Man/Woman/Chainsaw: "The masterplan was 'Let's just get a bit silly'"

“The name may suggest that they’re of the industrial grindcore persuasion, but London’s Man/Woman/Chainsaw are actually a far more enticing proposition with trace elements of Stars, Belly, Giant Drag, Black Country, New Road and Lily Allen (no, really! ) to be found in the likes of ‘What Lucy Found There’ and ‘Only Girl' – the studio versions of which were produced by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox who knows a good artsy band when he hears one.

“Even when things get more abrasive, there’s always a pop hook or some lush harmonies – vocal duties are shared by three of the band – to sweeten the deal.”

I hate to say “I told you so!” but I arrived back from Holland’s Eurosonic showcase festival in January with an evangelical zeal to tell everybody how jaw-droppingly amazing Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s gig there had been.

Since living it up in the Lowlands, they’ve won over all the right tastemakers, including Elton John who’s played them on his Apple Music show; seen their debut Cannonball album infiltrate the UK top 40; and kept on having to upgrade the venues they’re playing in because tickets are selling out in nanoseconds.

Achievements that M/W/C founders Billy Ward and Vera Leppänen could only have dreamed of when they met at the BRIT School in 2019, aged just fourteen.

Beaming in from London on a stupidly hot day are the other Billy in the band, Billy Doyle who handles guitar and vocal duties; violinist Clio Starwood; and keys-player and vocalist Emmie-Mae Avery.

“All of us except for Clio went to the BRIT School in Croydon, so it was a case of casual friends jamming at lunchtime,” says Emmie-Mae. “Clio and I officially joined in 2022, more by accident than design. The one thing there definitely wasn’t back then was some sort of masterplan.”

“I found a screenshot the other day of the text Billy sent me, which said: ‘We were thinking of possibly expanding the band to a six-piece if you’re interested in joining more permanently-ish,’” Clio laughs.

The Croydon Tourist Board will (metaphorically) kill me for saying it, but the suburb’s main claim to fame these days is that it’s one of the UK’s knife crime capitals.

“Like most parts of London – bar perhaps Kensington – you have to be street smart there,” Billy acknowledges. “The BRIT School was great, though, because it was free-to-attend and you got virtually unlimited rehearsal time. Amy Winehouse is probably their best-known graduate – and she was amazing – but the bonding thing for us was that black midi formed there.”

Asked what their first records bought, gigs attended and musical epiphanies were, Billy shoots back, “First album was Favorite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys who I was a massive fan of as a kid. First gig was this folk guy Sam Lee who was playing in a church – quickly followed by Arctic Monkeys.

“As for epiphanies,” he continues, “I went to a really good after-school club in Northwest London called Rhythm Studio. Through that I joined a band and we did a pub gig in our local area. I remember playing Blur’s ‘Song 2’ and having so much that I realised I had to do this.”

September 20 finds Man/Woman/Chainsaw in Whelan’s, which is where Arctic Monkeys played their first ever Dublin gig.

“Awesome!” Billy beams.

“Violin was always my thing,” Clio takes-over. “Originally I was going to do classical music, wasn’t that excited by the prospect and suddenly realised, ‘There are loads of ways I can repurpose my classical education.’

“Prior to that, I remember being about eight and my mum telling me, ‘If you do your homework, you can buy ‘Domino’ by Jessie J for your iPod shuffle.’ That was the first song I sort of bought and my first gig was seeing Foals at some festival.”

“The first vinyl records I got from a vintage store were Voulez-Vous by Abba and Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits, both of which have stood the test of time,” Emmie-Mae proffers. “First gig was age ten when my mum took me to see a Beatles covers band at our local social club. First gig I paid into myself was Man/Woman/Chainsaw when I was sixteen at Dublin Castle. I was like, ‘Ah, this is proper!’

