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Boy Bleach: A Defiant Anthem for Love, Resistance, and East London Swagger

Emerging from the streets of East London, Boy Bleach is a band that embodies raw energy, authenticity, and unfiltered passion. Their music—an eclectic fusion of alt-rock, punk, and synth with a sprinkle of jazz-inspired finesse—isn’t just sound; it’s a statement. With their latest single, “If You Want To,” and their forthcoming EP, The Beautiful Blue, the band channels their anger and frustration with the world into anthems of defiance and love.

“If You Want To” is a powerful response to the social and political climate. Can you walk us through the moment that sparked the creation of this song? Was there a specific incident or feeling that ignited your need to write this anthem?

Lou: “If You Want To” was a perfect storm, to be honest. We were in the midst of finishing a few tracks for a different project, so we weren’t really thinking about writing much new material. But like all our favorite songs, they tend to hit us, unaware, in the face, innit? There was so much going on here and across the pond, and Jim and I were traveling to a studio in Wales with plenty of time to talk on the way up. There was a thickness in the air, and it seemed no matter where you looked, people were being stripped of their rights and dignity. It felt like one of the many never-ending dystopian chapters of our conscious adulthood. So much animosity flying around—it was inescapable.

Jimi: I believe the initial incident that catalyzed this track was hearing about the drag bans and attacks on queer communities and women’s rights in America. That always seems to slowly bleed across the waters to us here in the UK. It was just pissing us off. And it was pissing off everyone around us too. We have a knack for writing well when we’re pissed off and frustrated, and we felt like we wanted to write a song that championed love at its core but with our trademark… I don’t have the perfect word for it, but gestures “f** off” whilst flicking the V*.

We remember writing this one very quickly, not trying to be clever or overthink it. We had something on our chest and needed to get it off. We know it’s a small gesture of support, but if it even gives just one person the lift they need to be themselves in the face of all this, or stops one prick in their tracks and makes them think twice about being a dickhead, that’s a good start

Your lyrics confront some intense issues, especially around love and acceptance amid adversity. How do you balance vulnerability and strength in your music, particularly in a track like this?

Jimi: It’s not really something we have to think about, to be honest. Our party line with this band has always been to just say what we mean in the best way we can. Whatever feeling we’re writing about, or situation we’re detailing, we write in the way we feel will get the most honest version across. We like our listeners to feel like they’re in the pub getting ranted at—you know, when you’re a few pints in, still coherent but you’ve lost your filter. That’s our music. Laughs. For real though, vulnerability is strength to us, so a dichotomy between the two doesn’t really register in the process.

Can you take us back to when Boy Bleach first came together? Was there a defining moment that made you all commit to pursuing music as a band?

JJ: We kind of just knew from when we first met. There wasn’t one specific moment—it was more of a feeling. It made sense from the start, and we just kept that feeling alive.

Every band faces challenges, especially starting out. What have been some of the toughest obstacles you’ve encountered, and how did you overcome them?

Lou: Balancing life as you grow up making art. To maintain creative freedom in this industry, you kind of need to do it yourself. We all work “actual” jobs outside of music so that we never make art to sustain us. It keeps it pure and lets us keep making music we believe in, even if it ain’t worth a penny. But this makes it difficult to manage your time sometimes. Still, when you believe in something that much, you make it work. It helps to be doing it with your best mates—you can lean on each other heavily because you’re all in the same boat. Sinking, maybe, but still the same boat.

Jimi: Finding people you can rely on is touch and go. When you start out, nobody really believes in what you’re doing, so getting that initial support is hard. And even when you start to see some buzz, finding people with good intentions for you can be tricky. When something shows promise, people usually ruin it before it’s had a chance. We’re blessed to have the band—we’re like a unit within a team that can’t crack, which helps when navigating this industry. People are weird.

You’ve mentioned influences from Depeche Mode and The Clash to Gorillaz. Which artist or group would you say you draw from most when facing creative or social challenges?

Jimi: We’re constantly drawing from multiple sources, so this is hard to pin down. You mention Depeche Mode—they’ve always been a bit of a North Star for us. Songs of Faith and Devotion is an album I go back to whenever I need something to get out of a creative rut or want to feel something intentional and deep. I’m always finding new things to love about that album.

Lou: Bon Iver is always my go-to when I face creative challenges. He’s one of the only artists I can listen to without overanalyzing. I dissect music to the point of driving myself insane most of the time, but with Bon Iver, I feel free to just enjoy it and get lost in it.

Outside of music, what do each of you do to recharge or draw inspiration? Any hobbies, guilty pleasures, or unconventional routines?

Jimi: When we get a sp are minute, we’ll let you know! Honestly, like a lot of people, we don’t remember the last time we properly recharged. We just find inspiration everywhere. We live, work, and write mostly in London and always have, so we’re never short on it. As an artist, you never really switch off, even if you lie to yourself and pretend you do. I wish we were more interesting, but at the moment, we’re pretty low-maintenance outside of music. It’s the simple pleasures—going to the pub together, playing a bit of footie… You can tell from our next EP, The Beautiful Blue, that we haven’t had much time to relax.

Lou: We’re the most disorganized creatures of habit. The lads like to go to the gym, if you couldn’t tell. Sometimes making music is the recharge we need—almost like our own type of autopilot. Some songs can be absolute fuckers to write, but sometimes you tap that vein that refreshes your motivation. We also try to spend as much time with our families as we can. We’re homegrown boys.

You have a really eclectic sound that combines alt-rock, punk, synths, and even jazz training. Do each of you bring a specific style to the band, or is it more of a blend from everyone?

