The Punturists | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I love it.

0:01 Speaker 2: I just wanted to let it fade out at the end. There that little effect that is everybody's on drugs. The band is the Puncturess and we have entered our number three Newmarrow trace of Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of wm NH ninety five point three FM, inglorious but very very cold, Manchester, New Hampshire. Of course you can stream the show from anywhere, go to Matt connorton dot com, slash live and today is for you live listeners. January twenty four, twenty twenty six, and we have joining us from the Puncturists.

0:27 Speaker 1: Let me get that volume up here.

0:28 Speaker 2: We've got Dale Farrow, who is the the bass player in the band.

0:32 Speaker 1: Hello, Dale, Hi, Matt, can you hear me? Okay? Absolutely?

0:35 Speaker 2: You sound great? Yeah, absolutely, welcome, Welcome to the show. I'm excited to talk to you. By the way, you know you are a fellow bass player, so I was like talking to another bass player and I love I love the album. I'm not all right, thank you? Yeah, really really good. I listened to the whole thing. That's that's probably my favorite track, which is why I chose it to open the segment. But yeah, great, great stuff. Now where are you from, Dale? Where's the band from?

1:04 Speaker 3: We're based in northern England. Pat and Gale Pats, the guitarist Gales a singer, live in a place called Barnsley, which is just south of Leeds in West Yorkshire. I live in East Yorkshire and the drummer Martin lives on the east coast a place called Grimsby. We're all sort of within an hour and a half of each other,

1:27 Speaker 3: so yeah, Nordon, England.

1:28 Speaker 2: Really so you're a little bit scattered, but not too much.

1:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, poor old Martin as a longer drive to rehearsal than the rest of us. But yeah, but yeah, yeah, we're not all in one town or anything like that.

1:42 Speaker 1: But but yeah, gotcha, gotcha.

1:45 Speaker 2: Now, The Puncturists has been around, what does it since twenty two?

1:49 Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah?

1:52 Speaker 3: I think yes, it's just sort of post COVID. The Pat was previously in a ban call System of Hate and a couple of the members, him and the drummer decided they were going to do something slightly different and formed The Puncturists, and the drummer, Karl was also the singer, but he left and Pat persuaded Gail to come in and sing as lead singer. And this was the first band she'd ever played in and never sang with, so that was quite quite something for her. And I joined where I mean now, I joined in twenty three on the bass, and Martin joined us nearly two years ago, so we in the current format, we've been going nearly two years.

2:43 Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, So it sounds like there's been some some lineup changes over the you know, over a relatively short period of time. Like I said, of the bands I have been around for a few years, but it sounds like it took a while for this current lineup to sort of coalesce.

2:56 Speaker 1: Is that correct?

2:58 Speaker 3: That's right? Yeah, I mean it with a lot of bands, you get that when they first start, you sort of have to settling and everyone sort of gets to know what's what. But we we had issues. We were a little bit spinal tapped with drummers for a while. Not we didn't actually kill any.

3:13 Speaker 1: Or I was gonna say, I hope nobody blew up or anything.

3:17 Speaker 3: But but we we went through a few until we've we've we think we've got the right guy on the drum stool now, so, and like I say, we've been nearly two years we've been in this format, and the album that you've got there, I'm not all right, is the the sort of the the outcome of our first sort of period together as a band.

3:40 Speaker 1: So yeah, and.

3:41 Speaker 3: We're we're all very proud of it as well.

3:44 Speaker 2: In terms of finding Martin to play drums, I'm just curious because this is a subject that comes up a lot on the show, at least with the guests that we have here in America. It seems like, I don't know if it's the same there, but it seems like here every drummer is in like ten different bands because it's so hard to find an actual drummer. And I have theories about why that is. My theory is that you know, when you're growing up and you decide you want to play a musical instrument, we have to have the conversation with your parents about, well, I think I want to play drums, you know that, and maybe the tuba or the two that they're going to try to talk you out of because they don't want all that noise in their house.

4:19 Speaker 2: But I mean, is that is that a challenge there too. Is it hard to find a drummer?

