Pop-punk from the South Coast with hidden depths
Though it does have a beach, Bournemouth, with its ageing population and endless rows of seafront hotels, is not an obvious breeding ground for pop-punk. It does give you a desire to escape, though, as Wolf Culture singer Max Dervan explains.
“Bournemouth is quite a sheltered city,” admits Max. “And [nearby suburb] Highcliffe, where I grew up, is a picture-perfect village where the people are mostly elderly. For me, bands like Fall Out Boy were a glimpse of a wider world out there.”
Perhaps that’s why Wolf Culture – Max, his guitar-playing brother Jay, bassist Josh Halbert and drummer Jake Daniels – don’t draw on the typical pop-punk tropes in their bittersweet songs. Rather than an endless summer, Max sees the four songs that make up their debut EP, The Devil’s Plans For Idle Hands, as a line in the sand.
“These songs capture how I felt at a specific time in my life,” the 19-year-old frontman explains. “I wanted to appreciate the change, that things are better and that the people in those situations are still here. You see a lot of good things in life, but you also see a lot of bad.”
Along with detailing push-pull romances in opening track Wreck, Max details darker experiences growing up on Continents. Hinting at abusive relationships and self-harm (‘The scars on your wrists tell more truth than your lips ever could’), he explores the feelings of powerlessness in watching someone struggle.
“It’s not intended to be a sad song, but it is intended to be a factual song,” he states, simply. “I never like to give too much away about what the lyrics mean, but I wanted to speak out because no-one should suffer in silence. I hope it can help people. It definitely helps me.
“We could be different bands with some of these songs, which was the intention. The final song, The Side Effects Of Being Happy, is an amalgamation of everything I felt being a teenager in a small town,” he says, before chuckling and adding, “which is about as pop-punk as it gets!”
Perhaps, but with emotionally vivid songs that are a cut above, Wolf Culture aren’t going to be staying in their small seaside town for long.
Words: James Mackinnon
Wolf Culture's EP The Devil's Plan For Idle Hands is out now on Common Ground. Check it out on the stream below.
Wolf Culture are on tour in the UK now. Details and dates can be found here.
