Interview: "Volume is pretty key to our sound" Laughter turn their amps and melodies up to 11.

 

The outsiders are here to have their say. Jim Auton talks with London genre-hopping newcomers Laughter and finds out more about the driving force behind their music.

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There’s not enough heavy music being talked about. Outside of your particular scenes where Hardcore is flourishing, or your Metal magazines are outstripping NME, the art of making ears bleed and faces melt is being underplayed for Dream Pop and Post Punk.

Not there’s anything wrong with either of those genres when done well, and there are plenty of excellent exponents of them, but a wall of distorted, overdriven and brain melting guitar is being overlooked.

Hold my beer, say Laughter. This five piece from London are crushing and deafening with the kind of rock that is scant appreciated by the press. They merge and mould perfect pop melodies and guitars that could reduce buildings to rubble (our grassroots venues are made of sturdier stuff,  it’s just the finances that are the problem).

They’ve just released new single ‘Future’ this month and further singles are due the first half of this year, which come off the back of their superb debut EP Group Bonding that came out last year. Catching up with Louis from the band, the principal songwriter along with singer Mai, he spoke to me about the beginning of the band and the future.

                                       

 “Mai and I started writing tunes a couple years ago. I’ve been playing with the other guys for years in various other bands. I wanted to explore weirder guitar stuff that I couldn’t really sing over so it made sense to team up with Mai, who’s a much better singer than I am anyway.. haha”

Naming a band is tricky and sometimes seem to be the opposite of the style of the band.

“I’ve always been a fan of single word band names. I like how they lack context. I think the initial inspiration came from the 60’s band Love. I was massively into Forever Changes at the time”.

Laughter marry the heavy sound with the basis of the song, the melody and cadence, coupled with Mai’s voice, creates a unique noise, using layers and breakdowns to weave a tapestry of textures and sounds.

“We grew up with torrenting and streaming so we had access to literally everything. I feel like Laughter’s music falls somewhere between Shoegaze, Industrial, Hardcore. I’ve always been drawn to music that’s both melodic but a bit harsh and noisy. I love bands that juxtapose horrible loud guitars with ethereal vocals”.

“Hardcore was a huge thing for me growing up, going to shows etc. It’s the best music scene and it’s in such a good place at the moment. I love how the Hardcore scene embraces other styles of music with the same passion and energy. Look at the Outbreak Festival lineup for instance: Alex G, Slowdive, TAGABOW… I guarantee people will still be stage diving to ‘Alison' ".

Despite the EP and singles being digital releases, the artwork was still an important aspect of the whole package.

“The Group Bonding art was inspired by a line in the title track “you’re a rabid dog”. It was made by our mate Max Bloom, he’s great. Also a brilliant musician, his band Yuck were a big influence on me as a teen”.

“The concept for the future art was to combine medieval or gothic imagery with something futuristic, I’m not sure if we achieved this but I do like the neon green gargoyles”.

If you stripped away all the bluster and noise you’d still have a great song that could be played on an acoustic guitar at radio session.

“It’s important to us that the song at its core, feels like a song. As much as we love all the noise and heavy drums etc. The song is what’s crucial to us. That said, ‘Future’ is probably our least melodic. We felt that the monotonous, robotic vocal style suits the theme”.

In the age of compression and an obsession with looking after your hearing (you’re in the wrong business, go work in a library) bands and artists can often be as quiet as a mouse when the finished record is out; Not Laughter though. The mastering is so loud it can be used to scare into submission even the most feral of football supporter.

“True! I think it better represents how we sound live. Volume is pretty key to our sound."

What plans have they got for 2025? Another EP? There’s 'Future' out and also 'Listen' that I’ve heard with Kamggarn out in May.

“We’ve got loads of music recorded, there’ll definitely been some more releases after that, plus we’re looking at a tour in the summer”.

It’s about time we had more bands making a righteous racket. Not another post-punk band, or just straight up punk band, or indie rock band. Or Prog. Enough of the Prog. 

We need more melodic Shoegaze Hardcore. Melshoecore. Is that a thing? It is now.

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You can follow and find out more about Laughter on Threads and Instagram.