“This isn’t a dress rehearsal; we only get one shot at this”: Why The XCERTS are one of rock's great survivors

There’s a guitar case propped up against the wall behind Murray Macleod’s left shoulder. A neatly made bed sits a few feet away. This, the singer says, speaking with Kerrang!, is his sanctuary. In the bedroom of his basement flat, in his long-adopted home of Brighton, is where the band, The XCERTS, begins and ends every single day.

“It’s still the first thing I think of when I wake up,” he smiles, “and the last thing I think of before I go to sleep.”

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since they first started messing around with their instruments and making noise together, when they were just kids. Becoming Britain’s next breakout alt. rock success has seemed tantalisingly within their grasp on more than a few occasions over the years, but for whatever reason, it’s never quite materialised.

Today, Murray works a part-time job and has started writing for other artists when he’s not here plotting The XCERTS’ next chords and choruses. Tom Heron, the band’s drummer, is also a designer for a music college. Bassist Jordan Smith plays as a session musician, though Murray says he “doesn’t make it known”, sagely opting for more of an offline, “off the grid” approach to modern life. Despite the pull and financial necessity of other responsibilities, the trio have refused to let those realities quell their hunger, on the eve of FLG Records releasing their sixth album, the pointedly styled, i think i want to go home now.

“It’s our way of rebelling,” Murray explains of the all-lowercase choice, “against the nature of the internet permanently screaming at people. We’re trying to bring back a kind of calmness.”

Their quest for calm, noble in its intentions, is also understandable given the tumult that brought these 11 new songs to bear. Though we’ll get to that. That they’ve made it here at all, intact and with the conviction they still have after all this time, is an act of defiance. Other bands might’ve given up. The XCERTS kept writing songs instead.

“It would have been so easy for us to have called it quits,” Murray admits. “It probably would have been the more sensible option… But we’re so defiant, we’re so stubborn and we’re so in love with our band, creativity and the art of songwriting. This isn’t a dress rehearsal; we only get one shot at this.”

He puts a lot of their survival down to fortune, but it’s clear as day that much is owed to sacrifice and resilience too. It’s nice, he says, when people tell him The XCERTS are the most underrated band they know. He appreciates the sentiment. But sentiment doesn’t pay the bills. Nor does it satisfy the hunger of a songwriter who still believes his band has unfinished business.

“It would be even nicer to have a few thousand more people buying the record,” he concedes, laughing.

But for all the discussion about The XCERTS’ fit within the British rock landscape, for Murray, it’s simple. If anything, time has stripped away all that outside noise. Especially of late.

“I think, as individuals, we’d be a lot more lost without our band,” he confesses.

That might be why this new record feels less like album number six than the culmination of everything that came before. Not because it’s a grand statement, bolder in sound or ambition, but because it’s a band at ease with simply being themselves, getting back to the essential core of who they are and the best of what they do.

And it took one of the darkest periods in their history to get there.

Hard times have a habit of highlighting all the stuff that doesn’t really matter.

Towards the end of 2023, Murray’s father was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Just months after getting the all-clear, Jordan’s mum received a devastating diagnosis of her own, from which she would not recover. Suddenly, disagreements about arrangements, guitar tones or the glorious trivialities that shape the making of a record were quashed.

“Us arguing about how long a chorus should be and nearly getting into fistfights about it all went out the window,” Murray reflects. “First and foremost, it was about how we could be there for Jordan. That reignited our friendship and our closeness. The record wouldn’t have come out the way it did if we hadn’t been three friends talking about life together.”

Those talks didn’t result in grand revelations. The songs that came out don’t offer much hope either. There are no resolutions on i think i want to go home now. Murray actively resisted tidy conclusions.

For years, he’d admire the way Bruce Springsteen built records around redemption arcs and hard-fought lessons learned. This time, life refused to let The XCERTS go there.

“There are no answers on it,” he shrugs. “There’s not much light on the record either. It’s an outpouring of emotion.”

That might be why it feels so raw. Rather than attempt to make sense of grief, The XCERTS document themselves fumbling their way through the darkness. Murray wanted the songs to feel like moments captured as ugly or as beautiful as they were in real time.

“It was important for this one to be for us,” he shares of their thinking. “I had to be selfish. I wanted it to feel like looking at film photography from a disposable camera; snapshots from a dreadful time.”

As a result, lyrics came naturally. Performances relied almost entirely on instinct. Producer Larry Hibbert’s (ex-Hundred Reasons) role became less about polishing imperfections than bottling the sound of three musicians in the room, preserving what Murray describes as that feeling of “speakers pushing the air”. In the process, The XCERTS rediscovered a purity that they’d accidentally left behind.

“We wanted to get back to that place, when we were 17 or 18,” Murray explains. “Writing for the sake of writing; writing for your own wellbeing.”

It’s funny how you often find your place in the world when you finally stop looking.

For much of their near 25-year existence, The XCERTS have occupied a curious space in music. One foot in indie. One foot in emo. Never truly belonging to either. They made a virtue of that uncertainty, that fluidity, that possibility, and for a long time it shaped the music.

“On a couple of records, there was pressure… to ‘do a Biffy’,” Murray laughs now.

Looking back – without a hint of regret, but of something born of experience and wisdom – he can see how this record has acted as a course correction.

“We’re three fucking little punks,” he grins. “We like to be noisy and emotional, so let’s just do that and not chase the golden goose of a hit.”

Arriving at that conclusion has freed The XCERTS to just be The XCERTS again. Not because they’ve stopped caring what people think – they’re no longer willing to second-guess themselves. It doesn’t mean they’ve lost their ambition either. Murray still talks like someone who believes that the best song he’ll ever write’s going to come the next time he picks up that guitar behind him. But success has quietly changed shape.

“Success to me is that our bond is stronger than ever,” he says. “We really made the best record we’ve ever made, 25 years after starting this.”

It’s not the language of a band making peace with its place in the world. It’s one still convinced its best days are ahead. Better yet, it means these three little punks aren’t going anywhere. If anything, this process has only steeled their resolve and made clear what their legacy should be. There are three things Murray wants The XCERTS to be remembered for, when all is said and done.

“Our defiance, our integrity, and our songwriting.”

Tomorrow morning, he will wake up and think about The XCERTS all over again. Twenty-five years on, perhaps that’s all the success anyone ever really needs.

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