From IDLES, With Love: ‘This Is The Time When Art Is At Its Most Vital’

For IDLES, making music and touring behind their songs is all about expressing love.

The band made their intention clear from their 2017 debut album, Brutalism, with the standout number Mother, which breaks down the real-life experiences of vocalist Joe Talbot’s mum and explores the enduring Margaret Atwood quote, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them” behind powerfully heavy instrumentation.

On their 2018 breakthrough LP, Joy As An Act Of Resistance, IDLES mined themes like toxic masculinity and self-love (“I’m a real boy, and I cry/ I love myself and I want to try,” Talbot sings on Samaritans), migration (the raucous Danny Nedelko), class (I’m Scum), and Brexit. The Bristol punks upped the ante on 2020’s Ultra Mono, revisiting topics such as critiquing capitalism, the need for revolution, class struggle, mental health and toxic masculinity, as well as discussing the band’s newfound fame.

In 2021, IDLES abandoned the post-punk label that lumped them in with bands like Fontaines D.C., Dry Cleaning, Shame, and Black Country, New Road (all of whom have radically changed their sounds in follow-up efforts to their debut records). The darkly fascinating CRAWLER saw the band embrace noise rock and hardcore punk, with some ambience sprinkled in, opening the door for last year’s TANGK.

TANGK saw IDLES craft their first album chock-full of love songs. Teaming up with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and CRAWLER collaborator Kenny Beats, the latest LP from the British rockers finds them at their most interesting and creative. And, for the second album cycle in a row, the band have been nominated for Grammy Awards (Best Rock Album for TANGK and Best Rock Performance for Gift Horse).

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“The concept of awards or competition or deciding that one thing is better than another in art is, as an artist, it’s hard to get on board with because it creates a lot of problems with your self-esteem in that it inflates it, and then that allows the little pop moment to happen, and you become this saggy balloon of misery afterwards,” guitarist and co-producer Mark Bowen chuckles in a far-reaching chat with The Music ahead of the band’s forthcoming Australian tour.

Explaining his point of view towards award ceremonies, he continues: “It’s always lovely when people say that they like your music and like your art, and sometimes even more, if they get it. Having the Grammys [recognise IDLES] means that… it’s voted for by the music community in America, so people are digging it, and that’s really cool. We’re incredibly grateful, and we obviously would love to win it. It’s only a good thing.”

Throughout all their records, some things remained the same: IDLES remain loud and aggressive but with a whole lot of heart. And for Bowen, it feels like IDLES have cracked a mysterious code that inspires them more than ever—and you won’t be shoving them back inside a box.

“It’s just about pushing things. I think that we’ve opened Pandora’s Box,” Bowen shares. Explaining the band’s intentions to reject the expectations of what a guitar band or punk band should sound like, Bowen admits that IDLES are far from the first band to change their sound, nor is what they’re doing all that radical if you’ve been paying attention.

“I’m not saying we’ve reinvented the wheel,” he adds, “But we’ve expanded our boundaries, pushed our songwriting into that kind of zone, and pushed our music, expression and production in these ways. We pushed our songwriting, and we now have ballads and quieter moments and restraint in the tracks, and we just want to push that further.”

While Bowen has now co-produced IDLES’ last three albums, TANGK marked the first time the band worked with Nigel Godrich, reaching their own personal upper echelon of legendary producers in the process.

As a producer, Bowen reflects on the lessons he learned from Godrich: understanding the processes of engineering and technical need for certain things, but also flying in the face of conventional wisdom. Most importantly, Bowen embraced a mission statement of always serving the song.

“The biggest thing with Nigel Godrich is that that man does not make any compromises whatsoever,” Bowen shares. “But he’s also intuitive; he understands the band’s intention, and that’s where he becomes uncompromising. The biggest thing I’ve learned from him is just not to compromise ever.”

Producing the band’s records also impacts Bowen’s guitar playing in “two very different ways.”

He explains: “One, it inspires me to push the boundaries of what is happening. Learning a lot more about production has led me to create these modular pedal systems that I use to expand what a guitar is.

