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It feels like a touch of fate that, on the day that Rock Sound is speaking to Lily Hopkins about THE MEFFS’ new album all about making your way through the nonsense of modern life, such an example of the nonsense that has inspired it is taking place right on her doorstep.
In her hometown of Clacton-On-Sea, the polls are well and truly open for a by-election triggered by Nigel Farage, where his main competitor for the area’s MP seat, which was very much his, is an intergalactic space warrior with a bin on their head whose main policies include making arcade grabber machines fairer and nationalising Adele.
This sort of chaotic politics is the bread and butter of what makes a punk band tick, but in the case of where THE MEFFS are right now, screaming in the face of society and telling it to sort itself out is only part of the battle.
Because where the duo are standing right now, they are some bigger fish to fry even closer to home.
“So, our records before this were very much politically leaning, with Broken Britain very much the centre of that,” Lily comments. “But when I came to write ‘Business’, my mind was elsewhere. Obviously, there is what’s happening in the world, and I’m still focusing on that and what I can do to make things better around me. But hold on a minute, we need to look at what’s happening to us as a band.
“I live THE MEFFS 24/7. I do this day in and day out because I love it and I live for it. So, when people recognise that, it’s really refreshing, and it’s a shame that it’s refreshing because for so long it’s been almost like we’re not this enough and we’re not that enough. Our songs aren’t palatable enough to be played on the radio, but they’re not hard-stance enough to be picked up by this place. I needed to question exactly what sort of business we had got ourselves into.”
And that is where ‘Business’ comes into play. A record built on vibrant energy and viscosity that rips and tears at you with quick wit and savage intent. As much a summation of what it means to try and make ends meet at a time when rope is running low in stock, as much as a no-holds-barred dissection of band life, it is everything that modern British punk should be. Snotty, seething, sincere and sensationally chaotic.
THE SOUND
A big energy shift that has allowed ‘Business’ to sound and feel the way it does comes down to the fact that Lily didn’t have a vast amount of stuff stored away. In the past, for records such as their 2024 debut ‘What A Life’, they were ready and raring to go. But in not pulling over her car to pen down something when it hit her mind or worrying about not remembering how a riff or melody went, the opportunity to make something larger than the two of them revealed itself.
“When we toured ‘What a Life’, it was quite extensive, so we had a good 18 months when there was not a lot of breathing space, and I got to the point where I was writing 24/7. I knew I needed to turn that off because otherwise the next album was going to sound the same as that album, and I don’t want that. That’s not progression in my books.
“So, I had a good six months where it didn’t matter what came into my head; I switched it off. If I didn’t remember it, it wasn’t good enough. So then, when it came to actually getting my head down and writing this record, it came out how it came out, and it was very natural.”
And in forcing herself to work in such a way has allowed ‘Business’ to really become its own beast. It has resulted in a collection that feels constantly in motion. A sprawling mass of spiky riffs, machine-gun drums, and bile-drenched vocals, it ends up feeling more like a hardcore record than anything else. The breakneck pace of ‘Dreamin’’, the blink-and-miss-it intent of ‘Fight’, the pummelling grit of ‘Like Gravity’, they all feel instant and urgent.
Much of that actually came from time on the road, too. Trying to capture the sporadic and euphoric feel of their live show, where connection is at its most potent and poignant, allowed the duo to focus on the things that mattered without their sonic spectrum. It needed to be heavy. It needed to be tight. It needed to feel good to play and to purge, with Lily noting how good it feels to really scream her lungs out throughout the record.
An invaluable element of making all of this a reality was the involvement of producer Dan Weller. Whereas ‘What A Life’ had the band teaming up with punk troubadour Frank Turner, linking up with a man responsible for the angular battery of SiKth, as well as having the likes of Bury Tomorrow, Holding Absence and Enter Shikari in his history books, he was the perfect pair of hands to bring out a little more steel toe-capped aggression in the duo’s sound.
“I remember getting in his studio to sing, and he was like, ‘Cool. What riles you up? What gets your blood pumping?’ and I said, watching MMA. So, he gets his telly on and says, ‘Right, what fight do you want to see?’ I picked an old Ronda Rousey one, so he put it on, and he went, ‘Cool, this is the take’, and that was it. He told me, ‘Jump around. Imagine you’re on the stage, move around a lot,’ and I was just jumping around and screaming. He made me realise that it doesn’t have to be perfect. That was a real turning point. Be loose, get energised, give everything. That certainly came from him.”
Aside from bringing such energy out of Lily, Dan’s understanding of what they wanted to achieve also played a lot into the meta side of what ‘Business’ is, a reminder that there are people in this industry who do get you and want to help you make sense of who you want to be and where you want to go rather than just serving as a closed door or a screwed-up face.
“He was very much, ‘I want to be involved with this project. The songs are great, and I think I can make them sound huge.’ Having that sort of attitude from someone like Dan Weller, who’s so established in this industry, it was great. It certainly gave us loads of confidence.”
THE LYRICS
In the same way she wrote the music with immediacy rather than pulling from the stockpile, Lily made sense of how she was feeling about things in the here and now in her lyrics. And it’s fair to say that plenty was going on, offering up inspiration, but not always for the right reasons.
From the once underground culture of hatred cultivated by figures such as Tommy Robinson becoming extremely mainstream and very much on your doorstep to the absolute mess that the Internet has become and the manner in which it feeds people whatever they want to see instead of offering up perspective on both sides, many of the touchstones that have inspired punk bands over the last 50 years are still viable and active, just in a much shinier coat. It’s hard not to write about it when it’s literally knocking on your door.