4:23 Speaker 3: It is, yes, to find that the right drummer has been quite difficult. I mean drummers, Like you say, drummers are a rare breed and they're an older to breed as well. You have to have one or two screws slightly loose to one to do it. And I think, and but yeah, it's it's difficult to get the right person at the right time because, like you say, so many people when we were looking and we got marked, had so many people applying and they say, well, I also play in you know, X y z B, and you know, you know, I might not necessarily be available all the time.

5:04 Speaker 3: But fortunately for us, Martin was coming back from a break from drumming. He played for a long time. He's very experienced drummer, but hadn't actually played for sort of seven or eight years, maybe a little bit longer, and had been sort of concentrating on sort of work and real life and things like that that do get in the way, and he decided that he was going to give it one more go. He'd previously been playing oddly in a discos covers band, you know, like a party band, and the clips that he sent us were stuff, you know, sort of from that band, but actually the skills and chopsy you need to play that sort of stuff, you know, you know, are quite something.

5:53 Speaker 3: And he, you know, he impressed us. And you know, as soon as I saw what he'd sent us stuff on YouTube, I said to Pat, We've got to get this guy and have a you know, get him in and have a proper rehearsal with him. See how we get on and we click straight away, and he, you know, he's he That wasn't his type of music he's in. He's a lot more sort of rock and sort of punky type background, even though he hadn't played in a band like hours before or not for Donkeys years. But but you know, he really has fitted in well and it helps particularly.

6:26 Speaker 3: I mean, you as a bass player will know that. You know, we we have to keep our ears and eyes on the drummer at all times. Were the people who hold it all together. Not obviously not trying to sound like you know that with the backbone.

6:41 Speaker 1: But we are we are bass players are tarists and singers.

6:46 Speaker 3: You know, we'd be lost without us. But but yeah, it's nice to actually be on stage without having to worry about what's going on behind me, and he enables, you know, he enables you to sort of relax into a gig and you know, feel confident that everything's going to be okay, whereas occasionally before that wasn't the case.

7:11 Speaker 2: Right right now, I'm not alright. The album on dad Swan Records, which is is this a label that the puncturists created specifically for other puncturists, Dad Swine Records, It.

7:22 Speaker 3: Is, yes, Yeah, it's not the first. We got a few releases. We've got a live album and that was a Yeah, there's a live album that came out just about fifteen months ago, which is called Fox. There's a newt which was recorded a pub in Leeds called The Fox and Newt. And there's also an EP with about six or seven songs which the original lineup did. So that was before Gail started to sing, and I still want to one or two of the songs on that that we still do, although differently. But so, yeah, there's there's a there's a few things on Dead Swan Records.

8:05 Speaker 3: If people want to look up Dead swe records on bang camp, they can, but yeah, that's our that's our label.

8:12 Speaker 2: So yeah, Now the songs that you did before a Gale was was the lead singer, do those songs continue like does Gale sing them in the new or did you leave those songs behind.

8:22 Speaker 3: Or mostly but there's there are a couple that we do, two or three that we've adapted for for Gale and and she's put her own stamp on them.

8:34 Speaker 1: So yeah, that's really so yeah.

8:38 Speaker 3: So you know, but we are increasingly going forward with the songs like you've heard on the album, like you've just heard with Everybody's on drugs, and we're currently in in a writing phase of for for new songs going forward as well.

8:56 Speaker 1: Do the songs come quickly?

8:58 Speaker 2: I'm curious because there's there's kind of an immediate see to the songs, and maybe it's because it's got that sort of the DIY garage band vibe, but I mean, do the do the songs come together pretty quickly?

9:08 Speaker 1: Do you all do you all kind of write together?

9:10 Speaker 2: Do you all gem and stuff together and see what happens? Or what's the songwriting process like in the band?

9:16 Speaker 3: Mostly it's part that comes up with the original ideas and he quite often well sort of he's quite prolific in what he brings, you know, brings to the table. And I'll get sometimes I'll have two or three things up here in my in books in a week, and he says, oh, what do you think to this? And what do you think to that? And and then I'll have a listen and sort of suggest, you know, different arrangements or maybe stick a different you know, put a middle eight in here, or we'll change the the intro, or we'll we'll you know, do something about it.

