It’s Sunday night at Glastonbury 2025 and Kwengface is in his element. The Peckham rapper has joined dance duo Overmono for their West Holts headline set and an emphatic performance of the two acts’ collaboration with Joy Orbison, ‘Freedom 2’. Clutching the mic tight and crouching low as he bounds across the stage, he blurts the crowd-pleasing line “I love my freedom / But I’ll risk it any time I see them,” before demanding “energy!” from thousands of bouncing fans.

It’s an appearance that’s coloured with a confidence that suggests he’s got bags of recent experience performing live to the masses. The reality is that this is a triumphant return to the stage for a rapper who has spent the last two summers incarcerated instead of lighting up shows, missing out on some of the most pivotal years of his career and planned performances at Glastonbury, Wireless, and more.

Having risen to prominence with the Peckham drill crew Zone 2 in the late 2010s, Kwengface (aka Ninian Martin Agyemang Fosu) ultimately went solo in response to several members of his group going to prison. He dropped his debut mixtape ‘YPB: Tha Come Up’ in 2021 and followed it up with an impressive run of tapes, singles, and freestyles on platforms like Daily Duppy and Mad About Bars.

A memorable COLORS performance in March 2023 saw Kwengface reveal his true identity for the first time (previously, he’d worn a balaclava publicly), igniting a new era for the south London lyricist. But that momentum was halted soon after when the rapper was sentenced to a 25-month prison sentence for a conspiracy charge for which he accepted a plea deal. Fosu was released earlier this year after spending 21 months behind bars.

“Going to Glastonbury and being onstage was all I was dreaming about when I was inside,” he says, joining NME over a video call a few days before the show. “It upset me that I didn’t get to perform my headline show before I went in, but we’re here now and I’m buzzing. I’ve been practising playing live, doing rehearsals, and getting more comfortable. I wanna polish up on engaging with the crowd and things like that, but that comes with experience.”

The 27-year-old’s recent stint in prison marked a serious turning point in his life. After spending 100 days in solitary confinement, he began to think more deeply about the future. He absorbed new literature and music and reflected on his place in the world and interactions with others after becoming a father for the first time while in jail. Eventually, he channelled these thoughts in the recording studio at HMP Fosse Way. Those motivations helped lead to Kwengface’s most socially conscious and revealing new project to date, ‘Victim Of Circumstance’.

“When I was in the segregation unit inside, I said it to myself, ‘I’m just a victim of circumstance’, cause I was in there for something that I didn’t do. They said that I’d orchestrated it when that wasn’t the case. When you’re in there, all you can really do is think. And it’ll go either way for you: it will end up having a negative impact or a positive impact. For me, it had a positive impact.”

While inside, Kwengface started carving out a fresh path for the future, taking inspiration from the knowledge he picked up from Gucci Mane and 50 Cent’s autobiographies and Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. He recalls being galvanised by the stories of artists like Mane and others who “came out of prison and made something of themselves, and turned their talent into a business”. Since regaining his freedom, the focus has been on cleaning up his act and being a positive role model for his son, while also allowing himself room to get “a bit deeper” lyrically.

“I need to stay positive because I’m in a better situation than I thought I would be, and this isn’t gonna happen forever”

That work started behind bars, when he put together ‘Victim Of Circumstance’, enlisting producers like Trinz and strmz to help take his sound beyond the boundaries of classic UK drill. Together, they brought pumping, industrial dance-centric kicks and sub stabs to ‘V.O.C’, and nodded to south London road rap legends like Blade Brown and Giggs on tracks like ‘2 Summers’ and ‘Parallel Theory’. “What if Hollow never made ‘Walk in the Park’? / I’d say ‘fuck rap, I’m wrapping up dark’ / Made me wanna do music and perfect my craft,” he spits on the latter, reflecting on how Peckham legend Giggs inspired him to pick up the mic.

“Being in the studio in prison was kinda the same as being in the studio on the outside, which made me feel normal again,” he explains. “When I was in HMP Isis, which is a high-security prison for gang members under the age of 28, it was proper strict and I didn’t have freedom, but after I was moved to HMP Fosse Way [in Leicester], I was more free because it’s a more relaxed facility.”

On ‘Victim Of Circumstance’, he was keen to use his platform to give a voice to those who had a positive impact on his time inside. The only named feature on the project is Jungle (on ‘Monstrosity’), a fellow Peckham rapper who Kwengface describes as “one of the older lads we used to look up to” growing up in his corner of southeast London.

“Jungle was incarcerated for 30 years for a crime he didn’t commit,” he says. “He gave me some words of advice, he told me that I’ve gotta cherish my freedom and cherish what I have. I did a performance at HMP Fosse Way with PenGame, and he was onstage with me and said ‘This is probably the closest I’m gonna get to being onstage with someone doing a live performance’, so I feel like I gave him a good experience, and he taught me a lot about how to adapt in prison. We learned a lot from each other.”

‘Victim Of Circumstance’ is peppered with powerful reflections on Kwengface’s time in prison. With an honest, scathing voice, he ruminates on how moments of chance could’ve altered the course of his life on ‘Parallel Theory’ (“Weren’t raised how I was / Would I still be this weary?“) and dissects the infantilising nature of the UK carceral system on ‘2 Summers’, rapping: “I’m too old to have my iPhone and my TV taken“. He explores the strange contradictions of his life with humour and clarity, showing how musical success and incarceration collide in bars like, “See I went for a nicking / Governor said she a fan of the song with Chase & Status“.

The result is a more nuanced voice, firmly switched on to the inequities that plague modern British society. Since blowing up with Zone 2, Kwengface has been delivering cutting commentaries about the society he lives in, but ‘Victim Of Circumstance’ underlines how recent trials and tribulations have shifted his perception of that world. While things are changing, he’s still dealing with the repercussions of that time away, with his recently scheduled comeback show at the Lower Third blocked by probation officers, and a tag keeping him curfewed in the evenings until just a few weeks ago.

“It’s been frustrating, but I always tell myself that I came out much earlier than I was supposed to – it was meant to be October,” he says. “I need to stay positive because I’m in a better situation than I thought I would be, and this isn’t gonna happen forever. A lot of people don’t like change, but you’ve just gotta get on with it.”

Kwengface’s ‘Victim Of Circumstance’ is out now via Zoned Out Records

The post Kwengface is crafting a new lane outside the confines of UK drill appeared first on NME.

The first song I remember hearing

AC/DC – ‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)’

“I might be editing my childhood subconsciously but I remember hearing ‘For Those About To Rock’ by AC/DC on one of these slimline cassette recorders in Nicholaus’ [Arson, The Hives guitarist and Almqvist’s brother] room. I remember it feeling cool and dangerous, kind of like an action movie. If I’m not going by memory, it’s probably a Swedish children’s song called ‘Imse Vimse Spindel’ which is ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ but with Swedish lyrics.”

The first album I bought

Skid Row – ‘Skid Row’

“I went to the local record store with my own money and bought ‘Skid Row’ – and then whatever EMF record that ‘Unbelievable’ song is on [‘Schubert Dip’]. The store was in my local town, it was called Playman – maybe the English name was cool, but it makes no sense, right? The Skid Row record was the thing – there was tight leather pants and hair, which I thought looked cool. I think that record is still good, it still holds up.”