“Basically, the guitar has become the primary oscillator of this huge synthesis thing that is created, and that can be very creative and freeing, but it also has made me incredibly lazy [laughs], because it means that I’m like, ‘I could fix that later by doing something mad [in the studio]. It’s a double-edged sword. I’m either class with it or really lazy. And also, there’s something that can be said about the minimalism that can be found in laziness [laughs].”

Unsure of what comes next for the band, Bowen says, “Right now, I feel more like we’re going to write something that’s maybe more raucous, and back to that energy and kind of use the tools that we’ve learned from these quieter moments, and the production value and the understanding we’ve gotten from that kind of music, and bring it back to that kind of raucous thing but use more electronic stuff. Basically, what I’m telling you is, I don’t know [laughs]. I’ve no idea, and that’s terrifying. It’s a good place to be! If I knew exactly what it was going to be, it would probably end up being really boring, so I like being scared.”

Whatever the secret is to the magic behind IDLES’ appeal, Australian audiences bloody love them. And this month, the band will embark on another tour Down Under—this time playing in their largest venues to date.

In terms of Melbourne venues, IDLES have gone from selling out the Corner Hotel in 2019 to bringing their phenomenal live show to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in just six years, a remarkable feat for any act, let alone an abrasive punk band.

The band’s upcoming return to Australia feels “great,” Bowen enthusiastically says.

“It feels wonderful and exciting and exhilarating, but it also feels right,” he reveals. “We’ve been at this a long time—we’ve been performing live for 15 years! We’ve had a slow ascension, sometimes with big ramps, but each time we’ve gotten to a certain stage, it’s felt right.

“On TANGK, we’ve started to play more in arenas and big spaces. It’s daunting and unnerving, and sometimes there can be a bit of imposter syndrome when you’re a band that should be playing pubs because that’s where we started. We’ve taken the gravity of that situation and the fact that people are going to come see us and are prepared to [perform for] a big crowd—we owe them the show that they deserve, and that means filling that big room.

“So, that comes down to the sonics of the band and how we make this TANGK album come across, and how our old stuff comes across, and the big rooms and how it’s presented visually. It’s been a real labour of love. Getting this tour on the road and bringing it over to your side of the world is going to be a nice little cherry on top. [2024 was] an incredibly exhausting year; I think it’s in the hundreds now of shows that we’ve done. So, we’re a well-oiled machine at this stage.”

Examining the band’s love affair with Australia, Bowen adds, “There’s a definite kindred-ness with us, in that there’s this ability to become uninhibited and ramp up the energy, which we recognise at our shows instantly when we come over and play in Australia. But there’s also this—it’s hard to describe it because it’s a contradiction—but there’s an openness and not give a fuck attitude that is very much, like, interested and empathetic.

“I don’t know how to describe it. [Australians] care deeply. I feel that when I’m there, and I feel that communicated with the people I speak to when I’m over there. And I feel it in the shows, and that’s how we feel amongst ourselves. So, it kind of fits, [it] works. Culturally, it fits.”

Of course, IDLES return to Australia while the world is in a turbulent phase—Donald Trump has been re-elected President of the United States, the Labour government in the UK and Australian Labor have acted to criminalise protest “like a repressive regime” amidst great suffering in Ukraine and Gaza, not to mention the cost-of-living crisis and more and more people living in poverty and homelessness. It’s difficult to be united amongst so much division or find positivity, let alone preach love to adoring crowds. So, how do IDLES continue to maintain their love for the world? How does love remain the thing (or fing – IYKYK) in dark times?

“That’s the thing – it has to be,” Bowen ponders. “This is where it’s at its most important. It’s vital to remind ourselves that that’s what we’re here for. The biggest thing lovers can do at the minute is to be open, empathetic and try and understand why the fuck this stuff is happening, embrace what’s going on, and try not to lose sight of what people want in the world, what we believe in, and what we believe people want as well.

“Not to sound like a complete utilitarian, but it’s about keeping on. This is the time when art is at its most vital, because we’ve got to strive to fight and show what’s happening now. We’ve got to archive it, present it, interpret it, show people what’s happening, and try and present an understanding of the world so that people can process it and get through it. Now is the time to hunker down.”

TANGK is out now. IDLES will tour across Australia this month – tickets are available here.