9:49 Speaker 3: I mean, others we just sit there and say, naw, that ain't gonna work for us. But but but because he comes, Yeah, there's so many ideas we work with that. And then once the two of us have sort of come up with you know, we've okay those sorts of things, we'll then take them, you know, to rehearsal and get them going. I've written a couple that were just me on the album, but he's mainly part okay, okay.

10:20 Speaker 2: And then I'm curious too about you know, the songs are kind of funny, as some of them are. I mean, is that is that an important element to you to have in the band, Like you know, everybody's on drugs or There's another song that I'm gonna play at the end of the segment that is my personal favorite from the album because it's as a musician.

10:39 Speaker 1: It's very relatable.

10:40 Speaker 2: They don't pay support bands, which I absolutely love that song, you know, and I'm listening to I don't play anymore, but I used to play in a lot of bands, and it's like, yep, I get it.

10:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, that that that you know, that that the lyrics to that do come from you know, hard experience.

10:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, is that it an important element to you guys to have, you know, to have some humor, and there's you know, there's sort of that right humor in a lot of these songs. Is that something you do consciously in terms of how you approach it or does that just come out organically.

11:12 Speaker 3: I think it comes out organically because because that's just what we are. But you know, particularly you know, they say Pat sort of writes a lot of the lyrics and the things that I think it helps to get your message across, or even just the the meaning of the song across if you can also make people smile, because that's one of the things that makes things memorable apart from just a catchy chorus is actually something that makes you chuckle or makes you think, oh, I wasn't expecting that, you know then, And I think that's one of the things that gives us a little bit of an edge and why people have liked a lot of the material.

11:57 Speaker 3: A lot of the songs on the album, like you say, have got that little bit of sort of sideways look or a little wink to camera type thing, isn't it. So so yeah, we do that, but I mean there are others that are out and out, you know, not fun not laughs, but you know, we want to try and get across, but hopefully it's still enjoyable.

12:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

12:23 Speaker 3: But it's not you know, we don't deliberately go out of our way to make things sort of comedic, ye, but there's no harm in there being a little bit of humor and a little bit of a rhinous to it.

12:36 Speaker 2: So yeah, I like to use the sex Pistols and as an example of doing that really well, you know, like, you know, here's this band who you know, they weren't necessarily trying to be funny, but you listen to a song like God Save the Queen and you can't help but laugh.

12:50 Speaker 3: You know what I mean, well, yeah, because there are there are you know two there are more than one meaning to elements of the lyrics in that, so that, yeah, it makes it memorable because at.

13:02 Speaker 1: That right right exactly exactly.

13:04 Speaker 3: So you're taking you're taking that well known phrase God Save the Queen and or giving it a twist mm hm. And you know that that's always a good thing because somebody's already come up with that idea and it's already in people's heads, right if you're then using it yourself or you're doing like everybody's on drugs, you know, that's something that when you all automatically think about it, well everybody's on drugs, must mean everyone's on illegal drugs and they're shooting up. Well that where it actually means is people are living a life where just to keep them going there that you know, they're being supported by what they're getting from their doctors or what they're getting over the counter of the chemist or it could be you know as well as you know what they're getting from their dealers on the corner.

13:49 Speaker 3: So there's more to the one phrase than just the one element.

13:54 Speaker 2: Right right, absolutely, And then so what's the touring situation, Like you guys playing a lot of shows.

14:00 Speaker 3: At the moment, we're not we're currently on a bit of a break gale. Just before Christmas underwent a knee replacement operation, so she's currently just get sort of starting to properly get out on the feet again. So we took we're taking some time out and we don't start gigging again until April, but we need she needs to, you know, make sure that she gets sort of fitting well and is able to bounce around on stage again like a good'n so that in that time we are sort of writing some new songs. We will be starting to rehearse those sort of in the next month or so.

14:42 Speaker 3: We you know, depending on how she is, we may start to gig earlier than that. But we've got quite a good calendar of you know, diary for the year.

14:50 Speaker 1: Good.

