Music
Interview
Mouth Culture: “The whole idea of this band is to be someone’s escape”
The Leicester trio on their ambition to become the UK’s biggest rock band, and how the energy of the live experience has fuelled their dynamic new era
Driven by authenticity, passion, and an unshakable belief in their collective creative vision, over the last few years Leicester trio Mouth Culture have been carving their own unique path in the UK rock scene.
Setting out to write the kind of music they would have had blaring through their iPod headphones as teenagers, 2023 EP Mishaps of My Mid Twenties solidified them as rising stars. Taking the arena-ready energy of You Me At Six and weaving in flickers of nu-metal aggression, indie earnestness, and pop-punk playfulness, it saw the trio diving deeper into a sound unmistakably their own. Boasting a handful of cathartic rock songs – each capturing the confusion and growing pains that come with navigating adulthood – it catapulted Mouth Culture to new heights, playing shows with the likes of Teenage Wrist, The Blackout, and While She Sleeps before ripping apart the stage at Download Festival 2024.
Each show serving as an intimate exorcism of the collective struggles we all face, Mouth Culture have marked the start of a new era with the release of recent EP Whatever The Weather. A collection of songs that reflect the breadth of their influences like never before, it marks a shift in perspective from uncertainty and self-doubt to a place of confidence and clarity.
Tackling the highs and lows of life, with 2025 just around the corner Mouth Culture are seizing their moment. Their biggest headline shows to date taking place this November, they will also join childhood heroes You Me At Six on their final European tour dates this year. Poised to become one of the most exciting bands in the British alt-rock landscape, here they talk us through their journey so far, their hopes for the future, and their unwavering belief in what they’re building.
Let’s take things right back to the beginning. When the three of you decided to come together and create a project together, what was the vision?
Jack Voss: Honestly, we just wanted to write the music that we wanted to write. Since we started this band, there’s never been a point where we’ve written music for anybody else. To some people, that might sound quite selfish, but we’ve always believed in what we do. We write the music that we enjoy listening to, just as much as we enjoy playing it. By doing things that way, we hoped that one day it would translate to the rest of the world. Over the last couple of years, it feels as though that’s actually happened, which is mad.
Your sound contains a healthy dose of British alt. rock nostalgia, but there’s a ton of fresh, exciting influence piled on. When it came to figuring out your sound, how much of it was about paying tribute to the music that inspired you?
Voss: It’s interesting, because we’ve realised that a lot of Mouth Culture fans are our age. We’re all in our late twenties, and as we’ve come up in the scene we’ve noticed that our audience connects with nostalgia. It’s something that we try to embrace, and when we wrote ‘Everyday’ we wanted to tap into something that reminded us of our youth. When we were writing it, we noticed that it had the same feeling as the All Saints song ‘Pure Shores’, which may sound weird, but we all heard it. Especially with this new stuff, I’m hoping that we can find some younger fans too.
Mason Clifford: The newer songs are a little more mature, which may go against the grain of getting younger fans, but it’s still accessible both lyrically and sonically. The latest EP is so eclectic, and you can take each track and immerse yourself within it separately, rather than consuming it as a whole body of work. Obviously, it’s delivered together as a piece of work, but because there’s so much variety in there, I think everyone can find one song which they really resonate with.
Coming out of Mishaps Of My Mid Twenties then, where were your heads at going into what came next?
Voss: After we wrote Mishaps we went out on tour, and whilst we were on that tour we already had the starting point of the next EP ready. We started writing it as soon as we finished Mishaps, and there are actually songs on it that were written before Mishaps. When we came back from tour though, we cracked on with the process with a whole new mindset. We were writing with the live show in mind, writing choruses whilst thinking about a crowd of people singing it back. That became a theme on this EP, and it was firmly at the forefront of our minds. There’s a track on it called ‘No Shame’, and that has our first riff. We’ve been a so-called ‘rock’ band for all this time, but we’ve never had an actual riff. That’s so exciting, but we don’t want to keep doing the same thing. We’ve never done that before, and we’re not about to start doing that now. There’s a little bit of Mishaps within these new songs, but there are also a bunch of things people may not expect.
It feels as though Whatever The Weather is almost a direct response to the last EP. Mishaps Of My Mid Twenties captured the confusion and struggle of navigating adulthood and everything that comes with it, whereas these songs feel a little more positive in their inspiration…
Voss: That’s definitely one of the things we’ve been saying whilst writing this record. Mishaps was written when we were in a very dark spot, and we didn’t know what was going to happen with the future of Mouth Culture. We didn’t even know what was going to happen in our own lives, so it was all very up in the air. With everything we accomplished with those songs though, coming into Whatever The Weather, we were on cloud nine. When we were in the studio, we were getting emails that we’d been dreaming of our whole lives. It felt like a movie… I can’t believe it’s real.
Clifford: We’ve always said that we want a Netflix documentary, and the more these things keep happening the more possible that seems. Deep down, I truly believe that we are going to be a massive rock band. We genuinely believe that we have what it takes, and that comes out in the music we’re making. It comes from a place of authenticity, and we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
It’s about using that growing platform for something important too, and you’re opening up some vital conversations on mental health and wellbeing in your music. Being honest about the everyday struggles we all have; do you think it’s important to show people that they’re not alone in either the good or the bad moments?
