Gene Gallagher’s rock band Villanelle has been drawing large crowds all across Europe ever since playing their first gigs in early 2024, and they’ve finally dropped their debut single, “Hinge.”
It’s a blistering Nineties throwback that fuses together elements of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, and Dinosaur Jr. “That’s my favorite sort of music, so there’s some of that in everything I write,” Gene Gallagher says in a statement. “‘Hinge’ is about paranoia derived from sleepless nights. I was probably hungover when I wrote it.”
The trio is rounded out by guitarist Ben Taylor and bassist Jack Schiavo. “Gene brings the most unique perspective on both life and music of anyone I’ve ever met,” Taylor says in a statement. “I’m very organized with the way I play music, and Gene is the complete opposite.”
The band have also announced an underplay headline tour of the U.K, to begin December. Tickets go sale here on September 17.
Until this point, the only way to access Villanelle’s music was to see them in concert or check out fan-shot videos on YouTube. “We were playing in Nottingham and there was a group of lads who’d learned all our lyrics from live videos on YouTube,” Schiavo told NME. “They were starting moshpits and shit, and we were just watching going, ‘What?’ Their commitment was crazy. It just got us so excited.”
In 2024, they had an opportunity to face giant crowds when Gene Gallagher’s father, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, gave them an opening slot on his Definitely Maybe 30th anniversary tour. More recently, they’ve attended several gigs on the ongoing Oasis reunion tour.
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“Even though they’re playing songs that are 30 years old, it doesn’t feel nostalgic at all,” Taylor told NME. “It’s what people want. With Oasis and Richard Ashcroft, those songs are timeless. It still sounds like the future of music.”
The Oasis shows have only inspired Villanelle to keep making their own songs. “At this point, we’ve really started to dig into what our sound is,” Schiavo said. “Where we meet is this mix of grunge, shoegaze, punk and alternative rock. That’s right in the centre. Ben’s influences are more in that English alternative rock space, mine’s more of that Sixties and Seventies rock space, and then Gene’s are like ‘90s American rock bands. In the middle is where we all interact.”