“When they started out, they were doing screamo Bee Gees covers. Then they got our friend Cam in who did banjo one time. Another friend of ours, Olly, played synths at a gig where they did synth-y Christmas covers. Which reinforces what I was saying – there was no masterplan!”

“Because Vera was away, I played bass at the first Chainsaw gig where the ‘masterplan’ was ‘let’s just get a bit silly,’” notes Billy who then ploughed his own rock ‘n’ roll furrow before becoming an official M/W/C member in 2024.

With Doyle as a surname, I assume that he must have some Irish blood.

“My grandad is Irish but American-Irish, so they’re not exactly the popular ones,” Billy rues. “I’m therefore incredibly hesitant to make any Irish claims. So, yeah, but no.”

M/W/C did, however, work with an Irishman in the shape of the aforementioned Daniel Fox who produced their 2024 Eazy Peazy EP.

“He was a lot of fun but also extremely professional,” Emmie-Mae resumes. “I really like Gilla Band, so it was super sick to work with him.”

“Daniel’s fucking lit, I love that guy!” Clio adds.

In addition to the BRIT School, Man/Woman/Chainsaw also followed black midi in gigging regularly in London’s coolest pub venues, The George Tavern and The Windmill. I’m loathe to use the word ‘scene’, but which fellow up-and-coming bands do they have an affinity with?

“Uncle Junior who are one of our autumn tour supports,” Emmie-Mae resumes. “They’ve been doing it since they were fourteen and have just recorded a demo with Dan Fox, so there are lots of crossovers. Plutoz Beach are another really good band we’re friends with.”

“We’ve all been through that thing of being too young to drink in the places we’ve played,” Clio notes. “We’d just done a gig in the New Cross Inn, I went up with my drink token to get a pint and the woman wouldn’t give it to me. I said, ‘Did you not see me up there on stage?’ and she was like, ‘Nah!’

“It was even harder to get served at South By Southwest in Texas, which was otherwise a lot of fun. At the first show we did I was given a frozen margarita and thought, ‘Oh yeah, this week’s going to be crazy!’ but I didn’t get served once after that.”

The buzz M/W/C were generating live was amplified by BBC Radio One’s Steve Lamacq who’s taken-over from John Peel as the UK’s biggest breaker of new bands.

“I only found out the other day that it’s Steve Lamacq who made Coldplay big,” Clio continues. “The first time he played us on the radio, I was in the car with my dad, so it was a super-nice vibe.”

“I was meeting my girlfriend’s aunt for the first time,” Billy recalls. “She had Steve Lamacq on when she picked us up from the station, he played us and I started swearing loudly – which wasn’t great because her six-year-old daughter was in the back. And her daughter told me off. Bad first impression!”

After wowing so many bookers at Eurosonic – “It’s such a cool festival and the city’s great”, Billy notes – Man/Woman/Chainsaw have spent the summer running round the international festival circuit.

“We’ve been on some awesome line-ups,” Clio enthuses. “I brought my parents with me to Rock Werchter in Belgium and stayed for the Sunday primarily because Robert Smith and The Cure were playing. Moby and the Pixies were on at the same time, which caused a bit of sparring between my dad and I… obviously the Pixies won out!”

The Cannonball track that’s been on repeat in HP Central is the very beautiful ‘Still Angry’, which but for its chorus – “So I call out your name/ Like I’m still fucking angry/ ‘Cause I’m still fucking angry/ I’m still fucking angry/ Swear I never changed/ I’m still fucking angry” – would be a surefire radio hit.

“That’s one of Vera’s,” Emmie-Mae concludes. “She’d pretty much written all of it… and then we fucked it up for her! Often somebody will bring in the bones of a song and we’ll work out how to complexify the instrumentation.

“There are also songs like ‘Only Girls’, which are the six of us sitting down together and coming up with silly lyrics.”

The only rule being there are no rules.

“Exactly!”

• Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s Cannonball album is out now on Fiction. They play Ulster Sports Club, Belfast (September 19) & Whelan’s, Dublin (20).