14:51 Speaker 3: We're playing the thirtieth anniversary Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, which is the big punk festival in the UK. Wow, there's an awful there's a lot of sort of bands. They've got a lot of bands from the States coming over there. There's all sorts of people that from all over the world coming to that. That is a big, big festival. That's over three four days in August. We've got a festival in Scotland in May called Punk on the Peninsula, which is just outside Glasgow, and we've got, you know, a nice healthy sort of diary of gigs once we do start going again, and we hope during all that we will get a good another selection of songs that we will have another album maybe before the end of the year.

15:48 Speaker 3: You never know, depends on I mean, we don't know. A lot of them haven't been road tested yet, and sure what we think might work. When you then play them in front of people, they're sitting there scratching their heads and what's going on all they go absolutely bonkers and love it so right right, Yeah, you have to you know, you have to you know, trust the audience and see what's gonna what's gonna work.

16:12 Speaker 2: It's great too that you're doing festivals because you know, this comes up a lot on the show. I really think that's that's the most valuable thing you can do in terms of playing live, because you know, festivals not only do you get do you get exposed to an audience that might not otherwise see you, but also the you know, backstage, just the connections that you can make in terms of meeting other industry people, whether it's just other bands or or or people who you know, you really, I mean, the networking opportunity that comes with playing a festival is unparalleled, you know what I mean.

16:45 Speaker 2: So that's great, Yeah.

16:46 Speaker 3: Very much so.

16:47 Speaker 1: Yeah.

16:47 Speaker 3: And not only do you make sort of connections that are good for the band, you also you know, you do make good friends from these because you know, you're all in it together. Yeah, And you you realize is that you know, lots and lots of people are you know, they're all good people, and you've sort of got a lot of shared experience and you will automatically get on with a lot of people, right, which is very you know, which is which is a nice part of doing this sort of thing, whereas you know, it's it's not just turn up, play, pack up, go.

17:18 Speaker 3: You know, you're turning up meeting people that you have a good time with and they're but the festival's definitely the big festivals like Rebellion are very good for bands like ourselves for the exposure you might be sort of playing the rest of the year to you know, much much smaller venues, much much smaller crowds, but you're suddenly playing in front of ten twenty times the amount of people you normally would, and yet you know that can't be bad.

17:47 Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all.

17:48 Speaker 2: So I have saved the Sometimes I go for the most obvious question right up front, but I kind of saved at this time. The name the Puncturists. Where does that come from? What is the meaning of the name.

18:02 Speaker 3: I'm not sure how they came up with it, because they got the back the name before I actually started, but the Puncturists. The first EP that I mentioned earlier was actually called the punk Tourists. So, you know, so the punk tourists or puncturists. You know, I'm not sure which came first, punk tourists or puncturists, and they decided to to to put you know, decided to use that, but puncturists and also something where you're sort of going along and you're sort of puncturing people's you know, ideas, you know, coming along and sort of jabbing your needle into their balloon.

18:38 Speaker 1: You know.

18:38 Speaker 3: It's one of those names that's got lots of potential meanings, have different meanings for different people, but it's also quite memorable and you know it's quite you know, that's a nice name.

18:50 Speaker 1: Yeah.

18:51 Speaker 3: One of the hardest I mean you said you've been in bands. One of the hardest things being in a band when you first start is what do you call yourself?

18:58 Speaker 1: Oh?

18:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, because you'll come up and there'll be some absolutely terrible things that people come up with, and and you think, oh, that's a good idea until you see it either written down or someone else says it, and you think, nah, that ain't gonna work.

19:11 Speaker 1: Well.

19:11 Speaker 2: Well, not only that, the other challenge is finding something that that somebody isn't already using.

19:16 Speaker 1: You know, yes, and you don't.

19:18 Speaker 2: You don't want to find yourself in a position where you know, you establish a name and you're you know, you're you're doing it, and you're you're getting somewhere with it, and then all of a sudden you find out, you know, somebody else already has the name.

19:27 Speaker 1: I've I've told this story on the show.

19:29 Speaker 2: I have a friend, Uh the friend some people will know him, but I'll leave I'll leave his name out of it.

19:34 Speaker 1: I don't want to embarrass him.

