“You can’t hold back. There’s no harm in slapping some facts over a dance beat”: Inside Cody Frost’s new EP, MECHAEVAL

IRN-BRU on tap? Cody Frost is chuffed with the drink selection at city centre boozer The Rat & Pigeon, where the Burnley artist greets Kerrang! on a typically grey Manchester afternoon. Today, Cody isn’t quite as hyperactive as their last meeting with us, popping balloons around east London’s Moth Club almost exactly two years ago. Their new songs, on the other hand, are as exciting as ever.

After enlisting Josh Franceschi and Heriot’s Debbie Gough for last November’s ANATOMY EP, Cody has today (October 21) announced their second EP since signing to major label RCA, titled MECHAEVAL. Based on the imaginary word alone, there’s so much to unpack, let alone their ballsy seven-song megamix of punk, techno, alt.rock and house, to highlight just a few.

Over a pint in the backstreet confines of The Rat & Pigeon, Cody tells K! about the inspiration behind MECHAEVAL, how the system is failing working-class people, and why their never-ending collaborative mindset is “all in the name of learning”...

Where does MECHAEVAL pick things up from ANATOMY?
“ANATOMY is so beautiful and colourful, but it was really difficult in the moment. I was going through a lot – trying to find somewhere to live, really struggling money-wise, and then, luckily, I got signed, right in the nick of time. For this next project, I really wanted to talk about the impacts of the internet, specifically on our generation. In the span of things, we are at the frontier of this new technology, and we have no real idea of the effects and how it is changing us as a species.
“A lot of it is me rambling about politics, putting it to a dancey beat, but also my own battles with mental health… a lot of that does end up coinciding with things that are happening around me. I can’t not document that. Even if it doesn’t go with the vibe of the song, I do have to be able to comment on these things openly.”

Why do you think this EP and those topics fell out of you now, across this particular period in your life as well as society at large?
“It’s undeniable. I’ve always been talking about [politics], low-key, but people don’t always hear it because of the style of music that I make. Sometimes, [it’s about] making it more accessible to people that aren’t already in a punk scene or don’t really have much knowledge of what’s going on right now. There’s no harm in slapping some facts over a dance beat. Right now, you can’t be holding back, if you feel like you’re able to talk about things.
“But I’m also a firm believer that music is self-expression, and some people might not have the tools to be able to write down in language how they feel about a topic. But if you do, why not? I don’t make ‘punk music’ in that way, but some of the ethics behind it align with that. In times of strife, austerity and poverty, punk music really is the leading beacon in the music scene. It's a terrible time for everything but punk music, unfortunately!”

Do you feel you’re making this music for both yourself and the good of the world?
“Yeah. I don’t think I’m gonna change much, but the musicians that I love changed my life, got me to vote for the first time and be actually active in politics.”

What does MECHAEVAL mean and stand for? It seems like a play on ‘medieval’ but in the title-track, it sounds like you’re singing ‘make it evil’.
“It is brave for me to make up a word! ‘MECHA’ is a pop culture spin on a Mecha suit, integrating technology with making you powerful. ‘EVAL’ is a spin on medieval because I low-key believe that we’re in the medieval times of the internet. In 50 years’ time, people are going to look back and be like, ‘Those were the dark ages of the internet.’ I had unbridled access to the internet at a really young age, and I also think it was traumatising.
“In the medieval times, they didn’t call it the medieval times. They didn’t know that they were doing batshit stuff. With the rise of techno-fascism, essentially, we are the first people to experience this incredible power. I don’t think older generations and politicians are really tapped in with what’s going on, and that’s terrifying. The internet is accelerating mass hatred and [tribalism], people separating off into these sects.”

In NATURAL SELECTION, you mourn how ‘we can’t see eye to eye’ and ‘fight like dogs in a 10 foot cage’ despite being ‘one and the same’. Does that tie into how tribalism is robbing us of our shared humanity?
“Obviously, there are differences, we’re not all the same. I’ve not had the same experience as somebody else who doesn’t have as much privilege as I do. NATURAL SELECTION is actually about the healthcare system. If I could just afford to see a private doctor, maybe my life wouldn’t be this way, and that really ricochets with everything.
“While the argument is left and right, it’s predominantly up and down. We are, to some extent, very subservient to a government that doesn’t necessarily give a shit, and we can’t ever get together because we’re arguing about what genitals people have. It works really well for the rich and powerful, because we’re never looking at them.”

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution spans across millions of years. When you contextualise it through privilege and wealth, the pace of it is quite alarming.
“Natural selection is not natural. People who suffer the same things with a lower income resign themselves to literally dying, when they don’t have to, and that’s really sad. [The rich] are winning natural selection because they have better food, air quality, access to education, and it is so different coming from a working-class background. You can see how so many people end up having bad mental or physical health. It has to be said that privilege equals a better life, sometimes.”

Tell us about your most recent single, VIOLENCE.
“VIOLENCE is a sidetrack from the EP in some ways, lyrically, because I wrote it after finding that a lot of men were trying to touch me in inappropriate ways at shows. It’s a little scary, because a lot of the time I’m selling merch on my own and have no-one to stick up for me. I’m a very passive person, and I really struggle to argue with people, so I often go home and write about it, rather than snap at someone.
“VIOLENCE is also very silly, because I can’t write a song where I am that loaded and enjoy it myself, so I pair it with pop. I don’t want it to be heartbreaking for me to rehash all the time, because that’s just traumatising. VIOLENCE is me trying to make fun out of it. If it’s happened, you have the right to turn it into something positive, in some ways.”

You’ve been super busy with various collaborations over the past few years. How has that fluidity fed into the seven original songs we hear on this EP?
“I didn’t realise how much I loved collaborating until after we did the Shikari one [2022 single Bull]. It is an ecosystem of the people that are around you, if you can fortify that and learn how to harness that. It’s all in the name of learning.”

Cody Frost’s new EP MECHAEVAL is released on November 21 via RCA

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