Teesside outfit Successpit’s new single, ‘I’m Not a Robot’, takes aim at our increasingly ridiculous relationship with technology. Liza-Lou Campy talks to Carl Jackson about the single, capitalism, and AI.
Successpit is described as a ‘post-punk lifestyle brand’. What exactly is the Successpit lifestyle?
At the core, I think we are selling some bob-on, pretty imaginative and lyrically sharp songs about the world around us. We are a band of late-thirties and early-forties post-punks in a world of #indiepoo, trying to be heard over Cruz Beckham doing Stone Roses covers in his dad’s old Man U shirts, backed by an army of bots and marketing-company-made paid fan accounts. We are allowed a bit of cynicism, and I think that’s a lifestyle a lot of people identify with.
You’re pretty open about taking aim at capitalism. Does being in a band ever make that an awkward position to be in?
I don’t dislike capitalism. Heating, a roof over my head, the NHS, education – it’s worked out all right for me. It’s just that we are now at its endpoint; it’s the beast everyone knew it would become. When our taps and rivers are full of shitty water so people get the right dividends, it seems like the point where I have to point out that it’s veering off course. If we don’t start standing up for this and protecting these things, then the foundations that have separated us from Victorian squalor for so long are going to be taken away.
The new single, ‘I’m Not a Robot’, takes aim at our increasingly ridiculous relationship with technology. Was there a particular moment that sparked it?
We are at a point where things have stopped working. It’s becoming increasingly harder to do anything online due to the amount of fraud and the proliferation of bots. Want to log into a website with your own data on? CAPTCHA. Passwords. Is that the one with three special characters, numbers and letters? No? OK, password reset, back to my email. I am in. Third-party authentication. I just want to pay my gas bill. And we’ve now reached the point where a website can decide you’re not human because you picked the wrong traffic lights.
What do you find most ridiculous about modern technology?
Smart stuff and the Internet of Things. I know someone who bought a fridge with a screen in it, so they can see what’s inside without opening the door. Then they can surf the internet and pull up recipes. Though why you would need to do that while standing in front of the fridge door, when you have a phone in your pocket, is beyond me.
You’ve already taken aim at everything from the Ukraine war and Oasis ticket prices to AI. Is there anything about the modern world that you actually like?
Yeah, loads of stuff. ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’. This guy on Instagram who makes videos of spooky, sentient ice creams. Some things are just great uses of technology, like Vinted. How much clothing waste must that have done away with? The positive connections the internet makes get massively overlooked, too. For every online troll and romance scammer, there are hundreds of people who have found niche communities, support and friendship that they wouldn’t have had in their own location or immediate circle.
You’ve also got a new bass player joining the Successpit ranks. Have they brought anything new to the band?
He brings a lot of technical stuff to the table, so we can do some things we always had in mind that we didn’t have the budget or expertise to accomplish before. I don’t want to give the game away, but we have something fun in the pipeline, and it couldn’t be done without the new guy!
You can listen to ‘I’m Not a Robot’ now on all major streaming platforms.
