Written by Joey Grindrod
Sheffield’s music scene has plenty to boast about at the moment. Up-and-coming artists spanning a range of genres are impressing at local venues across the city and flying the flag for Sheffield music around the country. Punk three-piece Drastic//Automatic have been doing just that recently and they are looking to capitalise on the momentum they have built up going into 2023.
Made up of Sean on guitar and vocals, Chris on bass, and Benji on drums, Sheffield-based Drastic//Automatic are doing their best to crack into the UK’s burgeoning and exciting post-punk scene; the three rip-roaring singles they released last year have put them firmly on the right track.
Drastic//Automatic’s latest single The Cup Final is filled with punching drums, heavy riffs, and lyrics that are abstract and yet still relevant. The accompanying music video is set in a grey, drizzly, and rather depressing park that feels instantly familiar to anyone who grew up in the UK. The Cup Final leaves you breathless and exhausted, but still wanting more.
Looking ahead to the release of their fourth single The Finish Line and a sold-out headline show at Sidney & Matilda in February, Drastic//Automatic spoke to us about their music, what it’s like to be a local band in the UK at the moment, and how important it is for local bands to push themselves out of their comfort zone.
Your last single ‘The Cup Final’ had a lot to say about football culture and the world cup. Is that sort of social commentary the kind of thing that you guys want to make a consistent theme in your music?
We tend to have themes for each song that could usually be considered social commentary of sorts although the lyrics for each track are usually very abstract and leave a lot up to the listener. We’re not the sort of band to spoon feed you a message. I think our use of visuals and imagery for each track often backs up our intended vision, for example the distorted technology throughout the Bluetooth video and the bleak British football of ‘The Cup Final’.
You’ve got a new single coming out soon, right? Could you tell us more about that? What can we expect to hear? More of the same, or something new?
Our new single ‘The Finish Line’ was recorded in the same session as ‘The Cup Final’, so the general feel and sound of the track is similar. Thematically, although they may appear to be similar titularly, the two tracks differ considerably. ‘The Finish Line’ embodies the feeling of time passing in an uncontrolled manner, and the feelings of stress and strain that puts on you leaving you asking what the end goal is, or ‘where is the finish line’.
Where are your priorities for the band at the moment? Are you focused on recording and releasing new music? Carving a name for yourselves as a live band? Bit of both?
Definitely both, we’re aiming to release new music every few months and hoping to release an album this year which will be a collection of our singles and a bunch of unreleased material. Aside from recording our main goal for 2023 is to gig outside Sheffield as much as possible. It’s sometimes easy to stick in your comfort zone at gigs, knowing a bunch of your mates will show up and it’ll be good craic but it’s important to take risks and venture out to unknown venues with crowds (or not!) of strangers. If you can impress a crowd at an out of town show you’re definitely doing something right.
We’re a Sheffield-based mag and so we’re always interested in getting artists’ perspectives on the state of the music scene in Sheffield. How do you find being a small band in Sheffield in 2023?
It’s a tough time to be a musician at any level at the moment but I think this is especially true for local bands in the UK with less people going out to gigs and paying for music being near unheard of in 2022 besides your Spotify subscription. We have a love for Sheffield as a city, but it does feel like it’s often forgotten on the map of touring artists who chose to play Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham over playing Sheffield. This definitely impacts the local scene as it reduces the opportunities to prove yourself on a bigger stage with artists who are more established, although on the other hand I think that it forges a very unique and close-knit local scene.
Sheffield boasts a range of small venues for up-and-coming bands such as yourselves, which ones are your favourites to play? Any gigs that stand out as particularly memorable?
We’re fans of Sidney, especially with the new room opened for smaller, more intimate shows. It gives smaller bands room to grow without the pressure of selling 150+ tickets. Hatch is also a great underground venue with a core scene of bands surrounding it.
Your gigs are pretty intense and energetic – is that something that comes naturally to you, or have you had to make a conscious effort to craft that kind of a live presence?
I think that was our ambition from the very start of playing together. We want to make people feel something, whether it’s joy, rage, freedom or even hatred of our music! The worst review we could get is an apathetic one.
It’s important to us that if someone made the effort to come to a show and paid their entrance that we give it everything and cause some chaos. The hope is that they’ll roll through to the next show with their mates.
We have a saying in the band: ‘New Cross Procedure’ which stems from when we played to a crowd of 5 people after making the trip to central London, rather than being disheartened we turned to each other before the show and decided to play with full ferocity from start to finish. The five-strong crowd went crazy and had a great time. We now apply this to all our shows.
It’s the start of a new year and the end of a pretty big one for you guys; what are your highlights from 2022?
The release show for our first ever single was a particular highlight for us. We had booked a venue out in town months before the show but a matter of days before the gig they told us they’d double booked so we couldn’t play. We managed to play at Dryad works (and sell it out), a dance music venue deep in industrial Neepsend. I think we’re the only live band to ever have played the venue (shout out Joe Taylor) and we put the whole show through a Paraflex sound system built for raves and closed our set with a rusty rendition of ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ by Basement Jaxx. Crowdsurfing, carnage and chaos ensued.
And what are you most excited about in 2023? Have you got any goals for the band in the new year?
We’ve got plenty to be excited for this year, we’ve got a bunch of shows booked in and out of Sheffield, we’re on the line up for Get Together festival, we’ve written an album’s worth of tunes and are recording them with Thom, formerly of the band God Damn, at his lockup in Wolverhampton (big shout out to him). We’ve also got some big ideas for music videos as well as other visual delights in the pipeline.
We fully believe that Sheffield’s local music scene has plenty to boast about and Drastic//Automatic are doing a good job of proving us right so far; three excellent singles and plenty of lively gigs across the city and beyond have positioned them amongst some of Sheffield’s most exciting up-and-comers.
The three singles Drastic//Automatic released last year are intense and breathless in the best way possible, and you can find more of that intensity on their fourth single The Cup Final. The fast-paced driving drums and screeching guitar on the band’s next release are topped off with lyrics laden with existential dread. After hearing The Cup Final you’ll want to be instantly transported to a mosh pit somewhere, headbanging along to the bleak reality of 21st century life.
Coming on the 16th of February, the same day as their now sold-out headline gig at Sidney & Matilda, The Finish Line is another cracking single from Drastic//Automatic. We can’t wait for the new single’s release, the sell-out down at Sidney & Matilda, and to see what else Drastic//Automatic have got in the locker in 2023. Keep an eye on this one.
Jarred Up 
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