“Having so much life outside of this, and understanding that people are tripping over this stuff all the time, drugs and drink is what knocks people over so much,” says the drummer. “It’s an obstacle people don’t overcome, so why not just not have it there? And also, you’re saving money, it’s better for you, [and] you remember your fucking choices. It’s a no-brainer after that. Why would you do that? Every time you make those kind of decisions [to abstain], it’s one less thing that can become a disruptive force in a band. Especially in this scene. I’ve seen too many people just get way too caught up in doing too much of this stuff. I’ve seen people struggle to try and recover. It seems that, for what it is, it’s just not worth it.”
It’s not worth it because, more than merely earning their burgeoning success, Bob Vylan have built the very infrastructure upon which it grows. Everything here is on their terms. Given this, it stands to reason that, should they come, they will also own their failures, too. As if with this in mind, onstage at Wembley Arena, the singer trips himself up only once. After inviting the crowd to complete the punk aphorism “the only good pig…”, a lone voice from the crowd shouts, “is a dead pig”. Hearing this, the frontman amplifies the words for the benefit of the people at the back. “I’m not saying it,” he says, “I’m just repeating it.” Really, though, if you’re planning to go this far out on a limb, if you’re determined the push this hard against the boundaries, you should at least own it.
After all, up to and including the means of production, they own everything else. In the years since its inception, box office punk rock has evolved into a commercial phenomenon that owes more to polite social democracy than anything from its radical past. With an element of grime [music] and vignettes from the recognisably English inner city, the singer and drummer have created a sound that is fresh and fierce. Along with this, they’ve also embraced, and advanced, the movement’s faded vocabulary of danger, provocation and unease. Like Jello Biafra, from Dead Kennedys, standing for the mayoralty of San Francisco in 1979, or Chumbawamba upending a champagne bucket over the deputy Prime Minister in 1998, Bob Vylan are up for the fight.
“Some of the things we say, in the music, are glimpses into private conversations,” says the singer. “We make political music because we’re leaving the door ajar on a private conversation that we’re having. And you’re overhearing bits and pieces that a lot of people have in private but do not come out and say on record. Right? That is, for me, the political side of this band.
“It is,” he says, once more speaking in perfect sentences, “about showing people things they might not otherwise see.”
Bob Vylan's new album The Price Of Life is released April 22 via Ghost Theatre. They will tour the UK in May 2022 – get your tickets now.