It’s been a remarkable three years for Hull indie band LIFE. Riding the wave created from being the main support for Slaves around the UK in 2016, this strong live act, who are often thought of in the same breath as Shame and Idles, went on to smash SXSW in March 2017. Come May of that year they had a headline tour around small venues (which included a Great Escape and Handmade festival slots) and put out their critically acclaimed post-punk debut, Popular Music.

Keeping up momentum, LIFE did a tour supporting ideological comrade Nadine Shah and wound up getting on the Radio 1 albums of the year list. Steve Lamacq, too, has been a great supporter.

Leave it there though and life wouldn’t be about to get much louder for the four-piece. LIFE needed a second album. And at the start of 2018 they managed to sit down and pen it. All before hitting the studio this time last year to lay it down.

In the months they’ve had to keep A Picture Of Good Health under wraps, they’ve had some good fortune in getting a record deal and touring around Europe with Idles - - a band who paved the way for astute politically-charged punk in the mainstream. 

Frontman Mez Sanders-Green, who co-wrote the new album’s lyrics with his brother guitarist Mick Sanders, is in good spirits now it’s released. And for good reason. It’s a less direct homage to post-punk compared with the debut. Being more nuanced sonically – for instance ‘Excites Me’ sounding like a faster Phobophobes tune, and ‘Never Love Again’ has some glorious shoegazing guitar – is good thing to have when there’s such a swathe of post-punk indebted bands around.

Gigwise: Hi Mez. Good to meet you. I’m enjoying the new album. Things seem to be going really well right now.

Mez Sanders-Green: Yeah, we’re in the midst of our biggest run as a headliner to date. We’re touring from now until 6 December. We're having a break for Christmas and then back out on the road in January.

GW: Great stuff. Sounds like the hard work is starting to pay.

MG: We’ve only just recently given up our full-time jobs. Working full-time and being on the road full-time is obviously quite tiring. But you know, living like that with no down time has helped bring us on as a unit and really believe in what we do. So when we’re now fortunate enough to have the band as the main job we can really appreciate it. Up till this point we’ve had ownership of everything we’ve done so to get to this knowing we put all that work in feels great. There’s a sense of pride there so we’re not going to squander it.

GW: Have you signed a record deal?

MG: Up until March we were exclusively independent. Now the second album is out on a partnership. It’s still out on our label Afghan Moon, where we self-released our debut album, but we’ve parntered with PIAS. It’s good to have a bit of backing.

GW: They’re global so they can grow your following.

MG: They have really boosted that side for us. A few weeks ago we were in Los Angeles, which is really hard to do when you are exclusively independent. You can’t get into all the territories because there are a lot of barriers in the way. We needed an extension of the team. We’re still DIY but there are a few of us around interested in representing that voice and helping.

GW: Over what time period did you record A Picture Of Good Health?

MG: This time last year. We lived in Tottenham for four weeks as a band and we recorded with Luke Smith who did the first few Foals albums and we got it mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer who did all of the Parquet Courts stuff. So we got to work with some vibe-y and cool people to take the album to the next level.

GW: When was it written?

MG: It was written six months before recording. We deliberately turned the subject matter of the album onto ourselves. It was a bit braver to talk about the things that were affecting us more personally; to acknowledge how you’re feeling and put it in the music. It’s a lot more real than the unobtainable life that people broadcast onto social media when they’re fishing for likes.

GW: Can you think back to sketching out those lyrics? What was your state of mind?

MG: It was written over a six month period where I had just become a single dad and had my son 50 percent of the time. I moved out and was living on my own in a flat so I decided to channel into the record what it was like to be isolated; in limbo; lonely. There is a resolve to the end of the album but it’s six months of my journey through that period. Recording intensely for four weeks meant that the full band really got to embrace that as well and pull out their own feelings. This album has connected to all four of us.

GW: Once you got the lyrics and chords down was it important to get to the studio without distracting yourself from that mood?

MG: My brother – who wrote lyrics too – and I were just talking about this and we feel getting into the studio was the therapeutic part of it. We were letting go of it. That’s why the album sounds exciting and dance-y even though the subject matter is personal intricate.

GW: Can you recall any specific studio tricks that were a first for the band?

MG: The first day we went down, we got a load of beers and listened to records with Luke, our producer. It was like a night out in the studio. Really cool sounds from the New York dance scene in the late '70s and early '80s. And instead of using a click when we were recording, we were keeping in time to a dance records and the rhythms section became a reaction to some of those songs. That’s what gave it this urgency and energy. Obviously that sound we were keeping in time to would disappear once the song’s recorded.

GW: Since you finished recording you’ve had a great run, it seems. You’ve done Pohoda and all these big festivals.

MG: Yeah. Once we finished the album we hit the road. We did all the metro festivals in the UK. We did 14 weekends in a row of festivals. Pohoda was amazing and European festivals have been great in general. We’ve been amazed to see 2000 people come and see us and that’s not even the case in the UK sometimes. But we did Glastonbury and stuff like that. These are milestone festivals that we’ve always wanted to do and this year we’ve ticked loads of them off. It’s been a great summer.

GW: A lot of your audience are drawn to how outspoken you are. What are the most pertinent socio-political issues for you personally?

MG: Our first album touches on a lot of issues. The rise of the far-right in world politics has been very dark and affected me. And austerity is a very personal matter because up until recently I’ve been a youth worker. I worked at The Warren, which is one of the last remaining open access youth centres in the country. It offers counselling, food banks, music development, alternative education. Being surrounded by young people who are so vulnerabale, and, I guess, so down because they don’t believe there is anything else... That shapes a lot of our outlook and has kept us grounded and understanding what it’s like to go to Tesco’s and try and weigh a tin of beans cheaper.

GW: Have you always been quite a compassionate person?

MG: My mum and dad have shaped my outlook. They are very liberal. Very left. My mum’s a social worker so I’ve always had that moral compass installed in me. And working at a centre like that for the amount of time that I did opens your eyes.

I think us being a DIY act's has been important, too.

For years and years young people are told they mean nothing and can do nothing. The Job Centre quashes ambitions. Say you want to be in a band or a musician there and they will turn around and say, ‘no you can work in a factory’. What we’ve done with LIFE is have a band that shows if you take ownership of it you can do it. It instils belief and empowers young people, who have had their shit kicked out of them for so long, to believe in themselves. A lot of people accuse young people being apathetic to UK politics, they're not, they just feel squeezed out of society.

GW: Have you noticed a change in Hull though leading by example? It’s like when the local football team does well.

MG: Yeah, definitely. Hull is such a community-driven place. Everyone is proud to be from Hull and when something good happens a lot of people get on board with it. It also shows people in Hull that you can do it. It’s always been a creative place but it’s often looked inwards but it’s about let’s look outwards. Show people how great the city is.

GW: Were The Paddingtons a formative influence?

MG: When I was at college The Paddingtons were doing their thing and that showed a band could go and do it. Other than The Paddingtons, we're going back 30 years to The Beautiful South. The Paddingtons are about 10 or 15 years old now. It seems to take a while for a band from Hull to do well. But we want to create a spark [to change that].

GW: Well it’s all heading in the right direction. Thanks for your time.

MG: All good. Thank you.
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LIFE's album A Picture Of Good Health is out now and streaming on Spotify. Physical copies can be bought on Bandcamp.

Enjoy LIFE? Read about 11 more amazing new bands from Hull on Gigwise.