Lou: It’s definitely a blend from all of us. We come from different musical backgrounds, so we might all attack a song from different angles. I might come up with an idea expecting it to go one way, and then the boys stretch it into a completely different vibe. Sometimes we’ll be hammering away at an idea that isn’t moving, and it’s that lateral approach—coming from all having different mechanisms of writing or viewing music—that progresses it.

That’s what our process thrives on more than anything. It’s ever-adapting and keeps us all interested. For Blood Honey, the bones of the song and what we wanted to say were all there in the work Jim and I had initially done, but musically, it took on a completely different shape after we got in a room together and started bouncing ideas around. It gets wild, and we kind of feed each other’s delusions. No idea is too far if it sounds right.

Being from East London, how does the local culture shape your music? Are there any hidden gems in your hometown that influence your sound or serve as a creative backdrop?

Jimi: East London has been a constant inspiration for us and our music. Sometimes, it’s the only inspiration we’ve got. The way we live, the people that surround us, the communities we grew up in—it’s all woven into our music. The stories from our grandparents, the way we talk, the way we dress, the confidence we have in our art… It’s all a homage to our hometown. East London is the centre of the universe, I don’t care what anyone says.

Lou: We actually saw recently that Leyton made it onto a “coolest places in the world” list, which is hilarious—and also bollocks. But it’s home, so we agree, purely out of our misguided sense of loyalty to it. It’s not actually that cool, but it’s ours.

Your new EP, The Beautiful Blue, drops in November. What message or feeling do you hope fans walk away with after listening to it?

Jimi: We want people to walk away feeling like they understand us a bit better. When we started this band, one of our concerns was that our roots might get lost in the smoke and mirrors of everything.

We’ve been battling with our common sense to keep our ambitions alive for years, and it’s hard. We’re not from money; we didn’t inherit much luck either, and we’ve been up against it from the moment we decided to make music our career.

I think the main thing we want people to feel when they hear this is “uncomfortable,” because it’s real. We’re detailing our actual lives—problems we deal with firsthand. And we’re not the only ones. We’re speaking alongside a majority, and there are people who are affected by this shit even more than we are.

For them, we hope this EP makes listeners look inwards. And on a simpler level, we want people to think, “Yeah, this shit slaps.”

Lou: For sure.

You’re vocal about defiance and resilience. What do you think is most important for today’s artists when it comes to using music as a platform for social change?

Lou: Believe in what you’re saying. Your conviction is everything. We know we’re not always going to be right, but we also know our intentions are good and pure. We want things to be better.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself in uncomfortable positions for what you believe in. And don’t shut down or try to numb yourself—it’s so easy to do that these days. You need to feel it to say it.

Your band biography describes a “Jack-the-lad-esque” confidence. How do you balance that charisma and swagger with the authenticity and relatability your music demands?

Jimi: That’s just who we are—it’s our attitude. We’ve always had this blinkered vision when it comes to our art. We only write what we believe in and feel represents something pure and honest, and we put our whole confidence into that.

We back our art to the end, so the authenticity and relatability luckily go hand in hand with how we deliver it. We also don’t really think of ourselves as being that charismatic or having much swagger. We just do our thing.

When writing music together, do you follow a structured process, or is it more chaotic? Who usually brings the initial idea, and how does it evolve from there?

Lou: There’s some structure to how we write. A lot of the time, the idea will start with Jim or me—or a combination of both. We usually have a strong concept or, at the very least, the identity of the track down before bringing it to the lads. Once it’s open to the band, it becomes more chaotic, unless we have a really clear preconception of what we want the song to be.

Sometimes, we’ll just jam as a group with no intention of writing until we stumble across something with legs. There’s something so satisfying about finding beauty in a lack of intention.

How has the music industry’s current landscape impacted your journey as an independent band? Have there been any specific hurdles you’ve had to navigate?

Jimi: When we left our major, we were pretty disillusioned with it all. We’ve always wanted to make music and art that we loved, but to survive in that industry—at least for us—we felt like we had to compromise too much of what we loved about it.

Being independent, we don’t feel like we operate within the industry in the same way, which is why it works for us. The industry isn’t for the artist. After this past year, we literally cut everything and went back to basics. It taught us you can’t really put your faith in many people. No one loves your band more than you do, so you shouldn’t put it in anyone else’s hands.

You’re addressing some heavy themes with your latest single and EP. Have you faced pushback or criticism because of the messages in your music?

Jimi: That’s always going to happen, and we get criticism here and there. But we’re lucky—we’re still quite underground, so we haven’t reached the point where everything we do is massively scrutinized.

It is what it is. People are always going to say something, in the same way we’re always going to say something back. We’re fortunate that the community we’ve built reciprocates a lot of what we feel.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or from history, who would it be and why?

Jimi: We always find this question jarring because we never really think about it! But someone who springs to mind now would be Terry Hall. He’s had such a poignant influence on us and seems underrated in our generation. His stamp on UK culture is undeniable, so that would be amazing.

Lou: There are so many artists I love, but the idea of collaborating with them for Boy Bleach doesn’t quite register for me. Personally, though, I’d love to produce alongside Justin Vernon. That guy is a genius, and I’d want to siphon as much from him as possible.

If Boy Bleach was a movie, what genre would it be, and who would play each of you?

Jimi: It would probably be a thriller or a horror, and we’d all be played by whoever was getting the short end of the stick.

Describe each member in three words—no repeats allowed!

Louis: Youngest of five.

Jimi: Made in London.

JJ: Takes no shit.

Nick: Too fucking tall.

James: Boat karaoke legend.

Lastly, for those discovering Boy Bleach for the first time with “If You Want To,” what’s the one thing you’d want them to know about you as a group?

We’re the real deal, baby.

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