The first gig I went to

Kreator at Folkets Park, 1989

“I forced my dad to take me to see German thrash metal gods Kreator in my hometown with Swedish doom metal kings Candlemass supporting, who were my favourite band at the time. For some reason, at 11 years old, I was really into doom metal. I put on my coolest clothes and went. It was at Folkets Park, which is like a community centre that every Swedish town had. It was a social democratic thing, they built an entertainment centre in every city – a government entertainment centre. Very Eastern Bloc!”

What did your dad think of the show?

“I think he thought it was funny but it was pretty serious to me. As an adult, I think his impression of doom metal was very different. Who are these grown men stomping around in robes on stage like druids?”

The song that reminds me of home

Sator – ‘I Wanna Go Home’

“It’s kind of a power pop hit, but it was playing on a million road trip vacations when I was a kid. They’re from the same area of Sweden that we are, so I think that’s why. It was probably big in Germany and Sweden, but they never really broke the UK. It’s a really good song. But I also think songs about home always feel the same to everyone. The feeling of listening to ‘Georgia On My Mind’ – even though I’m not from Georgia, I get it.”

The song I wish I’d written

 Karen Dalton – ‘Reason To Believe’

“Sometimes, I think songs are overrated. In our genre, a good band with a shit song will usually win over a good song from a shit band. But a song where it doesn’t matter who performs it and I’ll still like it? Karen Dalton’s ‘Reason To Believe’. It’s a super sad love song. I feel like her music was discovered when we broke through as a band, and somebody told me about it.

“If I’m going with a song that I wish I’d written for The Hives, that’s way harder. Stooges songs make no sense without The Stooges. Rock ‘n’ roll [songwriting] is different, for me. Rolling Stones songs – they work for The Rolling Stones, but whenever somebody else plays them, they sound like shit to me!”

The song I can’t get out of my head

Gershon Kingsley – ‘Popcorn’

“There’s a couple – but the old synthesiser hit ‘Popcorn’, that’s constantly on repeat in my brain. I think, ironically, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue shows up once or twice a year. And then for some reason, ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin. It’s like a Pavlovian thing, when I go off stage, that shows up in my brain. The thing about songs that you can’t get out of your head, you don’t even really have to like them. It’s just catchiness, something neurotic… like playing a magic trick on your brain.”

The song I can no longer listen to

Radio pop

“Ninety per cent of all mainstream pop on the radio, the whole time I’ve been alive. I think that’s gonna have to be my answer. I don’t have a specific [song] – it’s all of it. I’ll just leave it at that.”

The song that makes me want to dance

 The Hives – ‘Try It Again’

“Anything by The Hives, played live. ‘Try It Again’ has got a pretty good groove. The problem is that I have to sing all the fucking time, so there’s very little room for dancing in Hives songs. I wish there were more instrumental bits where I could cut a rock. We’re gonna have to figure that out on the next album.”

The song that makes me want to cry

Gordon Lightfoot – ‘If You Could Read My Mind’

“Howlin’ Pelle don’t cry, obviously. I feel the same emotions, but I don’t cry. That Gordon Lightfoot song, it’s like how I was talking about songwriting before. It doesn’t matter who plays that song, it’s equally as good. It’s not tied to performance like rock music is. My favourite is the Johnny Cash version, or the original. Something about the chords, the melody and the lyrics working together. I think it’s a very well-written song.”

Have you ever cried to that song?

“Maybe if somebody pepper-sprayed me while I was listening to it.”

The song I do at karaoke

 The Champs – ‘Tequila’

“I do ‘Tequila’, where it’s just instrumental and goes ‘Tequila!’. That beats everybody’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. I think there’s the timeless comedy of just standing there, waiting for the ‘Tequila!’ to come. I hate tequila, but for the comedy, I would [take a shot]. It’s very Hives. Maybe that’s the song I wish I’d written!”

The song I want played at my funeral

Tom Waits – ‘Come On Up To The House’

“It seems very well suited for that. I think it might be about dying, some line about ‘does life seem nasty, brutish and short?’,  but I love that song. It’s beautiful and I think it would work at a funeral. Every Tom Waits song on ‘Mule Variations’ is good, and that’s probably my favourite. It has a really cool, massive drum sound, like, beyond Led Zeppelin. That’s what I first reacted to, but then I got really into the song – and that’s the album where I started loving Tom Waits, because before that, I guess I was too young. I listened to it on the CD Walkman in my bunk on the tour bus. It’s one of my favourite records.”

The Hives’ new album ‘The Hives Forever Forever The Hives’ is due out August 29 via PIAS

The post Soundtrack Of My Life: The Hives’ Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist appeared first on NME.

It’s Glastonbury eve and singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya is prepping for her biggest set yet down on Worthy Farm. She played the festival in 2019 and 2022, but for 2025 has graduated to the 30,000-capacity West Holts Stage alongside the likes of chart-bothering rapper Doechii. This, readers, is a major gig.

• READ MORE: Glastonbury Festival 2025 review: the most unforgettable moments from Worthy Farm
  

“We rehearsed yesterday specifically for the show and I know what I’m wearing now, so it’s kind of sorted,” she tells NME over Zoom, typically laidback about it. Fast-forward 48 hours and the west Londoner has blown away a field of punters with her grungey brand of melancholic indie-rock – and, thanks to a stylish black chiffon top and mirrored sunglasses, looked impossibly cool while doing so.

But we’re not surprised: Yanya has been sailing effortlessly through a succession of career highs for the past 12 months. In September, she dropped her critically acclaimed third album, ‘My Method Actor’, which was stuffed with carefully considered, introspective tunes that suddenly burst into life as headbanging guitar thrashers. Our favourite was lead single ‘Like I Say (I Runaway)’, and it rightfully featured on NME’s Best Songs Of 2024. After that, she went on an epic tour across Europe and North America.

On Wednesday (July 2), Yanya returned with a new EP of inward-looking gems, ‘Dancing Shoes’, that’ll also get your feet twitching on the dancefloor. Read on for an in-depth look at the new tracks, how ’90s legend David Gray provided inspiration for them and the exciting support gigs on the horizon.

Hey Nilüfer, you’ve come a long way since your lowkey set at NME’s VO5 Festival Showcase in 2017 – how have you found the journey?

Nilüfer Yanya: “It feels crazy that that was eight years ago because I still remember it really well! I was feeling pretty happy with the way things were going [at the time]. Most people don’t even get that far.”

How do you look back on those early gigs now?

“I think the songs were OK, but at the time I was like: ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written!’ I also thought performing was a weak spot for me… It felt like I had a long way to go but now I’m really proud of the live show, my band and how we’re able to replicate a bit more what happens on record.”

Your latest album, ‘My Method Actor’, felt like a watershed moment – and you’re following it up with a new EP within a year…

“It’s quite quick, isn’t it? I guess people’s attention spans are a bit shorter these days when it comes to the album cycle. You can put a lot of work into an album and then it can just disappear once it’s out.”