19:35 Speaker 2: But years ago, uh, this individual wasn't a band called I ran into him after not seeing him for a while, and he told me about a new band that he was in called Intuition. And he said the name to me, and I'm thinking, oh, my god, Intuition, how many other bands are already using or have used that name? And then swear to God true story. I ran into him again, like a month later or two months later, and I asked him, you know, how's the band and he said, oh, good, but we had to change our name. We got to see some assist letter from a band already using the name Intuition, and I was like, oh, that's too bad.

20:09 Speaker 2: And you know, but in my mind, you know, and I'm too polite to say it, but in my mind, I'm thinking, well, yeah, of course you did. You know.

20:18 Speaker 1: Yeah.

20:18 Speaker 3: I mean it's like the first bands I was in when we were at school. We were sort of like really enthusiastic sixteen year olds and we said, right, we're going to call ourselves reflex and like the one hundred thousand other bands called Reflekes.

20:31 Speaker 1: No, yeah, but you don't know that.

20:34 Speaker 3: When you know, you the enthusiasm takes over and you think it's a good idea. Oh yeah, I don't think there's any other puncturists.

20:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go, there you go. Yeah.

20:44 Speaker 2: For a second there, I was worried you are going to tell me I was saying it wrong and that it actually is punk tourists and I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time.

20:50 Speaker 3: I was like, oh, oh, say it however you like. But no, puncturists is how we how we say it? Yeah?

20:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I've been learning a lot, uh, you know, talking to people from from your part of the world. You know, we have we have a lot of guests from there on the show, and I love the music that comes out of there. But I just learned I just learned yesterday from a friend of mine who's British.

21:10 Speaker 1: You know, pants that.

21:12 Speaker 2: I guess over there, Like if you want to express this approval for something but you don't want to swear, you say pants.

21:18 Speaker 1: Is that correct? Or if she's just messing with me, you can no, no, you can do.

21:21 Speaker 3: Oh, that's that's complete. Usually it's when something is complete pants, so that you complete rubbish or garbage or whatever. Oh, that's that's that's total pants.

21:29 Speaker 1: You know.

21:30 Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, pants, Pants to us aren't trousers. Pants are the underwear.

21:34 Speaker 1: So oh okay, right, right, Yeah, that makes sense.

21:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, so so it's yeah, it's like and I mean people also say nickers in in the in the UK, which again is another word for underwear that I've heard that pants. Yeah, something's a bit pants. It's not a very strong. It's something that's a little bit not very good. If it was really bad, then it would be worse than pants. There's just a little bit rubbish. She's a bit patterned.

22:04 Speaker 1: I've been learning a lot. Yeah, uh, now this is great. Yeah.

22:08 Speaker 2: In the first hour, we had a guest. Uh see, now I'm gonna say his name wrong. Uh, Ca Hall fits. It's an Irish name, and I and I but I had to look up how to say it. And then he told me I was saying it correctly, although he might have just been being nice, but you know, because it's c A T H A L and you know, and I'm of Irish descent so I should know, but I didn't know. And he said I was saying it right. That I guess the tea is silent and it's Ca Hall. But you know, being a being a dude from America, you know, I'm learning a lot.

22:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, but so what so Gail, so Gail's obviously out of commission temporarily, but you said April you're going to get back to playing.

22:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, uh yeah, we're first one needs towards the end of April. Then we're sort of failing NonStop to the end of the year. But like I say, if if Gail sort of stuff to feel a little bit more able to sort of stand for, you know, while we might fix something else in before then so we may be end of March, but you know, we've got to make sure that she gets properly better. I mean, it's having a knee replacement, isn't isn't a small operation?

23:18 Speaker 1: So no, no, jeez, I can imagine. Wow.

23:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Dale, So where's the best place for people to go to keep up with everything that the puncture is, everything that you're doing and as far as getting your music and everything you know, you did mention band camp and and uh, by the way, I encourage I love band camp because that's what a lot of people don't realize about band camp is if you get if you get your music from there, you're getting a higher quality file. Then say, if you're just streaming it on YouTube or you know, and in some cases even Spotify, Like with band Camp, you're getting really the highest quality file you can get.

