Photo Credit: Sam East, with editing by Jack Watkins
Being described as "Billie Eilish meets Bring Me The Horizon", "bubblegum razorblades", and "if Taylor Swift wrote songs for Sleep Token", Gürl serve up pure, chaotic, sugary anti-pop with their latest single 'Boys in the 90s'.
Stream here: https://fanlink.to/Gurl_BoysInThe90s
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/f4JaapTXgFQ
'Boys In The 90s' is a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the pop-punk heydays of the MTV era, and the stunning video that accompanies it is a meta-ode to 90s icons. Breaking their film set's fourth wall, Gürl pay homage to Lara Croft, Kurt Cobain, Scream and many others, while giving a glam, nu-punk, unhinged performance. You can clearly tell from both the music and the accompanying video how much fun the band had recording it - and this spark inevitably jumps over.
The new single was produced by Rhys May (Bring Me The Horizon, Enter Shikari) and is as pop as Gürl can be, but not without their added layers and ingredients.
Says vocalist and lyricist Josh Dalton:
“It’s about growing up poor, on a council estate, going to a special measures school, and getting beaten up by kids that think you’re ugly… but then coming home and watching these 90s movies where men aren’t really portrayed as typically masculine or handsome, but instead androgynous and beautiful. Seeing that and thinking, why can’t I look like that?
"It’s about insecurity, and rage, and reverence to 90s icons. Even the drum beat we ripped straight off Backstreet Boys.”
Watch Gürl live at the following:
Jan 26: Cheltenham Frog & Fiddle
Feb 08: Bristol The Exchange
Feb 09: Bournemouth Cellar Bar
Feb 10: Tunbridge Wells Forum Basement
Mar 02: Glastonbury Glastonbury Calling
Mar 08: Newport Le Pub
Mar 23: Huddersfield The Paris
Mar 24: Newcastle Bobiks
Mar 25: Manchester The Retro Bar
gürl are anti-pop: Froot Loops and butcher knives, bubblegum and razor blades, and fashion posing as music, all wrapped in diva choruses with heavy guitars, rock drums and trap production. Think Ashnikko meets Loathe and Billie Eilish meets Bring Me The Horizon, but drenched in a magnificent shade of pink. The result is dangerous: it’s glam, it’s heavy, it’s camp, it’s sarcastic, it’s narcissistic, it’s ironic, and most importantly, it goes hard.
The Bristol-based outfit were founded by vocalist/lyricist Joshua Dalton and guitarist Jonny Turner, on the condition that they would be called Gürl, offering a cynical reflection on music marketing by choosing a name that ‘cool people’ would wear on a t-shirt. They started out with neo-soul but soon found that they could (and should) go much harder, combining outrageous lyrics, stadium-sized riffs, heavy-hitting drums, and irresistible basslines, all glued together by tasteful (but never meek) trap elements.
Vocalist/lyricist Joshua Dalton cares about words and means what he says. Following his father’s death, he found his road to Damascus by realising that each time he found himself in a dark place, he turned to music: "Every fight, every sleepless night, every break-up: music is this unrelenting, limitless, untameable source of joy."
Guitarist Jonny Turner thinks about little other than, well, playing the guitar. The co-founder, co-writer and co-producer alongside Joshua has honed his skills in countless bands and shows, learning to translate the electric shocks received he experienced playing rural Romanian bars directly into the energy he now projects on stage.
Joining the Gürl group in the summer of 2022, Jay Parker turns up both temperature and volume with four strings and attitude. Creative from the get-go, she received her first guitar as a backcombed, eyelinered, skinny-jean-wearing teenage scene kid – a gift from her parents, alongside early inspiration ranging from Missy Elliot to Green Day and Pink Floyd. Though Jay has since graduated in fashion communication and also shines as a model, stylist, photographer, baker, and connaisseur of salty snacks, her calling is and has always been music, with all the sweat, tears, and blistered fingers that come with it.
To complete the Gürl family, drummer Thomas John rings rings in 2024 with a bang (quite literally). After watching Travis Barker in Blink 182’s 'All The Small Things' music video at age two, he instantly fell in love with rock music and knew what his lifelong passion would be. In his own words, "Drumming has always been an escape from any issues that I faced in life and allowed me to focus all my energy on something constructive.” If you've seen Gürl live, you know he's serious when he talks about energy…
For more information:
https://gurl.band/
https://www.facebook.com/thegurlband/
https://twitter.com/thegurlband/
https://www.instagram.com/thegurlband/