So these new songs are a continuation of ‘My Method Actor’?

“Yeah, there were maybe one or two that we were writing at the same time, but they just didn’t take off. They could have made it but, then, it just felt like we were failing those songs. So instead of wasting more time on them, it felt better to go with other ones.”

Why did you call the new EP ‘Dancing Shoes’? The songs are quite introspective…

“One of my favourite songs on the EP is called ‘Treason’ – and there’s a lyric on it about putting on your dancing shoes. I find that to be quite a strong image… Then there’s another side to it, which is more of a metaphor for life – when you’re dancing, you’re not doing other things, you’re fully in the moment.”

Are you a big dancer?

“That depends. If everyone’s dancing then yeah, but I’m probably not the first person on the floor. I don’t really enjoy drawing that much attention to myself.”

It’s a good job you’re not a performer then…

[Laughs] “I know! But that’s the thing, I don’t have to dance. I found this caveat – people can dance to my songs.”

On the EP’s first track, ‘Kneel’, who is doing the kneeling and who is being told to kneel?

“Hmm, it’s about committing yourself to something or somebody and feeling like you’re surrendering. I don’t know who’s leaving or not leaving in the song. It’s just the energy of the lyrics.”

The lyrics on ‘Cold Heart’ are about having lost something and in ‘Where To Look’ you’re searching for something again – is that how you feel as a songwriter?

“Yes, you’ve put it quite nicely – like you’re trying to grasp something and sometimes you get a glimpse of it and then it’s gone. I feel like that with the lyrics because you can get really excited by [one line] and then you might not be able to get there with the next line.”

Who were you influenced by on this record?

“‘Treason’ has this softer side to it and we referenced ‘Babylon’ by David Gray, from the ’90s. I love that song. And Wil [Archer, Yanya’s co-producer and frequent collaborator] kept referencing Madonna. I was also listening to a lot of Paul Spring. I love his guitar playing. He plays weird folk stuff and sings in Latin sometimes.”

You mention Wilma Archer, who produced the EP – what has he brought to your music?

“On these [recent] records, we’ve definitely been painting the picture together from the beginning. It’s very collaborative when it comes to writing. When I first started out trying to make music, everybody told me to work with this producer or that producer and they were all really good but sometimes I’d meet people and be like, ‘I don’t want to write a song with him. I don’t see how I fit in here…’ it’s taken a while for me to let those boundaries down and realise the best music is made through collaboration. And [working with Wilma] is my version of that.”

You just turned 30, which makes this EP the first release of your thirties…

“People always say that when you turn 30, you just don’t care as much. And I think that’s true, because I’m learning what to be precious over and what not to be so precious over [with my music]. There’s a lot of pressure put on your twenties to make or break it, but I think it’s actually the later years [that matter the most].”

You’re heading on tour with Alex G in the States this autumn – does that feel like a good match?

“I haven’t done the support tour in a long time, so I’m excited. It’s quite nice because you get to be the other band and they have to say hello to you. You don’t have to host and can take the back seat.”

And after that, you’re supporting Lorde on a winter tour…

“I’ve known her music for ages, so it’s crazy. When I left school at 18, I did this course. It wasn’t a degree, it was about artist development. And on one of the first days, one of our tutors showed us the video to Lorde’s new song. She was a new artist at the time, and the tutor was talking about how the branding and everything was all, like, 100 per cent – the song, the video, it’s all great… She’s been around for so long that I feel like she’s much older than me but she’s actually still only 28.”

Away from music, you co-founded Artists In Transit, which provides creative workshops for children of refugee backgrounds. At a time of such conflict around the world, does it feel more important to give back in that way?

“I think it’s always gonna be important to me… The thing that shocks me the most today is how [the government] are trying to [classify] Palestine Action as a terrorist group when they’re the complete opposite of terrorists. It makes me feel very scared to be living in a country that can make those kind of [decisions]… But, with Artists In Transit, it’s good to have something we can do that is a positive response as opposed to just feeling powerless.”

Nilüfer Yanya’s ‘Dancing Shoes’ EP is out now via Ninja Tune

The post Nilüfer Yanya: “I’m learning what to be precious over and what not to be so precious over” appeared first on NME.

The Libertines caught up with NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025, where they told us about the magic of the festival, meeting Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, and teased “tantalisingly gorgeous” plans for a new album. See a snippet of the video interview above and read the full thing below.

• READ MORE: Glastonbury Festival 2025 review: the most unforgettable moments from Worthy Farm

The indie heroes took to the Pyramid Stage on the closing Sunday ahead of Sir Rod’s legends slot, where they played a smattering of classics and new fan favourites from 2024’s ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade‘, and landed as one of the highlights of NME‘s weekend.

As veterans of Worthy Farm, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat gave us a somewhat chaotic quick catch-up about what makes the festival so unique, their meeting with Glasto founder Michael Eavis, backstage run-ins, and the band’s next move.

NME: Hello, The Libertines –

Doherty: “Are we on? Good, because this is gold. This girl was convinced that Carl has had touch-ups, facial surgery, some sort of work done. She tried to put her little theory on Youtube. She had this AI graphic vision of the face and everything. Now she’s mysteriously disappeared. The family haven’t seen her for two weeks.”

But for clarity, none of you have had any work done? 

Doherty: “He [Carl] dyes his hair. Apart from that, it’s too late for me. Once you start using it, you’re alright. I’m already a little bit white in my hair. If I start dying my hair dark now, everyone will know, right? Anyway, speaking of Rudy Giuliani…”

Barat: “Have you a couple [of grey hairs] downstairs?”

Doherty: “What? The odd one…”

Barat: “Don’t they say that about the politician Alistair Darling? He had white hair, black eyebrows and ginger pubes apparently.”

Doherty: “No, that’s the Mayor of Le Havre.”

Barat: “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Doherty: “The Mayor of Le Havre.”

Barat: “Why the fuck are you talking about the Mayor of Le Havre?”

Doherty: “Édouard Philippe. He’s got a half-white, half-black beard.”

Barat: “I’m talking about Alistair Darling having Neapolitan hair.”

Doherty: “Wasn’t he in Blackadder?”

Barat: “What was that Rik Mayall quote?”

Doherty: “‘The last person I called darling was pregnant 20 seconds later!’”

Barat: “This is going well, isn’t it?”

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Anyway, good afternoon The Libertines – I just caught you having a chat with Michael Eavis. What’s he got to say for himself?

Doherty: “Oh my lord. He’s an icon of merry old England, man. If I ever build my totem pole, which I’ve been talking about designing and planning for so long that it’s not going to happen, then he’s going to be on it.

“I don’t think England realises how much the rest of the world envies the music that comes out of this country and the Glastonbury festival in itself. Now, listen – I’ve been around the block a few times now, and I’ve played a lot of festivals around the world but there’s nowhere like this. I’m not talking about here in the sanitised backstage area where you’ve got soap and shit like that. The thing that it is out there, that fucking mad psychedelic thing, it’s still there. They tried to make those fences deep, but I’m telling you there are still fucking tinkers and that getting in and having it.

