More about: TOUTS

When TOUTS first emerged out of Derry back in 2017 with the Sickening And Deplorable EP they were heralded as one of the most exciting and ferocious bands around and with a string of further releases and a standout live show, this was more than justified.

Now, in 2022, they’re back and still rightly heralded in the same way — only now they are back with new material in the shape of their latest EP Shane McGowan's Teeth (which is released on 25 May) and sees TOUTS retain the same energy as before but with an even more engaging edge when it comes to their songwriting.

Gavin Brown caught up with TOUTS vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Matthew Crossan to talk about the band's new material, how it’s been received, forthcoming music, their Derry hometown and politics in music.

Gigwise: You’ve released the single 'Can't Take It Anymore' ahead of your new EP's release. How has the track been received so far?

Matthew Crossan: It’s been very well received, it made the editorial playlist on Spotify so that’s really good.

GW: Do you feel that your sound has evolved with this new material?

MC: Definitely, these songs were written before the pandemic but we’ve used the same guy to mix them who did the album we recorded so sonically, we sound a bit more evolved. In terms of the the writing, that’s a bit more evolved too but not too much from what we’ve released.

GW: Your new EP that the song is from is called Shane McGowan's New Teeth and is out very soon. How did the making of the EP go?

MC: All these songs were written before the pandemic, and we did an album in summer 2019 but we scrapped it and these are the songs that are seeing the light of day.

GW: What happened to the album you recorded before?

MC: We had that album recorded but we’re glad we didn’t release it during the pandemic because it would have been the worst possible time to release it. We just took stock of what we had and by the time the pandemic came around, a bit too much time had passed and we didn’t want to release it because we couldn’t tour. We used the pandemic to rework the songs.

GW: Has the title track of the EP been received well too?

MC: For definite: initially I didn’t really like it when it was first wrote because it a bit more rock'n'roll and a bit more of a different vibe from some of the other stuff we’ve released but it’s gone down really well and so has the video. It’s been that long since we’ve released stuff, we didn’t have any big aspirations for it but the whole purpose for it was just to get the ball rolling again, to springboard the album.

GW: When can we expect the new album?

MC: That’ll definitely be next year but in terms of when the first single will be out, it’ll be the end of this year/start of next year...

GW: Have you had any ideas about any further music once that album is released?

MC: To be honest, we’ve already wrote that and we’re demoing that at the moment. Once we get those demos done, we’ll decide producer-wise who we want to go for and we’ll hopefully record that during the summer.

GW: How does it feel to be compared to bands like The Clash and The Buzzcocks?

MC: I can understand why people compare us to them but to be honest, I’d never listened to The Clash 'til people started saying we sounded like them. All I really listen to is '60s folk, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel. Buddy Holly as well, I think that’s where the similarities were because back then, that’s what they were listening to. They aren’t inspired by themselves, it was stuff from the '60s.

GW: Do you think that it’s to do with the energy you have and The Clash had onstage?

MC: I’ve never seen us and I’ve never seen The Clash, but I would love to have some sort of out of body experience and be able to see us live! In terms of our live performance, it’s definitely visceral.

GW: Has the great lineage of Northern Irish punk with bands like Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones influenced the sound of TOUTS?

MC: When we were first starting to get into music, I was into SLF but coming from Derry, the Undertones, it’s just been ingrained in me from no age. You’re not really aware of the whole movement when you’re really young but their music has been a constant. They’re a fucking fantastic band.

GW: What’s the music scene in Derry like at the moment and what bands would you recommend to check out?

MC: The music scene in Derry is fantastic, it’s sort of close led off from everywhere else. It dropped off during the pandemic but it’s picking up again and there’s gigs all the time. There’s a band called Tramp who are very good. There’s a band called Dirty Faces, they’re a duo and they’re fucking lethal as well. A band called Switch, they’re very good as well.

GW: How has your hometown of Derry influences the music of TOUTS? 

MC: It gives you a good moral compass, growing up in Derry, if you get too big-headed, they’ve no problem bringing you back down to Earth.

GW: Have you always wanted to incorporate political commentary into certain aspects of your songs or is that just what happens when you write?

MC: I think politics in pretty inescapable here, because of The Troubles and the divide between the Nationalists and the Unionists and I think you’d have to be living under a rock for it not be seeping into your writing if you come from Northern Ireland, even if it’s not a conscious thing. Sometimes I get fucked off talking about it but for example, we wrote the lyrics to a song yesterday with the chorus: "shoot down the middle, split into twp sides" and I just came up with that and I didn’t know what it meant. And then we fleshed out the lyrics and listened to it, and I was like: 'can we not write about fucking politics?!'

GW: Do you think you will subconsciously always write like that?

MC: Well, I try to keep it ambiguous and even that song, I was writing about something else, but the overall picture of it seemed to be about politics. I was reading the book by Paul McCartney and the poet Paul Muldoon and he read about another writer who said reading in itself is an act of writing, and that’s something that I’ve always thought but couldn’t put it into words. Not that it doesn't matter what you say in a song, of course it matters but even if you’re talking gibberish, someone’s going to find meaning in it.

When you’re listening to a song or reading a book, you’re technically writing it by conceptualising it in your head. In terms of politics, it’s always going to be there. During the pandemic, I thought I was mellowing out a bit, but with that song yesterday, I’m not so sure.

GW: Have you got gigs coming up and are you looking forward to playing your new stuff?

MC: We’ve got a few gigs in June coming up and then one in June and hopefully October too and we’ll be playing a lot of new stuff, of course. If it was up to me, it’d be all new stuff.

GW: You’ve played gigs with the likes of Paul Weller and Liam Gallagher, how was the experience of playing with these music icons?

MC: You start to get a bit of excitement going to the show but once you get there, it’s just the same as any other show, backstage sitting about doing fuck all! The Liam Gallagher show was mental. We were smoking, sitting outside the dressing room and then he walked past and said 'nice shoes man', so I was buzzing with that! Weller was sound as a pound, we were chatting to him in the corner.

GW: What do you want to achieve with TOUTS in the future?

MC: I want to keep making music; music that I believe in and all three of us believe in. Putting it out and playing it live and hopefully people like it.

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More about: TOUTS