“The energy here brings out something in us that we really like”: We took The Pretty Wild on an afternoon tea tour of London

The Pretty Wild are getting a lesson in the very British politics of scones. Important stuff, such as whether you pronounce it like ‘bone’ or ‘gone’. Is it a biscuit or a cake? And what about jam or cream first?

“Like peanut butter and jelly?” asks co-vocalist Jules Wylde. Probably not one to bring up at Harrods. However they decide to layer their fillings, as K! legend Paul Harries points out, a large group of people is bound to be offended – either the entire population of Devon or Cornwall.

As the pair are in London, and indeed the UK, for the first time opening for Sleep Theory, we thought we’d show them around the capital in the most British way possible. We’re on a bus looping around London’s landmarks having afternoon tea, and it just so happens that the dainty treats in front of the band make convenient props. Almost everything in here is pink, from the art on the walls to the roses strewn on every railing.

For the full experience, it’s grey and rainy, a situation that our guests turn into an opportunity for showing off a rather fetching Union Jack brolly.

Jules has been over to our shores before through her work in theatre, but it’s younger sister Jyl’s first time here.

“The energy brings out something in us that we really like,” she says. “It’s refreshing.”

“I’m in love with it,” agrees Jules. “I want to move to London. We’re honestly talking about it quite seriously.”

At that moment, the bus conveniently slows right next to a hotel called The Mad Hatter
and the girls immediately dive over the seats to get a better look.

“Part of the charm is all these unexpected treasures,” gushes Jules, staring out the window.

So what’s the best part of British culture, according to The Pretty Wild?

“We love the food!” enthuses Jyl. “Especially the love of cheese. Our hospitality rider at all the venues is just cheese. It’s a taboo thing as a singer to eat any kind of dairy, but I don’t believe in it. Personally, I’m ploughing down cheese before I go on!”

On that note, because we have to ask: what are your thoughts on beans on toast?

“We haven’t enjoyed a traditional English breakfast yet,” answers Jules. “We’ll get back to you on that one!”

While they’ve been criss-crossing the country on tour, the Wylde sisters have also had an up-close view of the great British night out.

“The nightlife here is really cool,” enthuses Jules. “It’s kind of crazy how busy things are throughout the course of the week. We played on a Wednesday in Birmingham, and it’s shoulder-to-shoulder sold out. That blows my mind. In the States, people might not go out on a Wednesday, but here everybody just turned up like it was a Saturday night.”

“They’re up until one or two in the morning at the pubs,” adds Jyl. “I’m solidly impressed.”

The Pretty Wild are not just observers, of course. Onstage, they get to be involved in the party. On this jaunt, they’ve been making new British friends, who can identify with the strength, sass and fantastical themes of their bewitching fusion of styles. Their shows are an outlet and a place where they want to help people build connections.

“We feed off the energy of the audience,” explains Jules. “No two shows are ever alike, which is the cool part.”

“I have a weird thing that only happens to me onstage,” adds Jyl. “I’m always watching the audience just as much as they’re watching us, and it’s weird because it forces this level of presence that I’ve never experienced except when I’m onstage. Then afterwards, a whole new level of perception opens up for me, which I’ve started to really look forward to after the show.”

Touring with Sleep Theory has already been a dizzying experience, given that they’re getting a leg up from a band jet-fuelled by seemingly limitless hype. In fact, the venues on this tour were upgraded several times over. Despite the differences in their energies, they share a fair amount of common ground, not just in their sonic fluidity, but in their stories so far.

“We both share very similar come-up experiences,” considers Jules as the bus heads deeper into the West End. The ignition point involved going viral – for Sleep Theory, it was the emotional torrent of their early hit Another Way. For The Pretty Wild, it was the humorous ‘coughcore’ moment in their song sLeepwALkeR.

“It gives the music an interesting angle, because you’re doing the internet thing and it’s different than when you’re just doing the live show,” describes Jules. “But then it gives this raw human experience, because you’re just thrown into it, right? There’s not time to mask-up or prepare.”