“Jack Jones [of Trampolene] for example. He’s ruined his hands and put his kneecap out of joint, but he made it in.”

Barat: “Is he on Strap Originals [Doherty’s record label] by chance?”

Doherty: “Yeah, of course he is. Are we getting free advertising space? Is that was this interview is?”

Speaking of backstage, we just saw Ronnie Wood rolling around…

Barat: “He once gave me a guitar pick, randomly. It was one of those hard ones that I can’t play with because they snap, but it had some tits on it. Just painted on.”

Doherty: “He has a way of just making you feel alright.”

Barat: “Yeah, like Supergrass.”

Doherty: “He’ll give you a smile, he’ll slap you on the shoulder, and he’s a fucking good guitarist.”

Barat: “A fucking good guitarist – a really mellifluous guitarist.”

Doherty: “And he can paint. He does all those oil paintings. But, I wouldn’t leave him in a room alone with the missus. I’m joking, I’m joking.”

Have you seen Rod?

Doherty: “Yeah, we’ve just been up to see him. We just politely escorted out of the family section. He’s wearing a full-on matador outfit. The kind of thing that [Carl] would have worn…”

Barat: “…had Rod not have worn it.”

Doherty: “He was having a good old fucking knees-up.”

Barat: “He’s brought Vegas to Somerset.”

Doherty: “It makes me think of Scarborough Steve [formerly of The Libertines and Babyshambles]. Back when I was susceptible to other people’s ideas and opinions, Scarborough Steve was the last word in cool for me. His icons were Johnny Thunders and Jim Morrison, but he also had a picture of Rod Stewart of his wall. It was the front cover of an album called ‘Never A Dull Moment’. He put it on one day and it made me think of Rod Stewart in a different way. I’d grown up with ‘Sailing’ and that, but then hearing this growling, dirty guitars, Faces thing…

“He’s a bit of a ledge, really. I know Glasgow Rangers fans hate him and all that, and he seems to be on a Morrissey, Nigel Farage trip. But that’s that generation, isn’t it?”

Barat: “The mood changed when he brought us some whiskey and sent it to our dressing room. Everyone who was in two minds suddenly changed.”

Doherty: “He’s just a bit of a ledge, isn’t he?”

Pete – Carl asked you a very good question on stage just now. When did you go to bed last night?

Doherty: “I went to bed fairly early actually. We took the babby back and we watched a bit of Glastonbury on telly with the babby and had a little dance.”

Barat: “That’s not the answer he wanted. The answer he wanted is that you got into a smack lodge at about 9pm…”

Doherty: “No, on French time I went to bed at about 11.30pm.”

Barat: “I went to bed on Thai time and had a really good hour.”

What did you get up to, Carl?

Barat: “Stuff that made me look like this. We had a good time, though. I managed to summon the Glastonbury spirit. I love the way that everyone marches to their own tune at Glastonbury. Everyone is the version of themselves that they don’t quite dare to be in normal life. There’s something very beautiful in that. Suddenly the mask is dropped. People’s peculiarities, eccentricities, bents, kinks, whatever – for all the world to see, and they’re very comfortable with that.”

Doherty: “The CBeebies Tent was unbelievable. They were all up there. I love Cbeebies. Mr Tumble was there, but it’s all about Bluey, really.”

Barat: “He says it’s all about Bluey, but when he turned up and Hey Dougie was there, he opened his arms wide, gave him a massive hug and then blushed.”

Anyway, that was an amazing set.

Doherty: “Oh yeah, Cbeebies smashed it. They did the ‘Hokey-Cokey’ and had the whole tent bouncing. Unless you’re talking about The Libertines set?”

I am.

Doherty:“I struggled a bit because we’ve started using these in-ears [monitors] – whereas I prefer the raw sound of the amp, the roar of the crowd. But I’ve heard from people who’ve all said it was a good show. I just felt like we were all so far away from the crowd.”

Barat: “I can see the moments when you were a bit withdrawn, but I think that worked out.”

Doherty: “I never know what to do, like those moments when we lock eyes and we have to get on. If I try and do something silly then I look like a plumb on telly.”

Barat: “I quite like that bit where we went…”

*At this point, the duo start singing their song ‘The Good Old Days’*

The new songs went down really well. Have you had any more thoughts on the follow-up to ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’? Pete, you said you wanted some jazzy Stevie Wonder vibes?

Doherty: “Nope, I never said that!”

Barat: “We’ve had some thoughts. A lot has changed across the pond and our visas are in jeopardy.”

Doherty: “We did have quite a strong idea.”

Barat: “It involved going to America.”

Doherty: “No no no, for the next album.”

Barat: “Oh yeah, keep that under wraps.”

Doherty: “Alright, but we’ve got a really interesting, tantalisingly gorgeous idea that we’re keeping under wraps for now.”

Will there be new music soon?

Doherty: “I just released an album [‘Felt Better Alive‘] a month and a half ago man! What do you want? Blood?”

Sorry.

Doherty: “Anyway, I have to say all in all, it’s a game of two halves. At the end of the day you’re either chuffed as a lad or sick as a parrot. Did you see that fan with The Simpsons flag? It had Carl and me really fat with a ‘tasch playing the guitar. The fuck? Happy days, man. If Matt Groening is reading this, any time, anywhere man.”

The Libertines’ remaining summer tour dates include stops at Dreamland in Margate, The Eden Project, Halifax Piece Hall and their own curated day at London’s Gunnersbury Park. Visit here for tickets and more information.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.

The post The Libertines talk late nights, the magic of Glastonbury and “tantalisingly gorgeous” plans for new music appeared first on NME.

Girl In Red caught up with NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025 where she opened up about the heavy themes she’s tackled in her latest songs. Check out a little of the video interview above, or read it in full below.

The Norwegian singer-songwriter took to The Park stage on Sunday (June 29) for a riotous and often dreamy set with fan favourites like ‘Bad Idea!’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ and ‘We Fell In Love In October’. This was also one of her first gigs since sharing the two new singles ‘Hemingway’ and ‘Confession’ – where she gets candid about themes of addiction and mental health.

Backstage before the stirring performance, the singer – real name Marie Ulven Ringheim – spoke to NME about what it was like to overcome her nerves to share the tracks, despite “worrying” if it would change fans’ perception of her. She also shared insight into her venture into the acting world, and when we can expect to see her make a feature film debut in Eivind Landsvik’s Low Expectations.

Read the full interview below, where she also tells us about the similarities between acting and being on stage, and if taking on the film role has tempted her to put music to one side.

NME: Hi Girl In Red, what’s it like to be here at Glastonbury? 

Girl In Red: “I just got in an hour ago and already I just feel the vibes are washing over me. The smell is washing over me too, I’ve seen some dirty people! So far, so good though, I’m going to have a little look around the whole area because there are so many cool things to see. It’s looking like a well-marinated Glastonbury out there…”

You recently released two beautiful singles, ‘Hemingway’ and ‘Confession’ and opened up about some heavy topics like addiction and mental health. How have you found the response so far?