And then, from the inside, there is the association with the music industry, which has played a huge part in how Lily has dealt with perception around the band over the last couple of years. The god complexes, the backhanded compliments and suggestions, the people who want to leech off your success but make it all about them.
Yet saying all of this, the main thing that Lily found herself going back to when all of this unfurled was how much she was writing about herself. It’s something that has never really played a part in the band’s music up until now, so much of what has been committed to tape has been outward rather than inward, and the potential of adding more personal touch posed a curious question.
Where do I fit into all of this?
“I’ve never really shown much vulnerability with my songwriting, and that’s purposeful,” she explains. “Everyone’s different, and for me, it’s always felt too uncomfortable. But I felt like it was really important for me to be more relatable. I wanted it to be relatable for the masses. Not just for me, and not just a certain subsection of people.
“But when we are all being fed what they know we want to see, it feels more important than ever to focus on what unites us, not what divides us.”
And it is in that that so much of ‘Business’ shows its true colours. Of course, THE MEFFS are angry. Of course, they are inspired by the bullshit that is being shovelled their way day in and day out from the 24-hour news cycle and beyond. But rather than pointing the finger, the contents of the record focuses on the humanity of the situation.
In Lily allowing herself to be open and honest about how the state of things, both in society and the industry, are affecting her, she is offering up an olive branch to those who also feel the same, and that is not exclusive to political orientation or way of life.
It’s why ‘What A Nightmare’ and ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’ are as devastating as they are, because of their all-encompassing look at what we are living through from every angle. It’s why the mental unravelling of ‘Like Gravity’ is as stark as it is, because it serves as a beacon for everyone going through similar mental health journeys. If we were all able to stop, listen and realise that we are actually in this together, and we are capable of so much more when we focus on the things that we have in common rather than what we don’t, then things would already have the potential to be much better.
As the sentiment at the heart of the rallying call of ‘Disorder (Wake Up)’ demonstrates. It really is time to wake up and realise that we can’t go on like this. Because the longer we are divided, the better it is for the ones who divided us in the first place.
“We have so much in common with so many different people from different walks of life, and if we get stuck in this idea of you believing in the left and you believing in the right and there being nothing else, you have two groups of people who just hate each other and argue. No one’s listening to anyone.
“I would much rather be given time to actually talk to some of these people. I may not agree with them, but I can try to understand their perspective because we are all humans. And I think it goes both ways. If we don’t give each other the time of day and just focus on the people who disagree with our opinion, the world will not become a better place. It will stay as it is. It will stay divided. It will stay in this pretty tragic place that we’re in.”
THE ARTWORK
When it came to finding the right image to sum up the feelings that sit within the folds of ‘Business’, Lily knew that it needed to be something uncanny. For a record rooted in ultimately wanting to unite, defining it with a face that feels fuelled by division felt like the right move.
And that is where this unsettling figure comes in, brought to life by illustrator Get A Real Job, Kid. A smile that doesn’t have an ounce of genuine emotion within it. The sort that has been plastered all over advertising boards, used within political broadcasts and facing you in meetings about your future for decades. It is a forced sense of happiness. The grin of the person who has you in the palm of their hand and is willing to squeeze at a moment’s notice.
From the boardrooms of the music industry to the green leather of the House of Commons, there has always been a smile like this situated there.
For Lily, it felt like the best way to unify so many of the themes that are flying throughout ‘Business’, and she hopes that it sends a shiver up your spine.
“I very much liked the idea of having something menacing,” Lily nods. “I wanted that because in life, and in business, that is the face of the people that maybe look down on you. And our response to them looking back up at them depends on how we feel. You can feel absolutely terrible, or you can feel on top of the world.
“To me, it just sums up everyone and everything. And to have it presented with no eyes as well makes it even more eerie. You can’t judge that emotion. Are they laughing or are they crying? You just don’t know. It looks weird, and that’s what we wanted.”
THE FUTURE
Lily is under no illusion that, despite what THE MEFFS have produced here being the sort of short and sharp jab in the eye needed to hopefully incite a change in perspective, it’s going to be a tough couple of years. Between the circus taking place outside her window on the streets of Clacton and the sun beating down on its beaches as part of the fourth heatwave that the UK has experienced this Summer, there are so many things going on that make you feel powerless, even when you seemingly have the power.
But if the process of making ‘Business’ has taught the duo anything, and if the punishing, cheeky, powerful songs that are on it provide anything for those who listen to them, it is that anything is possible if you just go for it. It can be a little or a lot, but putting how you feel into action is better than staying silent and doing nothing.
If music made by two Essex punks can do that, imagine what happens if everybody with a fire in their soul figured out a way for them to share it?
“There are certain things that just feel like they’re not going to get better,” Lily admits candidly. “But I think that if we all did a little something, we really can make a difference. If we all just do our bit, whether it be standing up on a stage and screaming lyrics to people or not using plastic bottles or eating meat, it’s going to make a difference in the world. It might not be absolutely mind-blowing, but it’s the least we can do to work together to try and make a better life for generations to come. It’s better than thinking, ‘Oh well, I’m not going to be here, so there’s no point trying’.
“We as a band have a platform, and we have a duty to use it. But as humans, we all have a duty to do that in our own way. At least a little bit.”
