Unstoppable Sweeties Show Interview: “No idea is truly off the table”

There have been many DIY bands in Liverpool toiling away in the shadows over the years. So many acts, punching up and fighting the good fight in the face of adversity that this current world has to offer. Bands like the Unstoppable Sweeties Show.

The five-piece, consisting of Yashashwi (vocals), Lucy (drums), Prob (guitars / vocals, field recordings), Gareth (saxophone, vocals) and Dr Rob (bass, vocals), have been at the fun end of experimentalism and the avant-garde. Seriousness and pretentiousness? Not here. The Unstoppable Sweeties Show are of the good eye-rolling nature. (And in the spirit of good nature, for this piece we’ve lightened up and decided to bin off using surnames.)

From their moniker to the sounds in which they dispense, the Unstoppable Sweeties Show are like acidic prog-punk through a maze of fun house mirrors. All quirks and mind-bending hairpin turns, there really is nothing out there quite like them. In another era they may have been the premiere act for K Records. In an alternative universe they probably are.

The band’s fourth LP, USS R USS, has it all. There’s the skronky post-punk of Clickbait, which – as its title suggests – is a portal into the Unstoppable Sweeties Show’s multi-purpose sound world. The inventive The Weather Forecast is Lying to You, where indeed, Yashashwi’s performance is akin to a force of nature. Dr Nose Hands continues the surrealist themes that are central to band’s approach. It’s somewhere between the opera and a variety show on shrooms.

The Sweeties go the other way, too. On Sultry Poultry, Yashashwi takes the lead majestically; her voice a potent instrument leading her bandmates into a hypnotic holding pattern. On Who Milks the Milkman? the tides turn, as she feels her way through the tangled mess of Prob’s guitars and Dr Rob’s roguish bass lines that lead to the most important question of all: Who does milk the milkman?

Elsewhere, and Christmas comes in July on Christmas With the Smurgs. One of three positively playful jams on USS R USS (the others, My Cat is a Dog and Breakfast Time). And of course, there are moments where the band showcase their edgier side. The protracted, jazz inflected, psych noodlings of Committed to Design by Committee, by Design, very much staple Sweeties.

And by extension, so is USS R USS. The band’s finest record to date, capturing the best bits of their past, remaining surpremly original in the present, and set to take us into the future.

Earlier this week, Yashashwi, Lucy, Prob and Gareth answered some questions about the band’s history and what makes them one of the most singular acts on Merseyside.

Sun 13: You recently played your album launch show in Liverpool at Quarry. How was that?

Lucy: “So sick. The warm-up acts were fantastic, and the crowd were so willing to go along with us. Such a sick venue, too.”

Prob: “Stressful. It’s hard to put a gig on these days but we worked very hard. We probably looked a bit desperate really: a million Instagram posts, posters around town, and we handed out leaflets at Outer Waves Festival with an RSVP.”

S13: How important is playing live for the band?

L: “The shows are so fun to perform, because there’s no predefined ideas about what’s supposed to happen. I think leaning into the absurdity allows everyone to just do whatever’s fun. You’ve got audience members laughing, others trying to dance along, other musicians trying to figure out how it all works. And as a performer, you’re free to just do whatever comes into your head. And that’s fun in rehearsals but live you’ve got the audience as a sixth member. You can play something with one idea, but the audience turn it into something else.”

S13: The thing that’s always intrigued me about Unstoppable Sweeties Show is the different sound worlds each member is drawing from. Have you all carried your influences from an earlier age through to the present, or have they changed?

Yashashwi: “At one point I was obsessed with trip-hop, techno, industrial and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, then Imogen Heap and Björk rocked my world, then Ikue Asazaki changed how I approached singing. I did a project in India called acousmatic chakras with my professor and recorded with local musicians; the bansuri player asked me to apply Indian classical vocals to Western sound, so I’ve been trying to do that since. Right now, I’m learning to use electronics as some samples trigger colours in my head, and then I want to paint that sound.”

Gareth: “USS has always been an amalgamation of our individual influences. No idea is truly off the table in terms of where we want to draw inspiration from. We’ve gotten to the point where we can trust each other’s instincts with even the most ambitious of ideas. I feel it’s easy to be too much of a critic when it comes to listening to music, and when you switch to being curious instead of judgemental it’s surprising by what you’re able to draw inspiration from.”