“When I put out ‘Confession’ a lot of people were really worried at first, and I guess rightfully so because I haven’t really been doing that well. Then I followed up that song, which is barely a minute and a half, with ‘Hemingway’ and the response to that has been incredible.

“I’m very moved by the response because it’s a very vulnerable song about addiction and heartbreak and relationship problems, and how they all kind of intertwine.”

It must have felt daunting to share something like that with the world… 

“Yeah, I was really scared to put it out there because I didn’t want people to look at me and be like, ‘Oh, she’s just a recovering addict’ or something. I was so worried about how other people would perceive me. I guess I felt a lot of shame at first, and that’s probably why I had those thoughts about wanting to be perceived in a certain way. But then I was like, ‘I’ve been really sick, and addiction is an illness and it’s not something you should be ashamed about… It’s something we need to talk about a lot more’.

“It was really hard at first and I think a lot of people deal with shame when it comes to topics of addiction because it’s kind of taboo. People have a lot of prejudice towards those who are addicts and some think they just made bad decisions, but it’s a lot more complex than that.”

As well as new music, you’re also in the process of making your debut feature film, Low Expectations. How have you been finding the world of acting so far?

“There are some similarities between music and acting. When I’m playing songs live, sometimes I’m not really in the mood for that song at all, but I’m just tapping into it and it sort of becomes a performance. Similarly, when I’ve been acting, it’s also taking on a character. I’m tapping into someone who I’m not, and into feelings that I’ve probably felt before, but I’m not feeling them there. I’m working out how I can make it seem like I am.

“It’s been really intense 10-12 hour days for like a month. I was like, ‘Damn, this is more intense than touring!’ It’s been really cool though and I really hope that the movie is good, because you kind of need to trust the process.”

Can you tell us anything about when we can expect to see the film? 

“I’m curious myself, honestly! I hope that it’s gonna be next year. Because I think this year it’s probably all going to be editing and stuff, and they probably wanna try and get it to festivals. It’s all really fun, and I really wanna do more acting.”

Could you see yourself maybe putting music on the back burner and pursuing acting full-time for a little bit? 

“I don’t really know! I’m at this weird crossroads now because I’m doing the film, but I have a lot of music that I’m working on also. Music is such an inherent part of who I am, so it’s not something I can just put aside… but also, I’ve been doing it since I was 14, so it’s cool to do something new. It felt like a breath of fresh air to do the acting stuff.

“I don’t want to put music on the back burner, I just want to make stuff that matters to me, go with the flow, and just create things that I’m proud of. I’m like a little ball of clay recently, I feel like I can be moulded into anything and I don’t even know what I’m going be moulded into!”

The release date for Low Expectations has not been officially shared, although it is expected to arrive in 2026.

The post Girl In Red tells us about battling addiction at Glastonbury 2025: “It’s something we need to talk about a lot more” appeared first on NME.

Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner has opened up about finally getting to perform at Glastonbury – after the band were forced to pull out in 2023.

• READ MORE: Japanese Breakfast’s journey of growth: “Have fun. Don’t overthink it”

The group were scheduled to play The Other Stage that year, but had to cancel their set after experiencing “travel delays”.

“We hustled out of Luxembourg at 9pm, woke for customs at 3am, and again for a 6am ferry, hired an additional driver to floor it to our 12:30pm set and due to various travel delays out of our control we are just not able to make it in time,” Zauner shared on social media at the time. “We are devastated. I’ve always wanted to play Glastonbury and we did everything we could to be there. Hopefully we will be back for another year.”

Speaking to NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025, Zauner reflected on that experience and finally getting to play at the hallowed festival. “It was a major bucket list two years ago. And in the history of Japanese Breakfast, it’s also the only show that we’ve ever not been able to play because of something that we’ve done,” she said.

“[Playing today] was hard won. Our bus broke down in Sweden a couple days ago and we still don’t have a working bus. It’s a really intense, hard time for our band and crew, but we did it and it felt really hard won.”

Japanese Breakfast released their latest album ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women)’ earlier this year. In a four-star review, NME assessed: “True to the literary whimsy of its title, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’ sounds like living inside a classical piece of art, every detail an elaborate brushstroke.”

Since the record’s release, the band have also contributed a new song, ‘My Baby (Got Nothing At All)’, to the soundtrack of Past Lives director Celine Song’s new movie, Materialists.

“It’s really fun because it’s such a fun assignment,” Zauner told NME at Glasto of writing for film. “I think especially ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (And Sad Women)’, our new record, it’s a very moody and, at times, difficult album; a very sombre record. So to follow that classic pop structure was really fun to get to return to this year.”

Zauner has also collaborated with Korean indie band Silica Gel on their upcoming single, ‘南宮Fefere’. “ I was so honoured that they tapped me to do a feature with them,” she said. “I spent the last year living in Korea and studying Korean. Everyone was always like, ‘When are you going to write your Korean song?’ And so I wrote Korean lyrics for the first time, and that will be debuting next month.”

Speaking about her time in Korea, the musician added that she “100 per cent” felt like she had made a new community within the music scene there. “There’s a lot of creativity over there, and I’m excited to see it make more waves,” she said.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.

The post Japanese Breakfast on finally playing Glastonbury: “It was hard won” appeared first on NME.

The first thing you notice about Gelli Haha is that she’s dressed entirely in red. Top, trousers, bag, nail polish – Angel Abaya has worn everything in the one primary colour every day since 2023, when she created her playful dance-pop pseudonym.

• READ MORE: KATSEYE: “If you don’t get it, then it’s not for you – and that’s OK”

“You should see my closet now,” laughs the monochrome maverick. “This isn’t some mask I’m putting on. I’m living this. I am committed to the bit. And it’s genuine. I’m not wearing red every day because I want attention – it’s that I’m invested in this world I’m building, and I want my art and life to represent each other.”

Make no mistake, Gelli Haha’s world – the Gelliverse – is joyously kaleidoscopic and bonkers. Her live shows are choreography-heavy spectacles, involving trampolines, pat-a-cake dances, inflatable dolphins and playground boxing matches being interrupted by bubble machines. Similarly, her recently released debut album ‘Switcheroo’ is equally inventive and quirky, hopscotching from the candy-floss electro of ‘Bounce House’ (the one-shot video to which resembles a Tumble Tots run by Devo) to the riotous hedonism of ‘Piss Artist’.

“Gelli Haha is a criminal you’d likely forgive and maybe befriend. Because she’s so cute, she gets a pass”

Speaking to NME from her home city of LA, ideas chaotically spill out of Abaya like candy from a piñata. Asked who Gelli is, the 27-year-old says she’s less an alter ego and more of a liberating philosophy. “This sounds woo-woo, but she’s my inner child,” she explains. “She’s this little girl that gets into mischievous situations. She’s a criminal you’d likely forgive and maybe befriend. Because she’s so cute, she gets a pass.”