Voss: That’s such a huge part of what we do. Our songs speak for themselves, and they’re very honest, but I want Mouth Culture to be people’s escape from all this shit. They might have a little cry whilst they’re listening to our music, but they’re also able to interact with us. They can talk to us on our Discord, or chat at a show, or just chat to other fans at a show… The whole idea of this band is to be someone’s escape. For that hour, nothing else matters, and they can just enjoy themselves.
There’s a whole lot of fun to be found in Mouth Culture, but that raw vulnerability always shines through. Have you always been drawn to artists who are able to open up completely in their music?
Voss: Definitely, but I will also admit that we listen to some trash! It’s not all meaningful, and sometimes you don’t want to listen to a song that’s super heavy. Half of the music in the charts right now is almost empty noise, but I think there’s a place for that. When we look at a song like ‘Everyday’ though, every artist I’ve ever loved has a ballad, and we’ve tried to do that on all of our records. We’ll always have honest, deep songs, but you’ve got to mix it up.
Clifford: When we’re doing shows, often there are people there that haven’t really listened to us before. They’ll come to the merch table and sometimes be shy to talk to us, but we are just normal people. We want to create a community where you can be yourself and enjoy the show, rather than having a hierarchy of band vs. crowd. Everyone is just in the room together, and we may be performing the music, but we’re also our own biggest fans. We listen to our band more than anyone else does, and that’s a telltale sign of how much we believe in it. We want everyone who comes to a show to feel connected to us, and the amount of people who have sent us sentimental messages about how we’ve helped them is so fulfilling.
Sonically, this project takes influence from a little bit of everything. Pop-punk, indie, hardcore, pop… The list goes on. By dipping into so many different styles and genres, are you hoping that the community around Mouth Culture can be an opportunity to merge different sub-cultures?
Voss: I think it’s already doing that! There’s a guy who comes to our shows with his mate, and they’re older boys in their mid-sixties, but we absolutely adore them. They’re like my granddads. On the Discord, we have a lot of younger people, and they’ll joke around like, ‘Oh, here he is! He’s finally figured out how to open Discord!’ He loves it, and he gives back as much as he gets. There’s such a mix of people within our fanbase, and it’s not even just different subcultures, it’s literally people from different parts of the world. Now, when a new song is coming out and we have a video premiere at 7pm, people start moaning in the Discord about how it’s their afternoon and they’re going to be at work. Then we have people in Australia saying that they’ve already seen it… We’re becoming too worldwide!
It also gives you the opportunity to feel at home on so many different tour lineups and festival bills…
Voss: It’s funny because when we first dropped ‘15 Missed Calls’ everyone thought that we were going to be a melodic post-hardcore band. It took us a few years to figure it out, but with Mishaps and Whatever The Weather I feel confident that we’ve found our sound. We’re happy in our own skin now and being able to sit comfortably on so many festivals is incredible. We get to play Download, but we’re one of the few bands that have played there who can get on an indie festival as well. We can adapt our set, and that’s the nice thing about having such a varied catalogue.
Being able to tour with artists who have been in this game a long time, getting advice from them and watching how they do things, how does that bolster your confidence as musicians?
Voss: Loz Taylor from While She Sleeps actually jumped on and became our manager, purely out of the love of his heart. We got to play a few shows with them, and the biggest show that we’d ever done was at the Octagon in Sheffield. It was their Christmas show, and getting to see them soundcheck and do all these things was amazing. Seeing that impacts your own performance style, and seeing bands go absolutely crazy on stage makes you want to step it up. I want to make people feel how I feel when I watch someone like Loz. He’s a machine, and the way he controls crowds is incredible. We’re so lucky to know him, and there’s nothing like watching one of your best mates kill it.
You’ve got some huge shows with You Me At Six coming up, how are you preparing for those?
Voss: We are so ready for it. We wrote the new songs with these bigger shows in mind, and we want our crowds to keep getting bigger. I still love playing in bars, and we’ll always do that because it’s part of our identity, but we want to play the biggest shows we can.
Clifford: ‘Everyday’ is an arena song, but our music can translate on a smaller scale and a bigger scale. That’s so exciting for us, because playing those bigger venues means you have a better backline, better speakers and a whole new atmosphere. That environment is going to level up these songs. Obviously, we want people to love the new EP on record, but it’s more of an experience when you hear it live. You need to come out to a show to truly get it.
Looking towards the future of this project then, what impact are you hoping that Mouth Culture can have on the future of the British alt. rock scene?
Voss: I love bands like Incubus and Red Hot Chili Peppers because you can listen to one song without any vocals and instantly know who it’s by. It’s on a different scale right now, but I think Mouth Culture can be one of those bands. We want to be a household name, and I hope that in ten years’ time there’ll be a bunch of lads sitting in their kitchen telling an interviewer that they were inspired by Mouth Culture. You Me At Six were my favourite band ever, and now we’re about to go travel Europe with them. It’s mental, and I never want it to stop.
Clifford: It’s more motivation for us to keep going, but we have to ground ourselves a little bit. We’re in a group chat with Josh Franceschi, and occasionally we’ll get messages from him. When ‘Sharkbait’ came out he posted it on his story, and we were losing our minds.
Voss: I was in my car on my lunch break eating a Greggs. The notification came through and I just lost my shit!
Clifford: There have been all of these people giving us an entrance to the scene, and this is where we belong. We feel at home where we are at the minute, and we want to keep developing on the incredible foundation we’ve found.