In their all-black outfits, Jyl and Jules strike a contrast yet simultaneously fit right in. It’s girly in here, just like they are. Then again, that’s intrinsic to what they represent. They’re affirming a message that’s taken too long to seep into heavy music: that being aggressive and being feminine doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

In a way, they’re part of a new dynasty hammering home that women do have a place in such a world, and don’t have to morph into one of the boys to do it. Look at Spiritbox and Poppy, in the greatest forms of their lives, or the kawaii metal aesthetic of BABYMETAL, as well as artists like Scene Queen who lean into hyper femininity as a means of protest. As for The Pretty Wild, they see themselves as projecting a sort of “divine feminine power”.

“There’s a quality. I can listen to songs and it has it or it doesn’t,” ponders Jyl, glancing out of the window as the bus passes Charing Cross station and curves towards the National Gallery. “That was always the reason that we gravitated towards the certain things we wanted to surround ourselves with. We felt like there was a big void of that [divine feminine power] missing in music. We weren’t really fully conscious that that’s what we were creating with [2025 debut album zero.point.genesis], but that’s even better, because it’s cooler if you don’t try to do something and it just emerges.”

“When I first fell in love with heavier music, it really was hard to find,” adds Jules.

“The album was just a cathartic way of getting out this thing that was nodding at us constantly,” continues Jyl.

As the fans have started latching onto that expression of divine feminine power, The Pretty Wild have been contemplating how they can blossom from here. The next step, they reveal, is to translate this into something bigger than just the music.

“We want to make sure our creativity shows in the set design and the entire craft as a whole,” Jules says. “Costuming is huge for us.”

Jyl’s got a flamboyant idea dancing through her mind already.

“I feel like The Pretty Wild fashion arc kicking off in London makes sense,” she beams.

This feels in character for the pair, especially when they share that their “side-quests” outside The Pretty Wild shape it as much as what they do within it.

“I don’t think we would be the band that we are today and would be going where we’re going, trajectory-wise, if we didn’t have these things. They’re huge parts of our lives,” says Jules, who is a playwright and actor outside of the band, and throughout our trip points out some of the playhouses she’s visited as we pass them.

For Jyl, meanwhile, her side-hustle of choice outside of music is acrobatics.

“It’s a way to get in touch with my body, to really learn to tune into my body and how that speaks to me,” she explains. “That was always how I would find my centre, because it’s so instinct-based. You’re constantly interacting with your subconscious, but in a conscious way. It always gives me clarity and direction. And then later on, we ended up doing music that way, too.”

It keys into her sense of spirituality and fascination with the metaphysical, which in turn bleeds into their music. It also enhances how they view touring life. Trundling from venue to venue eating up miles on the road might seem like a monotonous existence between shows, but Jyl sees it as a positive test to her sense of self, a way of understanding aspects of herself that only come to light when she’s living without her creature comforts.

“What I really like about touring is that it forces you to cut your patterns,” she says. “You get to interface more with another version of yourself that you would never have been forced to otherwise.”

So you have a ‘tour self’?

“Yes, yes! A tour self!” she agrees. “And your ego gets really defensive when you’re used to certain patterns, so when you’re just constantly threatened by things, it’s cool, because it forces you to find stability within a more internal part of yourself.”

Jules is in sync with this school of thought too, but in a rather spooky sense.

“We’re really attuned to each other,” Jyl says. “If I have a thought, sometimes I just know that Jules is getting the exact same thought. It’s really weird. And then, what will happen is, we won’t even talk about it, then she’ll say this really weird thing and I’m like, ‘Oh! You’ve got that thought, too!’”

“It’s actually happened a few times talking to you today,” returns Jules. “It’s a little bit creepy. It’s kind of like living with a paranormal entity in your home.”

Eventually, the teapots are empty, and the bus loops back round to the expanse of Victoria Coach Station, and the tour is done. Full of sugar and caffeine, Jules and Jyl say their thank yous and prepare to head off to get ready for showtime.

Who knows – perhaps when they next return here, they’ll stop off for a nose round two-bed properties in Hackney.

Either way, we’ll have the kettle on.

Stay tuned to Kerrang! for all the latest on The Pretty Wild.

Read this next:

• Album review: The Pretty Wild – zero.point.genesis
• “Some people might think it’s a weird fusion, but we don’t limit creativity”: Inside the powerful, playful world of The Pretty Wild
  
• Sleep Theory: “Trends come and go. How do we write something that creates a bond with someone?”