23:53 Speaker 3: It's the it is the best quality that you can get from a sort of a a streaming all down load service. Yeah, because you sort of tend to you upload sort of WAB files and things like that, where as you get a more compressed, smaller file on a lot of other services, and that you know, it's it just is that little bit better. But actually to find us sort of keeping up with sort of the new, I mean, there is a we do have a website, and I shall have to make sure it's I'll tell you the right address for that in a minute.

24:30 Speaker 3: But but yeah, I mean on Facebook is where you mostly find our sort of up to date and where things are changing and happening and what's going on. Yeah, website is w w W puncturists dot com. Not to the puncturists, so it's just puncturists dot com and yeah Facebook, if you look at look for the Puncturists, you'll find us. Band Camp were dead on records, and you can find us streaming. We are on Spotify and Apple Music and all those sorts of things YouTube music and that. So it's just so you know, people can find us all over the place whatever they particularly use nowadays, and of course with on bank camp you can find our you can order the hard copies of things.

25:28 Speaker 3: So we do have CDs and whenever we gig then we have a merch store where you can buy CDs, t shirts and all sorts of little bits of paraphernalia.

25:40 Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, absolutely, And the website's good too. I'm a website nerd and I do like the website puncturists dot com. I see, I see a lot of bad websites, but this is a good, good site. It's well organized, the layouts nice. Yeah, that's it's It's so important. I don't think people, not everyone realize how important it is to have a really you know, easy to have gate you know, visually attractive but not overwhelming website. You know, there's a lot of nuance to it. But no, this is a this is a good site.

26:10 Speaker 2: So puncturists dot com, yep, Dale, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you joining us, and you know, we'll certainly have you back on as you release new music. It sounds like you've got some new stuff coming. Yeah, in a moment, we're gonna end the conversation with this track. This is my one of my favorites from the album They Don't Pay Support Bands. I love this song. Anything we should know about it before we play it, I mean we kind of touched on it already. But maybe it's self explanatory, I don't know.

26:33 Speaker 2: But anything we should know about this song, I don't know if maybe it's maybe it relates to a specific experience that you had as a band, or.

26:41 Speaker 3: It's well it's not one specific experience, but all of the different elements that you can hear that where have all happened in one place or another. We know where it talks about. You know, the support band has to sort of turn up hurts, you know, hours before the event, provide the back line, and you know, the main band are sort of sort of stroll into town. They're getting paid, you know, silly amount of money, and the drummer says, and I haven't got me kick, can I use yours? And yeah, all that sort of thing, you know, And then you know others where you've got promoters who will sort of put you on that right, you've got to be here and you've got to be off in two seconds, you know, otherwise the you know you won't you know, never see you ever again.

27:30 Speaker 3: I'll make sure you never work in this town sort of thing, you know. You know, it's just, you know, we're fortunate now that a lot of the places we play, the promoters are actually sort of considerate and they know that the effort that people go to and they do look after you. I mean, we don't you know, massive amounts of money from it or anything like that. You don't. Yeah, we don't expect too. If you are the support band, however, support bands who get looked half, I'm more likely to say that was a good experience.

28:03 Speaker 3: You know, if you get the chance to play for this particular promoter or that particular venue, then do it. Likewise, if you have a really bad experience, that gets around very quickly to bands, and you'll have places wondering why they can't attract bands, right, well, we know why they can't. Then here's a song all about it.

28:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, So we'll hit that track in a moment, So we'll let you go. Dale Pharaoh from the Puncturists, thank you so much for joining us today, and I look forward to hearing new music from you and and we'll talk again in the future for sure.

28:37 Speaker 3: So thank you so much, Thank you, Matt. It's lovely to chat speak to you again. Seeing hey bye sounds, good bye bye all right.

28:45 Speaker 2: That is Dale Pharaoh, bass player from the band The Puncturists, And.

28:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great track.

28:50 Speaker 2: And you know, a lot of a lot of people in the music industry and a lot of bands, a lot of and soul artists too, listen to the show. I'm well aware of what our sort of core audience is with this program, so this will be highly relatable for many of you. But this is such a great song. This is called they don't pay support bands, and the band is The Puncturists.