Uncle Junior: “We used to get made fun of, but now it’s kind of cool”

Taking cues from noise rock and their post-punk peers, London newcomers Uncle Junior are crafting their own eccentric take on harder-edged sounds.

For the members of Uncle Junior, all aged 18 or 19, the last decade’s boom in weird, British music looms large. Not least because the debut singles by Black Midi, Squid and Black Country, New Road all dropped around the time they started secondary school, and the rise of this cohort of post-punk revivalists to critical darling status has been the backdrop to their adolescence. As bassist Patrick Lewis puts it, speaking over Zoom alongside drummer Isaac West and vocalist and guitarist Oli Noble, “It’s what we grew up on.”

It’s not surprising, then, that Uncle Junior’s first two singles show such an early command of similarly out-there palettes and cryptic lyricism – from the noise blasts punctuating the prog-rock scorcher I Love You, Kenneth Copeland to Noble’s agitated croon on the slow-burner Sardines. For all their musical chops, though, they are refreshingly free of some of their forebears’ more self-serious tendencies; their take is eccentric, open-hearted, and rooted in messy, sweaty fun. 

While Uncle Junior started formally in 2021, the school friends began jamming together aged 13 in Noble’s bedroom. He joins the call from that room, plastered with cutouts from old copies of Q and Select. After years spent practising there, Lewis can recall the details of these old tour posters and articles. “You can see the roof is slanted, so it’s really loud, and you get lots of feedback – we leant into it,” Noble says. Their use of noise matured, and in these tracks feels less like a hammer for bludgeoning listeners and more a tool for dramatic emphasis. “We’re not angry, violent people,” Lewis says. West, joining the call from his day job as a teaching assistant, proudly shows me a dinosaur display he built for his reception class.

Those darker, heavier sounds – the drums and guitars gesturing towards noise rock and hardcore – are leavened by Noble’s eccentric lyricism. “It’s really refreshing when a band throws in something that’s a bit unserious,” Noble says. “If you look at a band like Ween, that stuff really sets them apart.” I Love You, Kenneth Copeland was inspired by an interview with the controversial American televangelist. “I couldn’t get him off my mind for a week – I hate him,” Noble says, before exorcising him through the medium of love song. “Your voice bellowing, my lip I have to bite,” he trails off, as the swaggering mid-tempo verse shifts into a lurching noise-rock interlude. That’s not to say that writing sincere love songs is beyond them – Sardines reflects touchingly on a wilted romance.

These songs preview their debut EP, Bethlehem, PA, set for release later in the year. Noble says of the title, “We wanted to play on the weirder side of American culture.” The gun on the cover of I Love You, Kenneth Copeland is inspired by a 2021 Christmas photo of Republican Congressman Thomas Massie – posing with his family by a Christmas tree, all armed with rifles.

There’s a free-spiritedness to this kind of offbeat, not-quite-satire, which is reflected in their live shows. Of their debut single launch at east London’s George Tavern, Lewis says: “I was in pain for like an hour from sprinting and jumping so much – we experience our own shows as much as other people do.” While the trio are clearly skilled musicians, having fun is prioritised over “Dream Theater-ass shit”, as West describes it. “Mike Portnoy just wanking himself off for 36 minutes – he doesn’t even crack a smile. I might fuck up a paradiddle, but my cheeks be grinning, man.”

Growing up amid the rising popularity of harder-edged sounds – including hardcore’s crossover moment, courtesy of bands like Turnstile – hasn’t just influenced Uncle Junior’s music, but also their ambitions. “When we started the band, it was like, ‘We’ll do this for fun,’” Lewis says. “Even in the last two or three years, it’s been like, ‘Oh, people are actually interested in this.’ We used to get made fun of, but now it’s kind of cool – we’ve felt the shift.”

Sounds like: A punky proggy party on Skittles
Soundtrack for: Hating on TV evangelists
File next to: Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Black Midi, Black Country, New Road
Our favourite song: I Love You, Kenneth Copeland
Where to find them: @unclejuniorband