POST-BURNOUT
When Post-Burnout spoke to the Bristol alt-pop act Adult Leisure last year, the band were already on an upward trajectory. Their then-latest single, “Bad Idea,” was doing numbers and they were getting ready to jot off on a headlining tour of the UK. This year, when we spoke with them again, we immediately asked them what they had been up to since then.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say, it’s been our busiest year yet, after that,” guitarist David Woolford tells Post-Burnout when we chatted this month. “It was probably the most monumental year for us. ‘Bad Idea’ was our biggest tune, at the time. We set on a lot of events, really. We did two tours of the UK [and] we did a tour in Sweden. Like, it was really amazing. We got to do more things.
“I’m trying to think. You know what? It’s been so long ago since that came out. Have I missed anything, Nate?” “No, I don’t think so,” responds drummer Nathan Searle. “It’s been crazy since then, really, hasn’t it? It’s just been really nice to have people react to it in that way, which enables us to do these amazing things, which is really lovely.”
David continues, “Yeah, it was the first proper…Like, things were good, up until that point, up until ‘Bad Idea,’ and then, after ‘Bad Idea,’ things just went to that really nice next level. Like, where shows were getting bigger and it was really good. People outside of our friendship group [Laughs] know our band.”
Despite their success, the members are not yet in a position to quit working outside of the project. “I think the thing we’ve learnt is that whenever you hear an older band or successful band talk[ing] about how you have to make sacrifices, that sounds like a very easy thing for someone to say,” says David. “And it’s true.
“So, basically, we all work full-time, so whenever we get our refresh of holidays, it’s basically reserved, completely, for touring and shows. To the point where our partners have to be really, really understanding. Me and my fiancé, our first holiday was last week, and we literally just went to Cornwall for a couple of days with some friends. And, bless her, that’s all I could kind of give. ‘Oh, I can take two days off,’ but still being cautious, just in case something happens.
“So, you have to have a lot of people around you who understand what you’re doing and that it requires a lot of time, and you have to also be massively understanding that this isn’t like any other job or career where you’re going to be financially rewarded, reflective of the amount of time you put into. In fact, you’re going to be haemorrhaging money, because of what’s required of you.”
Courtesy of Memphia
Despite the hurdles, Adult Leisure have found a system that works for their livelihoods, affording them adequate time to practice, demo, record, and gig with consistency, and the results have been gaining a lot of traction. In August, the band released their first single of 2024, “Borderline,” which received rave reviews from the musical press.
When we asked how they view their critical reception, David responded, “Fundamentally, it’s what people… – like, I hate the word ‘fans’ – …but it’s what the public think, really. Critics, by definition, are critical. We’re lucky, really; we’ve not had any bad critics, as of yet, but we’re very small, still. So, that will come. Don’t worry. [Laughs]
“I think, when we first started, we were worried about the perception we had within the local scene, because, at the time, it was very post-punk and very Idles .2, you know? Every band was doing that, and we are poppy, you know? Yes, we have heavy songs but we all love melody and we all love pop music, and it doesn’t matter what you dress it up in, it’s still pop music at the end of the day.
“So, I think, initially, we got a little bit disgruntled because – again, though, this could be internal – we felt as if we were going into an audience who thought we were, automatically, a bit…Because we weren’t ‘the thing,’ we weren’t…How would I describe it? We weren’t exactly welcomed, especially in a lot of ‘cool’ places in Bristol.
“Like, we got to the point where we knew that a lot of labels in Bristol have heard of us and people were talking about us, and, yet, we were still very much like…” “Yeah,” agrees Nathan, understanding what David means. “It I think that’s…” “I don’t want to say any names,” David interjects. “But it was very much like, ‘Because you’re not angry and because you’re not post-punk, you’re not credible,’ and, to me, ‘Pop’ should never be a dirty word.
“Every band, if they have a hit, that’s pop. I will stand by this ‘till the grave: It does not matter what you dress it up in; if you have a hit, it’s most likely because it has a poppy chorus or it’s catchy. Like, take Idles, for example; ‘Danny Nedelko’ is probably one of their biggest hit, and it has the most poppiest chorus out of any of their songs because people love melody.
“You will get the die-hard fans that aren’t into that and are into expressionists and all of that, and that’s great, but it’s nothing we give a fuck about. So, yes, we care in regards to whether people take our music as serious – as in it’s not a case of ‘less than,’ because we’re not heavy and brooding and stuff – but, fundamentally, who gives a fuck about critics? Who cares? [Laughs] You know what I mean?”
Nathan adds, “I don’t think we make conscious efforts to ‘fit in’ to a particular thing that is happening at any particular time. Like Dave said there, exactly, when we first started playing shows and stuff, that was a heavy post-punk scene. But, at the same time, we didn’t think, ‘What can we do to go against the grain?’ It was never like that. It was never about that.
“It sounds so cliché, but we literally just wanted to write music that we liked writing, do you know what I mean? And work to our strengths. Like, Dave’s a really great songwriter, and we worked to the strengths of Dave writing the initial idea, and we all add our two pence on it, do you know what I mean? We don’t try to fit into any, ‘What’s happening now? Let’s do this.’”