As its title suggests, ‘Switcheroo’ is an exercise in reinvention; of experimenting with a persona, then realising, retrospectively, that it was your authentic self all along. In 2023, Abaya had reached an impasse. Having worked for eight years in various indie, folk and jazz bands in the Boise, Idaho music scene, the singer-songwriter had just moved to Los Angeles and released a heartfelt solo album ‘The Bubble’. Yet she was feeling unwelcome in her own life, as if her past was an ill-fitting outfit she’d grown out of. Teaming up with Sean Guerin from LA disco-revivalists De Lux, she wanted to think outside of the box.

She set herself some guiding principles for Gelli Haha: it had to be fun, non-serious and yes, entirely red. She was even inspired by Osho, the controversial philosopher from Netflix’s 2018 Wild Wild Country cult documentary, who posited that seriousness was a disease. Other touchstones included the immersive art of Marina Abramović, the slapstick of 1920s vaudeville, and the pop superstars she grew up idolising as a child like Britney Spears.

She tapped on her background as a co-director for a theatrical dance company that specialised in avant-garde productions, and delved into the history of “weird art-forward parties” in New York, like those held by Michael Alig’s outré Club Kids in the ’90s and James Murphy’s DFA collective in the noughties. “There was a larger-than-lifeness I wanted to live out in this performance,” she notes.

“This world feels ethereal and wacky, but it’s also real. That’s why it’s working”

Abaya is classically trained with a tendency towards meticulous overpreparation, and the first time she and Guerin worked together in the studio – on ‘Switcheroo’’s shimmering opener ‘Funny Music’, which draws vocally on her love of Kate Bush and Björk – she was reduced to tears when nothing was working. Listen to its lyrics, and you hear Abaya giving herself permission to make mistakes by voicing her anxieties as an existential inner-monologue (“It’s all a hoax/It’s just a joke”).

“That’s me still being blocked,” she says. “I was afraid to express what I felt. I’ve always felt in the studio that I should have some sort of answer. I cried a couple of times making ‘Funny Music’ because I’ve never been so exposed. I had a block of ‘I have to be right all the time – I can’t make mistakes’. But Gelli Haha is about getting over inhibitions. It’s supposed to be fun, play, and you don’t have to feel afraid to do it. And for this record, we weren’t afraid to experiment.”

Recorded using a variety of vintage synths and analogue effects, ‘Switcheroo’ plays in different sonic ballpits: ‘Funny Music’ ends abruptly with a Looney Tunes-style “BONK!” noise while the Italo disco of ‘Dynamite’ is interrupted by the sound of (what else?) a bear attack. On the breezy house of ‘Tiramisu’, she adopts the shrill vocals of a pouty Veruca Salt-esque child throwing a tantrum.

While tracks were scaffolded from instrumental demos Abaya had written, lyrics were frequently improvised in the studio. The noughties electroclash of ‘Spit’ lists words beginning with the letter S and peaks with the tongue-twister “Selby sells Shelby snails sans shells sick slick”. For ‘Normalize’, based on the 2005 Nigerian funk song ‘Nomalizo’ by Caiphus Semenya and Letta Mbulu, she consulted an online dictionary and sang the first nine words she found that ended in ‘ia’ (including homophobia, haemophilia, and paedophilia) – before declaring that she wants to “fly away”.

“There’s always a meaning to the songs, even if it isn’t clear to me in the beginning,” she elaborates. “I feel like we’re playing in a sandbox, digging up fossils of meaning. With ‘Funny Music’, I didn’t set out to write a song about my personal journey of healing my fear of expression, but I ended up doing it in a fun way. ‘Normalize’ is about wanting to escape from the woes of the world.”

The newfound ability to cut loose is epitomised by the ribald ‘Piss Artist’. Guerin had the idea that she should try recording a track drunk. However, necking a bottle of tequila, all Abaya wanted to do was talk. Over a louche electro track that could have been off the Party Monster soundtrack, she comically slurs a spoken-word tale like your mate phoning you from the afters. “It’s a true story that happened eight years ago where I convinced everyone to take their shirts off at a party and I pissed in a jar in front of my friends and didn’t care,” she says. “I just feel that’s so on-brand for Gelli.”

Abaya played her first Gelli Haha gig in August last year and is swiftly earning a reputation for the most fun live show around. But she wants to further break down the barriers between audience and performer. “I created Gelli as a world that I could feel 100 per cent free to express and do whatever I wanted. And I want to make it a world that other people can play in,” she reflects. The show and videos chart a narrative: that her dancers are scientists hunting her down, before melding with her as the “parachute monster” shown in the ‘Normalize’ video. The scientists represent the hardened adults; Gelli her fearless inner child.

“I like that this world feels ethereal and wacky, but it’s also real. That’s why it’s working,” she says. “It’s not a gimmick. I’ve based this all on a belief system and practice I stand by. Sometimes dance and pop music can feel cold – but there’s a heart to this.”

Gelli Haha’s ‘Switcheroo’ is out now via Innovative Leisure

The post Gelli Haha paints the town red with cheeky, liberatory dance pop appeared first on NME.

The Maccabees joined NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025 to discuss their recent reunion and returning to Worthy Farm for the first time in a decade. Check out the full interview below and part of the video above.

• READ MORE: The Maccabees live at Glastonbury 2025 review: a glorious, emotional reunion

The band broke up in 2017 but announced their return last October. They played their first gig back on June 20 at London’s The Dome for a charity gig in aid of MS Society.

At Glastonbury 2025, the band headlined The Park stage on Sunday (June 29) to close out this year’s festival – where they were joined by their old friend Florence Welch. Speaking to NME beforehand, frontman Orlando Weeks and guitarist Felix White shared how they were feeling.

“We’re about two or three hours away from playing, so we’re in that moment of, ‘Oh, it’s real’, but it feels good,” White said. “’Land’s been saying to me since we got here – he’s been giving me numbers of how nervous he is and it’s changing quite wildly. It’ll be a for and then suddenly a seven, so maybe I’ll just ask Land, what’s the number now?”

“Oh, I think I’m on a pretty even five, actually,” Weeks replied. “I’m quite hot. Quite hot, dusty, but I don’t know that that’s impacting on my nervousness.”

Check out the full interview with Weeks and White below.

NME: Hello The Maccabees. Welcome back to Glastonbury. It’s been 10 years since you were last here. What do you remember of that set?

Felix White: “Well, that is quite big in The Maccabees’ story, because obviously Jamie T came and played with us and that’s one of the things from our history that seems to get clipped up and used quite a lot. So that was a big deal at the time. I think this might be the fifth time we played Glastonbury and it always went up from being the first on or the second on the new bands tent to we were second top of what’s now the Woodsies tent, covered in mud, me wearing one sock, playing to not that many people. And then we did some quite big shows on the Other Stage.

“The coolest thing, really, about this is that we never felt like The Maccabees were going to do it again. And for me, personally, I used to buzz and live for these moments so much, so I just had that time where I thought, ‘Oh, we’re not going to do that, that’s not really part of my life – other things are, but that isn’t’. So it’s just exciting to feel like we’re going to have that experience again. It’s great.”

What does it mean to be able to be back at Glastonbury headlining The Park stage?

