South Arcade’s brand of “Y2K-core” is a winner, injecting playful Gen Z exuberance into boisterous pop-punk. In the midst of a bright summer, the Oxford quartet talk ’00s FOMO, and why they’re embracing the healthy side of social media…
Whether it’s the Linkin Park explosion, the birth of Paramore, or Britney Spears ruling the charts, there’s so much nostalgia for the ’00s. Just ask South Arcade.
“I think we’re all slightly jealous,” grumbles vocalist Harmony Cavelle, who, like her bandmates, was too young to remember those days. “People our age just missed it.”
Nevertheless, dreaming of a decade that none of them experienced in real time has shaped South Arcade’s sound.
“I don’t know how we’ve picked up what we know about the ’00s – osmosis?” ponders bassist Ollie Green, who does have one core memory from his childhood: “When my parents were playing Guitar Hero, my hands were too small…”
The Oxford quartet and their self-proclaimed “Y2K-core” have blown up over the past year through their blend of proud pop-punk sensibilities, glitchy nu-metal riffs and cut-throat production – via viral single DANGER and last December’s debut EP, 2005.
After forming the band and living together at university in Guildford, Harmony convinced her parents to let them all bunk at her family home, giving them some crucial bonding time under the same roof. “It turned us into siblings,” she says.
“It gives you so much more time, even accidentally,” agrees Ollie. “It just eliminated all of the barriers of getting together.”
In this formative period, much of the groundwork was done, as South Arcade uncovered the centre of their “Venn diagram” of tastes. As Harmony and Ollie explain, they sit somewhere between hardcore, Linkin Park, Nelly Furtado and British indie sleaze.
In terms of new music, the convergence of these four corners is acting as more of a springboard than a box.
“The ’00s thread does let you leap around in genre,” says Ollie.
“It’s a great jumping-off point, but we don’t feel limited by it,” continues Harmony, who has put this songwriting question to herself on their recent tours with Bilmuri and Magnolia Park: “What’s missing from the set?”
South Arcade’s 11.4 million TikTok views have been key to their rise, and it’s largely down to their open-minded attitude to socials.
“There’s a massive stigma with inauthenticity and the ‘poser’ thing, especially in heavy scenes,” admits Harmony. “[Doing social content should be] an extension of your band, not something you’re trying to carefully curate.”
“You can only control what you make – you can’t control how well it does,” adds Ollie, wisely. “If you’re being told, ‘Write a Number One song,’ it might suck the love out of writing. The moment it changed for us was when we started making [content] that we liked. That’s how to have a healthy relationship with social media.”
This month, South Arcade will take on the Reading & Leeds main stages, just hours before a historic BMTH-Bizkit-Shikari run.
“I feel like one of us has texted in and we’ve won a competition,” jokes Ollie. But with the pace behind their astronomical rise, don’t be surprised if South Arcade end up joining these big dogs in years to come.
South Arcade play Reading & Leeds from August 21 –24. This feature originally appeared in the summer 2025 issue of Kerrang!.
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