How would we describe our music? Really f***ing good.” So says Vera Leppänen, bassist/vocalist and one of many frontpersons in Man/Woman/Chainsaw, who don’t just possess the best band name since The Horrors, but have also backed it up with a recent debut album, Cannonball, which has been met with foaming-at-the-mouth acclaim. It is part of an exciting rush of summer releases by new British bands including Mary in the Junkyard, Really Good Time and Westside Cowboy — all suggestive of an indie revival not seen since the early 2000s. It’s led by south London’s DIY scene, from where M/W/C emerged, and it’s all about unconventional songs, odd instruments, kooky members, homemade visuals and a total rejection of the boring old trad male band set-up.

“We play rock music,” ventures guitarist/vocalist Billy Ward in an empty London Bridge pub. But they don’t. Well, they do; it’s just that they also play multiple other styles at the same time, so it’s barely recognisable. This is what happens when there’s a million of you in the band — OK, six — operating as a collective.

“Whenever I describe it to people I say, we play rock music, but we have two violins,” says keyboardist Emmie-Mae Avery. Ward considers it. “Maybe I should just say it’s quite melodic, or poppy melodic,” he reasons. “No… that sounds terrible. You can’t describe it in any way that just doesn’t sound awful. Just listen to the damn thing, it’ll be fine.”

The buzz around Man/Woman/Chainsaw has skyrocketed since people have been listening to “the damn thing” — meaning their debut album — to the extent that they’ve added an extra date at Kentish Town Forum after their upcoming UK tour sold out. You can see why they appeal. Besides looking great and having a live reputation to put Iggy Pop to shame, their music is like a distillation of the best alternative acts since the 1970s. Tracks on Cannonball veer from Cramps-y garage piss-taking (Goddamn, Lizard Man!) to PJ Harvey raw folk balladry (Still Angry) to a budget version of LCD Soundsystem (Nosedive).

Yet it’s an album which, despite the multiple writers, traces a loose narrative around young life today, and is a carefully considered listen. Indeed, the final track, Something Else to Give, loops back to the first track, Only Girl, the kind of thing that used to happen when albums “mattered”. Leppänen has a characteristically straighter way of thinking about it: “Basically, it’s f***ing perfect.”

The three members who are here today — missing are violinist-as-frontwoman Clio Starwood, guitarist Billy Doyle and drummer Lola Cherry — talk about their ripping up of the template for bands, which included splitting up into songwriting teams for the album. Says Leppänen, “Nosedive was probably the most important song because it came together in a very special way. When we were writing it all together, we picked names out of a hat and split into two groups — when we came back into the room, the other group had written something like that was one key below what we had done and the same tempo. Bang! Mesh. Everything else came together around it like a nice warm hug.”

M/W/C was initially formed by Ward and Leppänen at the Brit School when they were barely in their teens but already heavily influenced by the technical yet primal wizardry of the older Brit alumni Black Midi. The line-up of fellow school members changed over the following years before the final incarnation settled a couple of years ago.

“We all went to school together in Croydon,” says Leppänen. “We had the practice studio where we could just mess around at lunchtime, which was very cool to have. It just came quite easily from school and also we did start recording quite early. We had music out when we were in sixth form.” Ward jumps in: “I wouldn’t recommend that anyone listen to it, but it’s still something we did.”

There was nothing careerist about them at this point, it was just about straight-up fun and a sense of working together collectively in a way that felt free and natural. “When you’re a kid, all of your friends at school want an excuse to go out,” continues Leppänen. “When we were first starting, really first starting, the gigs would be busy because our friends would be there wanting to have a nice time. Then the next day when you’re hungover, it’s like, ‘Oh, we actually have to work on this…’” Avery agrees: “If we want people to watch us, we have to actually get good.”

“Let’s have fun, let’s mess around, but let’s try and be the best band we can be with what we’ve got, without any insane pressure. Just trying to get better,” says Ward. “I mean, it’s still shits and giggles, isn’t it?” adds Leppänen.

The youthful enthusiasm of the band — “Our driver told us off recently for playing hot potato: ‘Guys, the van is shaking’” — carried them to bigger rooms, festival slots and before they knew it, they’d reached the point of no return. Ward says, “Whether or not it was all viable or not, a career was never the goal. Although I guess you always want to be a rock star.” Leppänen gulps, “I don’t know about you guys but I worry if this doesn’t work out, what do I do? I don’t have a degree.”

“I do have a lovely job [to support me], but I’d rather not have to do it for the rest of my life,” adds Avery.

Such are the perils of a career in music. The fact of the matter is, it’s a relentless grind more than ever; the band had just passed the milestone of their 200th gig. Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s seeming overnight success has been worked on for years. They say part of the reason they’ve successfully persisted to this point is their “six-way democratic approach”, which involves group voting over issues and listening to “the collective gut”. But juggling all the big personalities in this manner is, says Avery, “not the usual rock group dynamic; we’re more like a sitcom”.

Do they ever fall out? “Of course, yeah,” says Leppänen. “Nothing crazy, we’re not always at each other’s throats, but you disagree with your friends outside of work — I also don’t think it’s a normal thing to spend so long away with even your best mate. We are all insanely close, but of course there’s gonna be little things in there, when you’re sharing a bed or a hotel room with someone and their breath is so f***ed. But that’s just a part of life — the next day you’ll be happy cracking jokes with them.”

Thus far, it has been them essentially in their own mad world, but as more and more people get turned on to Man/Woman/Chainsaw — oh, and the name? It’s from a book of feminist essays about horror films — life is changing.

Ward says, “We were at a festival the last weekend and I went and said hey to Frank Black of the Pixies because like I learned to play guitar from Surfer Rosa and he was conveniently chatting to Keanu Reeves. So it was very quick. I said, ‘I just wanna say thanks for Point Break, and also thanks for Surfer Rosa, on the surf theme.’”

“I yelled at Damon Albarn to say I loved your Gorillaz show recently, and he looked at me a bit disgruntled,” offers Leppänen. Alright, it’s not all premieres and fashion parties quite yet, but they are on their way, and if nothing else, you need to see them live as soon as you can. “It really is a communal experience,” says Leppänen.

“We have so much fun and there’s a lot of us to watch — so if you get bored with looking at one of us, you can move on to the next. Same with the songs. There’s a lot of variety. So, come on, bring the family.”

Cannonball by Man/Woman/Chainsaw is out now. They play Kentish Town Forum on May 11, 2027

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