Orlando Weeks: “I don’t know about on the larger scale, but it’s the first time my son’s going to see me sing, on a stage anyway. So that’s exciting for me. We’ve been on tour in the last week, just some shows in northern Europe and it’s been so good, I think. Also Glastonbury is such another world that it feels like you don’t have to connect it too much to anything else. It can just be this standalone, bizarre moment.”

White: “That’s really true. I think we just feel like we want to really appreciate what it is – not that we didn’t before, but it just feels like it’s not a given. So we’re just going to try and really grasp it and live inside it.”

You mentioned the tour there – you started off with a charity gig in London last week. How was that being back on stage together for the very first time in eight years?

White: “Yeah, that was a really mad evening for a number [of reasons]. We were doing it for MS Society, which is a thing that’s important to us and when we did the last Maccabees shows, we did a gig for MS Society again. So that just felt right to bookend it and it gave the whole thing a really nice feeling. But you were there – there was a lot of feeling in that room. It surprised me, actually, because I was finding that on stage, in a split second, I was euphoric and then I was actually crying at Tufnell Park Dome and then feeling other things.

“You felt all this feeling inside your body that the action of playing the music brings out in us, and it was all happening in there and just felt amazing. I haven’t felt like that for a very long time, as we did in that room. And to be honest, all across Europe, it’s been quite similar to that show.”

Weeks: “Absolutely, yeah. We’ve been turning up in these cities that we haven’t been to for [years], that aren’t our hometown and they’re sold out rooms and people having a very good time from the moment we start playing. At the first show, I had norovirus or something so I was just on survival mode, so I missed all the crying. I was just desperate not to be sick. Since then, I’ve felt all of the nice feelings and I think tonight might be a bit of that.”

White: “Are you gonna cry?”

Weeks: “I might cry. Yeah, I might cry. I’m not ruling it out.”

White: “Let me know when you cry so we don’t cry at the same time.”

Weeks: “Yeah, we don’t want to waste crying. Good point.”

What does the response that you’ve had at these shows mean to you? You have been away for a long time, so it’s not a given that you would have that reaction still.

Weeks: “In all honesty, what I have been concentrating on is just how it’s felt for us and that is in no way demeaning how it might have felt. It’s just as part of getting through this and sort of easing back into all being together. Absolutely my priority has just been how am I feeling? How is Fe’ feeling? How are the boys feeling?

“All of that has been great and I think that’s what has come across. I think that sense of our pleasure at doing it is what people have said to us after the shows. People have said to me, ‘I think you’re having a good time’. So yeah, I think it’s a weirdly complicated emotional experience, so the more you can simplify it, the easier it’s felt and the better it’s felt.”

In a five-star review of the band’s Glastonbury 2025 performance, NME wrote: “This could go down as one of The Maccabees’ most euphoric shows. There are few things more joyful than witnessing White grinning ear to ear as he hypes up the crowd between songs. Frontman Orlando Weeks, meanwhile, looks happier than ever, joining his bandmate in some rare instances of geeing up the crowd and looking truly appreciative of the moment.”

Elsewhere, the festival was headlined by The 1975, who appeared to tease a new era at the end of their set, Neil Young, and Olivia Rodrigo. The latter was joined on stage during her performance by The Cure’s Robert Smith to cover two of the band’s songs.

Secret sets across the weekend came from Lorde, who performed her new album ‘Virgin’ in full, Lewis Capaldi, who completed his Glastonbury 2023 set on the Pyramid Stage, and Haim, who celebrated their new record ‘I Quit’. Pulp were also revealed as the mystery band behind the pseudonym Patchwork.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.

The post The Maccabees on their reunion at Glastonbury 2025: “In a split second, I was euphoric, then I was crying” appeared first on NME.

Wolf Alice joined NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025 to discuss their new album ‘The Clearing’ and reflect on the 10th anniversary of their debut album, ‘My Love Is Cool’. Check out the full interview below and watch some of the video above.

• READ MORE: Wolf Alice live at Glastonbury 2025: a phenomenal band at the peak of their powers

The band were second from top on the Other Stage yesterday (June 29), performing just before The Prodigy for their biggest Glastonbury set so far. It followed a mid-afternoon Pyramid Stage slot in 2022, which the group nearly missed after getting stranded in America.

“That was the worst 48 hours ever,” guitarist Joff Oddie recalled. “So stressful. We missed a flight – or they cancelled a flight going from LA. We were supporting Halsey at the Hollywood Bowl and then we were just in the airport. It was just on a complete knife-edge the whole time. We landed and I think we had three hours until stage or something like that. We were escorted onto site. It was so stressful. Playing was amazing, but god.”

“They promised us a police escort and when we got here, it was literally four lads,” drummer Joel Amey added. “Four lads all in bucket hats and high vises on quad bikes.”

Check out the full chat with Oddie and Amey below.

NME: Hello Wolf Alice. How’s your weekend been so far?

Joel Amey: “Mine’s been good. You know what? This is the second time I’ve done Glastonbury where I’ve not been drinking and I think, controversially, it’s actually not as big as I remember it. That’s my big takeaway. I’ve got around easy peasy. It’s been great and chilled. It was a lot harder in previous years to get from stage to stage.”

Today you’re playing second from top on the Other Stage. You’ve been playing some small shows and other festivals with new music in the set – how’s it been going down so far?

Amey: “I think really well. We’ve played to some really amazing crowds. We’ve been around a few European cities. We’ve been to Ireland playing some smaller towns and they were incredible. We played a song called ‘Thorns’ in Ireland and then we played a song called ‘The Sofa’ in the other towns. And we’ve been playing ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, so that’s three, and I’ve loved playing them all, and the old songs as well. The new stuff always breathes life into the old stuff so everything feels like a bit of a renewal, especially in the early shows. So it’s been really great.”

Do you feel like your relationship with the older stuff has changed because of the new songs you’ve added into the set?

Amey: “I feel like my relationship with playing music has changed because of the new album. The way I personally choose to perform or even the way I choose to play the drums, has been informed by the experience of making ‘The Clearing’. You look back on old things and you’re like, ‘Oh, why do I play it like that? I could play it like this’. So it’s always evolving in that sense.”

You mentioned ‘The Clearing’ there, which is out in August. How would you say ‘Blue Weekend’ and the response to songs like ‘Delicious Things’ influenced this album?

Joff Oddie: “I think very much. I think we were buoyed by the songier songs being things that people really connected to and we spent a lot more time working on those constituency, songy song parts of the songs. It’s the hardest thing in the world to write a really concise song in a – I don’t wanna say pop structure, but you know what I mean. It’s quite easy to throw a five-minute jam together, but that’s so difficult, so it’s a brilliant challenge and that’s more so where we were focused with this album.”

Joel, you wrote a song on the album called ‘White Horses’…

Oddie: “It’s really good!”

It’s so good. What can you tell us about the story behind that song?

