The 1975‘s Matty Healy has revealed why the band aren’t interested in having their sound lean towards a heavier direction.
The ‘Robbers’ singer appeared as a guest in a wide-ranging conversation with Joshua Citarella for the Doom Scroll podcast and took a moment to reflect on why The 1975 were hated by some listeners when they first appeared on the scene.
In the discussion, Healy explained that it was due to them being a “band”, and added that “every band that got signed over us was a band that was essentially doing an impression of the Arctic Monkeys”.
“So what they were saying is, a band has to be from an economically deprived place in order to have authenticity. It needs to be kind of gritty. It needs to reference, at the time, the kind of the aesthetics of post punk,” he added. “So like, you know, all of your Joy Division, industrialisation, Thatcherism, brutalism, all those kinds of things. And we just didn’t adhere to any of that…”
Healy shared that he and his bandmates – comprised of Adam Hann, Ros MacDonald and George Daniel – were “hated for essentially being a band that was the opposite of heavy.”
He continued: “And I was like, well, after [1998’s] ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ came out – [it was] the last punk album – it knew that. Refused – they split up because they were politically so different… And in their last show, the cops came. It makes me want to cry; I get chills thinking about it.
“The cops came in, and all of their fans turned around and shouted the line from ‘Rather Be Dead’: ‘I’d rather be alive.’ And they’re just shouting, ‘I’d rather be alive. I’d rather be alive,’ as Refused physically disbanded.”
Healy explained that after watching that, he thought “I can’t do something heavy that touches on that”, and added: “Because for me… unless you’re Glassjaw, Converge, Refused, or further than that, heavy is fucking lame. So the reason we’re not heavy – and we can do heavy all day long – but we’re not because it wasn’t new. We wanted to be something quite new.”
The 1975 have previously showcased their heavier side on the track ‘People’ from their 2020 LP ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’. The song is a ferocious glam-punk snarl that sees the frontman scream: “People like people / They want alive people / The young surprise people / Stop fucking with the kids.”
Previously speaking to NME as part of The Big Read, Healy discussed the message of the song and shared that it is about how we’ve forgotten the fundamental fact that we humans like other humans. “We are humans, indulging in the human experience, and that is a shared thing. And we act like we’re all doing something different,” he said.
Before The 1975 became the band that it is today, Healy and co were in an emo outfit called Drive Like I Do. However, in 2017 Healy clarified that the groups were “separate entities”. The frontman told NME back in 2020 that he was working on getting old Drive Like I Do songs remastered, before teasing that a full album could be on the way.
“The thing about Drive Like I Do is that I know I’ve got a reputation for just saying I’m going to do something and then it never happening,” Healy told NME as part of our Firsts series. “All of things I said I’m gonna do – films I’m writing, records that I’m making – they’re still in development; it’s just that The ‘75 takes priority in my mind. It’s not that it’s the thing that makes me money, it’s just way more important.”
He continued: “I made the Drive Like I Do four track record, and I really liked it. I have to sit on stuff and edit it before I love it. By the time I’d on it and started editing it, I was making a ‘75 record, [Beabadoobee] had fallen in love with ‘Pictures Of Us’ which I thought was better for her.
“There are two Drive Like I Do songs that I just want to put out, but then I’m like, ‘When am I going to finish the EP?’ It does exist and it is what you imagine. It’s like if Drive Like I Do had never left that emo world – what would it sound like now?”
In other news, Healy recently appeared to have addressed Taylor Swift in a new interview, saying he would “be lying” if he were to “made a record about my casual romantic liaisons”.
The connection between the two comes after they were widely speculated to have dated for a short period in 2023. While the rumoured relationship didn’t last long, fans were convinced that Swift’s latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ was written, in part, about The 1975 frontman.
Elsewhere, the ‘Girls’ singer also discussed how today’s music industry has created a bigger need for commercialisation in order for music-making to be viable.