The band are aware that production is critical to great pop music. Feeling like the pop genre is in a really great place at the moment, the two credit figures like Jack Antonoff and Matty Healy for helping to take the independent spirit of D.I.Y. music and using it to elevate idiosyncratic pop acts, resulting in a more diverse and interesting range of music on the radio.
“So Nate’s brother, Ollie, is our producer,” David says. “The reason it works so insanely well is, one, [Laughs] Nate’s fuckin’ related to him! So, our connection. But, also, now that we’ve got this factory that we’re working with – which is demo, studio, live – we’ve got songs that we’ve never played live that are just sat there, waiting to come out, like a factory line, just waiting to go.
“In those moments, you can’t be precious. You can’t have that ego. But, what’s really important about that is, when you are working with somebody, they need to be able to say to you, ‘Do this. Don’t do this,’ but they also have a complete understanding of what you want.
“So, a lot of what Ollie does is, I’ll say something in gibberish, and he’ll go, ‘I know what you mean,’ and he’ll make it sound amazing.” “I think what goes a long way is honesty in the studio,” adds Nathan. “It’s speaking up and not feeling like you’re just sat there and you’re particularly worried about, I don’t know, one of my drum fills, for example.
“It’s so important to have that communication and to have that collaborative effort from everybody, but it’s also got to be a really comfortable environment, and I think we’re really good at that; like, we’re really good at making an environment comfortable, and I think that really translates to the music, as well. It enables us to get the best that we can possibly get.”
This month, the band released their latest single, “Kiss Me Like You Miss Her.” Touching on topics like austerity, the song is the band’s most political to date and blends its politics with the personal.
Discussing the song, David says, “We, for a long time, tried to stray away from…Again, coming into a scene that was very political, we’ve always been very honest, but our honesty is always coming from a personal perspective about loss and things like that because, fuck me, we’ve tons of it! So, we basically use it as every source of inspiration, really.
“So, when we were writing this song, it sounded different to anything we’ve ever done. The chorus was already there, and then Neil [Scott, their vocalist] started writing the lyrics to the verse, and it’s basically a kind of story, in the sense that it’s about a person who’s lost who they were.
“So, it speaks autobiographically from how we’ve all changed through our life. It’s so subtle, but, over time, these subtleties become huge and you sort of lose who you were. So, the chorus, when it says ‘Kiss me like you miss her,’ is from the viewpoint – how I interpret it, and, again, this isn’t the be-all and end of how it’s meant to be interpreted – but it’s a case of that person that you loved no longer being that person, and you’re begging them, just for that one moment, to be the person they were.
“So, they’ve lost themselves, and they’ve become completely and utterly shit and just completely lost, and in that one romantic period where you want just to forget it, they still can’t. So, that sentence, ‘Kiss me like you miss her, isn’t about two people; for me, it’s about the same person. You’re begging that one person to be the older person that they were.
“It’s our take on a political song because you have to tread very carefully when writing things that are social commentary, boarding on political, because you have to be honest. You can’t faux-write about being skint if you aren’t skint, because it’s insincere.
“We’re all skint, but what we’re in is this horrible thing called ‘working skint,’ which actually applies to a lot more people than being at the unfortunate end of fucking skint. You know, there are levels to this, and we come from the generation and the background of ‘being skint’ is just normal. We have a nice week after payday, then everything goes out, and it’s pasta and cheese until payday again. Technically, you’re earning, but you’re not really. You have more outgoings.”
For the rest of the year, Adult Leisure will be playing some gigs in the UK, including a support slot with The Twang at the Bristol O2 Academy, their biggest show to date. Next year will see even more live opportunities for the band, including their Norwegian debut at the Varangerfestivalen in Vadsø.
While the band were planning on an EP to be released this year, these plans have changed somewhat, and they now believe 2025 will see their debut album, instead. “There’s definitely going to be some more singles,” Nathan says. “We are, obviously, gearing up for album territory.
“The good thing about the way that we work is that we’re sat on a lot of material, so a lot of it is ready to go, a lot of it is recorded, and stuff like that, which is a really good place to be. So, we’re approaching album territory. I don’t think we’re going to do an EP. I might regret saying that! It’s not on the cards, right now. An album’s on the cards for next year.”
Adult Leisure’s latest single, “Kiss Me Like You Miss Her,” is on all streaming platforms now. You can keep up with the band’s music, live dates and social media accounts here.
You can catch Adult Leisure live at:
December 6th – Port Talbot, UK – Afan Ales & Fine Wine
December 18th – Bristol, UK – O2 Academy Bristol (supporting The Twang) (Tickets)
February 1st, 2025 – Southsea, UK – Icebreaker Festival (Tickets)
March 22nd, 2025 – Falmouth, UK – The Cornish Bank (Tickets)
August 7th-9th, 2025 – Vardø, Norway – Varangerfestivalen (Tickets)
Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 22:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full, where we go into further detail about all things discussed, as well as the band’s opinions on the state of the music industry today, their thoughts on pop music, gigging in the current economy, conformity, and much more. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.