Regal Cheer
February 3, 2023| Dan Hillier |FEATURES
Cans: Track by Track with Regal Cheer
The working life will kill us all. At least it’s given us the fantastic debut from Brighton indie-punks Regal Cheer.
Composed of 10 carbonated shots of snappy ruminations on how work robs us of the best years of our lives and how our youth is merely being rented by joyless capitalists, Cans is quite essentially the life-affirming joy of those shout-along live shows captured and bottled into one handy record. Fully optimised for an age where every single second of spare time must be savoured lest one lose their mind whilst tapping into the unchained and unfiltered DIY punk stylings of the likes of Buds., Brutalligators and I Feel Fine, with this record Regal Cheer have truly captured what it’s like having to survive in a system where work overrides all. Quite frankly, it’s true breath of fresh air, one born from frustration and ennui, yet expressed with joy and explosive energy.
With the record out today via Beth Shalom Records, we got in touch with Max Cleworth (Guitar, Vocals) and Harry Menear (Drums, Vocals) to break down Cans, track by track.
Related: Regal Cheer – Cans | Album Review
PPL
Max: “PPL stands for Play Post Lobotomy, a reference to the Northampton band Broadbay and their song ‘Post Lobotomy’. They stopped playing that song far too early. The title has no real reference to the subject matter, it’s about when you’re feeling anxious about something and not really doing anything to tackle it head on and solve the problem. This was the first song we wrote after writing and recording Side Hustle and Overtime. The guys in Broadbay are doing Big Whup and Sunny Gym now, talented people and definitely worth checking out.”
Castanets
Max: “You might pick up on a theme here, yet another one on being pretty self critical about not speaking up on things that are directly impacting you and feeling like a little wimp about it. It’s well easy to be a pushover when you’d rather no confrontation at all. I lived in a house where it was loud and scum all the time but kept quiet to avoid seeming like a prick, I would have rather the carpet smelt like ciggies and kissed goodbye to my holding deposit. I had this riff for fucking ages, felt well nice to finally get to use it. We got some friends from I Feel Fine, Chalk Hands, Public Body, Big Slammu and Really Big Really Clever in on the gangs too.”
Harry: “This was also the first time we relinquished video making duties to someone else. Our good mate Pat who puts on Washed Out Festival offered to do the video after we saw him make this cool effect with some old footage of ours. I think it came out amazing, he showed me the process and it looked confusing and time consuming so shoutout to him. I think the footage used in the video is from I Feel Fine’s album release show at the Bees Mouth. There’s a fact you don’t care about, you’re welcome.”
Ante
Max: “We were going to call this song “[redacted] is a wanker” but thought ‘Ante’ was a bit more family friendly. We found ourselves in a position early on in the band where we felt pretty looked down on and ‘surplus to requirements’, we decided that rather than get down about it we would accept that that one person is a maggot and we’re going to make our own fun. A bit of a poppy one I guess, the only one where we had a cleanish bass tone. I really like what Harry did on the second verse with the drums too, gave it a proper lovely bounce.
Harry: “We filmed the video for this in our flat Max and I shared together after I broke up with my girlfriend. Within two weeks of moving in my bedroom roof started leaking. The pièce de résistance of that flat was the PVC pipe connecting the kitchen taps so the water would drain into the sink and not all over the counter. That’s what £450 a month gets you in Brighton folks. Jared from Really Big Really Clever was behind the camera for this one. Thought it came out great and was a good excuse to buy a drum kit I’ll barely ever use.
Feet Glued
Max: “Ding ding ding, it’s that theme again! A lot of these songs were written around the same time, the difference with this one is it started with Harry making the beat then I worked backwards and we wrote the song around it. We were jamming the middle eight bit for a while at different paces and were trying to shoehorn it in somewhere, I think we did a pretty good job of it, it’s a lot of fun to play.”
Harry: “I was rinsing The Bronx a load at the time so was basically trying to rip off the start of ‘Inveigh’ with the main beat. Probably didn’t do it justice but it’s fun to play. This was one we introduced live relatively early on and had a few comments from strangers that they “liked that weird bit in the middle” so that’s cool.”
Tenner
Max: “I want to say this was the second song we ever wrote, it had a different melody and everything but the structure of the song was the same. Lyrically it has nothing to do with tenners, but we felt like it was like finding a tenner in an old coat pocket. It’s about how doing the same things you’d do at home or alone are infinitely better when you’re hanging out with a pal or after a change of scenery.”
