we’re not always the most important thing in town that night. Ultimately, if there are four people there, it’s about making sure that we get those four people back next time, plus a couple of friends.
There have obviously been some shows where I’ve thought, ‘What are we doing here?’ though. There was one time in a small town in Germany, and it was the back end of a six-week tour. There was no point in us playing a show that night, and there was a bit of a disagreement between the band and me. I was like, ‘I could have just got a hotel around the corner and written a song’. I thought that would have been a more productive use of my time, but thinking about things from that perspective doesn’t help anyone or anything.
The biggest
The biggest gig we have ever played was in Poland, when we were playing with The Strokes at a festival. That was insane, I couldn’t see the end of the crowd, it just kept going into the horizon. Aside from that though, headlining The O2 Arena was obviously very special. That felt like a real moment, and a moment that I’m excited to get back to. We’ve also done a lot of big shows in Australia, and we did a tour with Weezer where we stopped off at some pretty hefty venues. For us though, the bigger the venue, the easier it is. It’s the smaller ones that are freaky for us. As a final answer, to say anything but the O2 just wouldn’t feel right. I remember the energy in the room that night, and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, can we do this again? Please?
The weirdest
We did a festival in New Orleans once, and we’d been up all night. None of us had been to bed, and we just kind of rolled into the show. It was weird because we talked more than we played music. Back in the day, we used to get very chatty when we were loose, so all the fans that came to see us – of which there were a good amount – didn’t get to see much music. We played maybe four or five songs, and the rest was just us talking absolute bullshit. I don’t remember anyone complaining, but I’m sure they found it very odd.
The worst
We did a Rock the Vote gig in Florida in 2009, and no one knew who we were. There was this screen behind us that was displaying texts, so people were texting in about what they were seeing whilst we were onstage. I remember turning around, and all these people who were watching us were texting in bad things about our band. They were all being fired to the screen behind us, and I remember seeing one that said something like, “George Bush has never heard of The Wombats”. That was a pretty horrible show. It was like America’s Got Talent, but we were getting critiqued mid-performance behind us. That was definitely the worst gig we’ve ever done, but to be honest, we’d probably still do it again.
The best
The best gigs are always the ones with the least pressure on. We’ll do London and Manchester on this next tour, and I’m sure they’ll be great, but we won’t necessarily enjoy them the most. We’ll generally resonate most with the one that doesn’t have quite the same amount of pressure on it. Having said that though, if I had to choose the best gig, it would probably be Glastonbury in 2011. It had taken us a long time to get our second album together, and we went through so many producers and so many mixing engineers. It was the full major label breakdown, and it had been four years since we’d last done a big show. We were on The Other Stage during the afternoon, and we were thinking, ‘What if no one comes?’ We walked out, and there was just a sea of people. It was quite emotional, so I think that was the best gig we have ever done.
Photo by Nick Pickles/WireImage
