Ahead of their upcoming ‘Angry Side Tour’, Andi Talbot sat down with Millie Manders (of Millie Manders and the Shutup) to find out how their year has started and what you can expect from their upcoming North East date.
You’ve just finished up the Slam Dunk Winter Jam Tour with Zebrahead, Teenage Bottlerocket and Spunge. How was that for you?
It was incredible. It was such a great experience working with three very well-seasoned bands that were all really lovely to us and treated us as equals. You kind of expect that but you don’t know what’s going to happen when working with bands that’ve been on circuits much, much longer than you. We learned a lot watching them on stage every night and we met so many new people – and the fans were brilliant.
Tell us a little bit about the new single, ‘Angry Side’ // ‘Can I Get Off?’…
‘Angry Side’ is a letter both to and from my younger self. I was an angry teenager. People thought I was arrogant but it was largely a front for a lot of my own insecurities and feeling like I didn’t fit into the world. It’s also an apology to a lot of people I probably pissed off. ‘Can I Get Off?’ is anger at the world right now. It’s anger at the lies we’ve been sold since forever, for hundreds of years, about everything. It’s got mentions of Sudan, Congo and Palestine amongst other things. It’s raging about our blindness to where everything we have has come from and the lack of people with platforms shouting about it.
You’ve also released a new range of T-shirts to help raise money for the Mercy Without Limits Charity. How did that come about?
So Mercy Without Limits is a charity based in the US and Turkey I believe, but they work in Sudan and Palestine and all over the world with food aid, medical aid, religious and educational things as well as mental health help. Initially, I researched who the best charities were, especially for Palestine, but I wanted something that would also be working with other countries. There was also Doctors Without Borders but I wanted to do something for a charity that might be overlooked. So far, we’ve already raised nearly £1000 from the pre-orders of the single and the t-shirts.
You’re heading back out on tour this month. What can we expect from your new shows?
We’ll have the two new songs in our set as well as our new singles from last year too. We’re going to be playing for up to 90 minutes now, so expect a longer set, new music, new rants and lots more energy. We always try to up our game. We’ve got two brilliant support acts doing various dates too (All Ears Avow and Voodoo Radio). All Ears Avow will be doing the first four dates. Their singer, Claire, is our producer for our latest singles and will be our producer for the album too. Then for the rest of the dates, we have Voodoo Radio who are a father and daughter duo who are absolutely electric to watch live. Paige plays the drums, does the lead singing and dances at the front of the stage. So yeah, don’t miss the support acts on this tour.
Speaking of the album, how are things going with getting that out into the world?
We’ve got the songs, but it’s all about the budget and trying to make sure we get the right amount of money to get into the studio, then getting it mastered and getting the physical copies done. Later on in the spring and summer, we’re going to be campaigning to raise money for that, and we’re hoping to have it out in late summer/early autumn.
Millie Manders and The Shut Up head to The Forum, Darlington on Thursday 18th April. Tickets, priced at £15.00 in advance, are available from theforumonline.co.uk.