Harry: “Yeah, this was one that I stumbled across in the archive when searching for forgotten ideas. Usually I’ll find a cool riff or drum part but this was essentially a finished song we had totally forgotten about. I record every practise for just these events, and because my memory is rubbish so you never know what you might find.”
Forest
Max: “This is a bit of a soft lad. I wrote this on my own and sent Harry a voice note with the intro, with lyrics, and rough structure, having lyrics for the whole thing. He immediately sent back what he was going to do vocally for the rest of it, it must have been better than what I had for it otherwise I would have done a bit more fighting for it. It’s a nice one this, another poppy one I’d say.
Harry: “Max having full lyrics for this is news to me, but I remember coming up with my section really quickly and frantically recording it on my phone in the toilet at work so I didn’t forget it and sending it straight back. You can hear the extractor fan in the background of all my voice notes, sometimes it gets referred to as the third member of the band. The song is kind of generalising times when nothings going your way and you desperately need a change.”
That’s What We’re Here For
Max: “We wrote this one from a jam, I think I had just got a splitter on my pedal board so wanted to play about with cutting out the bass channel. Lyrically it’s a bit all over the place, with the verse bit being about how unfortunately it’s no one’s divine right to do art or something you enjoy for a living, the bastards are always going to grind you down, and the title/end lyrics of the song being a reference to how we literally went to a space to write a song and we did just that. Fucking stupid.”
Harry: “I remember us having a conversation in passing about wanting to work something about ‘hitting the nail on the head’ into a song somewhere, and I just chucked it straight into this song because we were working on it at the time. I also remember figuring out I could do these flay-swatter left hand hi-hat hits at the time, so I used em all over the place in this. Like showing off a new toy you got for Christmas or something.”
Good Life
Max: “This was another one from the guitarchives, I wrote it after a band I was in for years broke up and after a while thinking about getting back into the whole band thing but being financially put off by it. You eventually realise, contrary to the last track,if you’re not doing what makes you happy what’s the point? Thought this one sounded like Weezer a bit when writing it, listening back it obviously doesn’t.
Harry: I also thought this one was Weezer-ish but I definitely isn’t. Added in the 16th note section quite late in the game, just to add a little spice. I hate doing them but Max likes them so I indulged him. Max’s dog Panda also features at the end, that sound is what I would experience every time I came home. Maybe i’ll post the clip of her shouting at me when this comes out. This song is hard to play but were going to start playIng it on the road on this upcoming tour, keen to play it wrong every night.”
Behavioural Patterns
Harry: “I believe this is the first of our tunes to only have me on vocal duties. I knew I wanted to write a song that was a minute long and really aggro, it used to be shorter but when we played it live a bunch of people told us to make it longer so we did (by about 15 seconds). I’d often refer to this one as our ‘Catalina Fight Song’ in reference to the Joyce Manor tune, I think that’s a belter and wanted to make something with that same level of haste. Written about being fed up at my 9-5. I noticed I went almost a week without conversation at work. Just ‘how was your evening’, ‘yeah fine thanks yours?’ ‘Yeah fine’ and that was it. Was going a bit mental so wrote a cross little tune about it. A proper little grumpy boy. Probably takes longer to read this than listen to the song itself to be honest.
On The Ground
Max: “We had a song called ‘Dirt Underneath’ we tried to record with Seb from Public Body and Jordan from Really Big Really Clever when we did Side Hustle, it sounded like shit so we canned it. We were jamming out the intro/verse bit for a while and didn’t know where to go with it. One of us had the bright idea to put that bit from that crap song that didn’t really work in and it fit like a long lost glove. The main bulk of the song is about people who are on the periphery of your life and think they’ve got a lot more right to know you than they actually do. The ending is about someone I knew who seemed nice as pie, then at the first real opportunity they showed they were a bit of a snake. A bit of a touch both sides of it worked thematically, really. Nice big chanty vibes from our aforementioned backing singers, too.”
Harry: “The beginning section was us trying to come up with something a bit unusual structure wise. I remember it being difficult until the vocals were in, then it became a no brainier to play. Probably one of my favourites on the album, I love the gang vocals at the end a lot, I even fought for them to go on for longer. Really excited to bring this one on the road too. Feels like the first proper song we’ve ever written. Thanks for reading our ramblings about our Album.”
