It’s 4pm on a Thursday. We’re sitting outdoors at The Starman, a David Bowie-themed watering gap in central London, tucked away from the purchasing luggage and vacationer streams of Regent Road. It’s a cool spot, for an ostensibly cool band. Throughout the desk, Bobby Chicken – shades off, shandy in hand – is expounding on a topic near his coronary heart.
“Most individuals are afraid to be tacky, you realize?” the Dangerous Nerves frontman exclaims between swigs. “However tacky melodies, when you bundle them proper, they’re the perfect ones since you keep in mind them. There’s a great deal of bands now that I actually like, they’ve a pleasant vibe, however I don’t keep in mind the songs. I like having one thing caught in my head. It’s like, how catchy are you able to go, earlier than it turns into nearly annoying?”
The 35-year-old doesn’t fuck round with songs. His band have a scrappy aesthetic, however at coronary heart it’s on-point energy pop; enjoyable but tender, fizzing with the intoxication of affection, lust and residing. And most of it is available in two-minute packages, though their second album Nonetheless Nervous has some longer moments.
Currently Dangerous Nerves have loved the type of scorching streak nailed by few rock bands as of late. Corey Taylor is a fan. Radio 1 are followers. Billie Joe Armstrong known as them “the perfect new band in England proper now”. Prior to now six months they picked up nearly each fascinating help slot going, together with The Hives, The Struts, Royal Blood, Nothing However Thieves, The Darkness on their Permission To Land tour, and Guns N’ Roses in Hyde Park. They performed just about each metropolis within the UK, theatres throughout America, enormodomes in Europe, festivals left proper and centre.
“It’s not an enviable life for our girlfriends,” Chicken says, laughing nervously, “as a result of we’re not there, ever. We received house December 23. Me and Mike, our producer, went straight from the tour bus to the studio, had Christmas Time without work, the following day I went to his and didn’t depart till January 28… After which we went on tour for one more month.”
Half pop junkie, half punk rocker, Chicken is pleasant firm, extra chatty Essex boy than aloof London hipster in his black coat, earrings and ‘Hellraiser’ T-shirt (the latter nicked from his girlfriend). To not point out fresh-faced for somebody who’s been touring solidly since September 2023.
Our location at this time feels becoming. Again house in Colchester, Chicken grew up listening to his father’s Bowie data within the automobile on the best way to high school. As a teen he fell in love with the fiery heaviness of Slipknot. Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit made him wish to play drums. All of the whereas, pop music – from The Beatles to Andrew Lloyd Webber – was by no means distant.
“My mum’s a secondary-school music instructor, and I used to go to a great deal of musicals together with her,” he enthuses, “Starlight Specific, all of them. I’ve seen Les Mis about 5 occasions within the West Finish.”
After varied doomed metallic and indie bands, Chicken determined to bottle this adolescent weight-reduction plan of sugar and spittle. Joined by guitarists Will Phillipson and George Berry, drummer Sam Thompson and bassist Jon Poulton (all from different Essex and East London bands) round 2016, he ditched the drums and took up singing. They clicked over pop and punk stars like Ramones and The Clash, The Beatles and early Supergrass.
Mainly it’s the punk facet that shines by their ‘branding’. It provides them an edge, an attract. Folks wish to put on their T-shirts in addition to binge on their songs. Till not too long ago this got here with a quick, livid however basically wordless stage present. All that modified when Chicken watched The Hives’ Pelle Almvqvist and The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins in motion.
“I’m watching and considering: ‘God, that is a lot extra enjoyable,’” he says. “For the primary years, we’d go on stage, deadpan, doing this complete severe factor. After I see bands doing that now, I see how a lot it doesn’t work. Folks wish to join with you.”
Impressed by the on-stage and off-stage conduct of their headliners (a few of them recovering addicts), Dangerous Nerves resolved to maintain themselves as persistently match-fit as potential. They drank sparingly. All of them stop smoking. The exhibits received higher and higher.
To start with, conversely, Dangerous Nerves have been a celebration band. Having shaped of their twenties, they gigged in pubs. Hazes of booze and substances hung over them, typically not lifting for days. The music got here second, Chicken admits.
“You begin partying with buddies, after which you probably have an addictive persona you simply wish to do it by yourself. Earlier than you realize it, you’re sitting in a room for days straight. Like once we did [debut LP] Dangerous Nerves, many of the music movies we did, we have been fucked up. It was a celebration. It was fun. However then you definately get to almost thirty and go: ‘Fucking hell, what have I achieved? I’ve forgotten easy methods to have enjoyable with out it being one thing the place I can’t operate for days after.’”
For Chicken, who grew up with addicts amongst his buddies and relations, it was all a bit near house. “Half my household are alcoholics. I see what it does, and it fucks individuals up so badly. You do it with out considering. My mum and pop are fortunate, they’ve been very clear residing, however I lived with my uncle [at one point] and he was only a tortured soul.”
Ultimately, lockdown pressured all of them to focus on music. Chicken discovered himself having enjoyable, actual enjoyable, writing songs. Dangerous Nerves launched their self-titled debut album in 2020, and gathered waves of followers who puzzled why extra individuals hadn’t heard these absurdly catchy, life-affirming songs. As restrictions eased, the band performed their first headline tour. All the pieces began to go proper.
With Nonetheless Nervous now out, their gig calendar continues to be filling up. Chicken goals of writing with metallic bands. He’s achieved video work for Suzi Quatro, and now for Justin Hawkins’s fashionable YouTube channel. Out of economic necessity, he moved again in along with his mum. He hasn’t appeared again.
“I’ll by no means do the rest. Life is temporary. You’ve received to do what you wish to do, even when you must reside at your mum’s home. There’s a satisfaction in pursuing belongings you get pleasure from, even when it’s a wrestle. It’s a part of the journey.” Nonetheless Nervous is out on