S13: USS R USS feels like your most cohesive record so far. Was the recording process any different from your previous releases?

P: “Thanks, that’s good to know. It might feel more cohesive because it was more rushed. We recorded all the backing tracks in one day, only adding vocals and sax later. We were mainly restricted by the patience of the guy recording us (Alex Habeck at Muma Studio). It still spiralled out of control a little bit here and there. Being self-indulgent is kind of part of the band’s manifesto (along with destroying capitalism).”

S13: What were the key aspect you wanted to capture with the record, and does that change with each release?

P: “I really wanted to capture the energy and intensity of USS as a live band. I love the way this band sounds when we’re all together. Some of our previous recordings have been more conceptual or studio-based, but this is just your classic ‘album of songs we’ve been playing live’.”

S13: Yashashwi’s themes are wonderfully abstract. Do you keep notes of certain ideas and marry them up, or is it more formulated than that?

Y: “Thanks, I do keep notes of ideas as I’d like use as much stuff vocally as possible with each song! I sometimes sit with the songs for days thinking how can I make this impossible to sing. I’m hoping someday a singer will cover us and think what the hell is this!”

S13: The artwork is great. What were the inspirations behind it?

Y: “The artwork is called Laxmi Goes for a Swim. I went to Freshfield beach a few times in the summer last year, sat by the sea, and ate chocolate cake that I had baked. As I sat there with the water we spoke to each other for hours. I talked to the sea about my grievances and what I’ve done so far and how life has been and the water listened and consoled me; I saw many sea creatures there, took my goddess yantra for a little dip and drank a bit of sea water which was very salty; I saw jellyfish babies in little pools generating some kind of green bioluminescence when the tide came back and they were hit by the sun; I thought I was tripping but some kids joined me and we all saw it and giggled. It was magical.

“When I slept that night, I had a dream I was in the sea, walking with my goddess, and we gave birth to this world which was shaped like a starfish, very jelly / gooey like. When I woke up, I missed that world like I’d been separated from my child, but I hoped they were looked after as they belonged to the sea. I thought of Laxmi (an incarnation of my goddess who comes from the sea and has lotus eyes and sits on a lotus), and I thought of how sweet she is and all the sweetness and loveliness she is in my life. I thought of painting her as a guardian of the sea.”

S13: The band has always shown a good sense of humour. Do you think this is an accurate a reflection of your personalities away from the band?

L: “Totally. I think if we made the kind of music we do without being able to laugh about it we’d be pretty insufferable. We know it’s silly, but we put a lot of work into it. And I think that’s what we bring from our own personalities. We all like to commit to a bit. That’s not to say the band itself is a joke, we’re all serious about what we make. But comedians will tell you the same. It’s funny, and they’re funny, but they also take it seriously.”

S13: With four albums under your belt, do you find the writing process for the band has become easier?

G: “When I got diagnosed with ADHD and got medication, I suddenly found myself capable of writing a lot of music really quickly. Who knew that treating a condition that impacts on time management, would cause me to have so much free time!”

P: “It’s not really easier. We’ve always had a surplus of songs, so you don’t have to worry about it too much. I think we’ve still got about 100 in the backlog. They’re not all good but we could probably get another few albums out of them.”

S13: You’ve been crucial to Liverpool’s underground scene for a long time now. Do you consider the city a vital part of the band’s DNA?

P: “Thanks, that’s kind to say. Liverpool is brilliant, obviously. There’s an independent spirit here, and the people are kind and unpretentious. It’s the sort of city that would create a funny avant-garde band. And it has. More than once. You can hardly move for funny avant-garde bands here.”

L: “Not at all, we’d bin this shithole off in a second if Hollywood started calling.”

S13: Do feel as if the band is a central part of your lives, or do you see it more as an escapism?

P: “For me it’s both. It definitely makes me feel better to play music with my friends and jump around and scream.”

L: “It’s hard to say, because the obvious answer is the latter. We work all week then it’s time to rehearse and we ignore all that and play some crazy tunes. I guess it’s cathartic. Everyone should be in a band.”

USS R USS is out now. Purchase from Bandcamp.