Amey: “Thanks, Joffy. It’s about my family, actually. We’d kind of done writing for ‘The Clearing’ in the tail end of whatever year it was, and I was really influenced by what the other three had been doing. That was the main sonic influence, which was we had loads of acoustic guitars and harmonies and stuff like that. But I felt like I would love to have something that had a bit more of a dance – not dance music, because I’m going to do a disservice when you listen to it – but that kind of propulsion and moving forward. I wanted to get a song like that and see if I could make a hybrid of the two.

“So I had a demo that was like that, that had me doing some vocals on. Yeah, it’s a song about my family, about my history. In the overarching sense of ‘The Clearing’, we were saying a lot of these songs are like a moment of peace, where you know that maybe there’s more forest to go through, and ‘White Horses’ is a little bit like that where it’s a moment of reflection on myself, where I’ve come from and maybe where I’m going, but without necessarily answering it.”

Earlier this month marked 10 years of ‘My Love Is Cool’…

Amey: “And we were here with you! Do you want to make us feel old?!”

We were all together! What are your memories of releasing that album?

Oddie: “Memories? Not a lot! It was so much fun, though, wasn’t it? I honestly don’t have many memories.”

Amey: “I do remember driving to Glastonbury in [tour manager] Johnny Haskett’s beat-up people carrier, eating Magnum ice creams in the car. We were Number One in the [mid-week] charts at the time and everyone on site was like ‘Ohhh!’ We woke up on Sunday and we were Number Two in the charts and everyone was more chill around us after that. Before, everyone was like, ‘Pint? Pint?’ On Sunday, everyone was like, ‘No’.”

NME gave Wolf Alice’s Glastonbury 2025 performance five stars, writing: “The energy they pour into today’s set feels like that of a band who should be topping the Pyramid Stage next time they play Worthy Farm. As the set ends with ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’ – a strong contender for one of the best, most dizzyingly accurate love songs ever written – that feeling only intensifies. That song finds Rowsell writing herself a romantic Hollywood ending; Wolf Alice’s world-beating set does the same for Glastonbury 2025.”

Elsewhere, the festival was headlined by The 1975, who appeared to tease a new era at the end of their set, Neil Young, and Olivia Rodrigo. The latter was joined on stage during her performance by The Cure’s Robert Smith to cover two of the band’s songs.

Secret sets across the weekend came from Lorde, who performed her new album ‘Virgin’ in full, Lewis Capaldi, who completed his Glastonbury 2023 set on the Pyramid Stage, and Haim, who celebrated their new record ‘I Quit’. Pulp were also revealed as the mystery band behind the pseudonym Patchwork.

Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.

The post Wolf Alice talk new album ‘The Clearing’ at Glastonbury 2025: “A lot of these songs are like a moment of peace” appeared first on NME.

JADE caught up with NME backstage at Glastonbury 2025, where she told us all about what to expect from her upcoming debut solo album. Check out the video interview above, or read it in full below.

The former Little Mix star took to the Woodsies stage on Saturday (June 28) and delivered her first performance at the festival since going solo and announcing the forthcoming record, ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’. She was introduced to the stage by Sex Education and Doctor Who actor Ncuti Gatwa, and broke out hit singles ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ and ‘FUFN (Fuck You For Now)’, as well as covering Little Mix tracks like ‘Wasabi’ and ‘Shout Out To My Ex’.

“I still feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience after my performance. I’ve not come down from it yet,” she told us backstage after her set. “I’ve always dreamed of doing Glastonbury, and to be here with my own music is great. It’s nice to know that the writing I’ve been doing for myself is what got me here.”

For the South Shields singer, the gig came after an eye-catching set at London’s Mighty Hoopla – which saw her celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and call out Harry Potter author JK Rowling for anti-trans comments – and ahead of an appearance at All Points East 2025, where she will support RAYE alongside Tyla and Doechii.

Check out our full interview below, where she explains why she wants to use her platform to call out bigotry, and how the “boot camp” experience in Little Mix helped shape her solo material.

NME: Hi JADE, how did you feel going into your huge set at Glasto?

JADE: “I was so nervous beforehand and I was backstage nearly about to cry because I was so overwhelmed, but then Mel C came running over to say it was going to be amazing and that I’ve got this! She gave me a little pep talk, and then my friend Ncuti [Gatwa] bumped into me yesterday and offered to do the intro for me. He introduced me on stage and helped me feel really ready and like good about myself… but I still feel like nothing prepares you for the adrenaline of the Glastonbury crowd, because they really are like something else.”

Is there anyone who you were looking forward to seeing over the weekend? 

“I’m actually devastated that I missed Alanis Morissette, but that’s the thing when you’re with mates – you’re all deciding who you’re going to see. My gut was telling me to watch Alanis, but I went with the crowd… then everyone started telling me how amazing [her set] was, so I was fuming! Everyone is torn with the Doechii vs Charli XCX clash, and I think, because I am doing another festival where Doechii is playing, I’m gonna go see Charli this time. It really has had the gays in a spin, I’ll tell you that. They’re divided right now.”

Also on the line-up for 2025 is RAYE, who you’ll be joining at All Points East in August. How do you feel about that show? 

“I feel like this is her time and I’m really proud and happy for her. I’ve known RAYE for years now because she’s written for Little Mix before and we’ve always crossed paths. We’ve done a bunch of writing sessions together for my own music too, and we wrote ‘Fuck You For Now’ together.

“It’s really amazing and inspiring seeing her receive all the flowers that she deserves, and I’m excited for her set. We are doing a bunch of the same festivals actually, so I’ll get to see her elsewhere, but I’m still going to show up for it today and let her know that we’re all rooting for her.”

Speaking of big shows, your on-stage comments in support of the LGBTQ+ community at Mighty Hoopla touched a lot of hearts. Why was it important for you to use your platform in that way?

“I think I’ve always been a bit mouthy when it comes to things that are important. I’m not afraid to speak up and stand up, especially for the LGBTQ+ community. I’m well aware that I have a lot of fans from that community, but also I feel like it’s important, now more than ever, to stand particularly with the trans community. We are seeing a lot of transphobia, a lot of propaganda and a lot of negative press, so I just wanted to make sure that they know that I will say it with my chest and I’ll stand up for them.

“That was important for me at Mighty Hoopla, and it’s been fun because at every show, especially with ‘Fuck You For Now’, I get to shout out different people or say different things. Today with Glastonbury, I shouted out what we’re seeing right now with the genocide going on in Palestine. I feel like it’s important now, more than ever, for pop artists to show that it’s okay to speak out and educate yourself. Don’t be afraid to protest.”

Is that honesty something that went into the writing process for your debut solo album? 

“I think so. On a personal level, it’s who I am to write about personal experiences and dark things but in a tongue-in-cheek way. I like to almost laugh at my trauma or anything that’s gone wrong in my life! There are songs like ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ where I’m talking about the toxicity and my love/hate relationship with the industry, but in a way that isn’t like ‘Woe is me’ because I’m aware that I’m very privileged to be in the position that I’m in. So when I write from my own experiences, I’m doing it in a way that almost takes the piss out of it. That’s my way of expressing myself.”

How has your time in Little Mix shaped the upcoming solo album?

“Being in a girl band is the ultimate boot camp on how to survive the music industry. First off, you’re a woman, and then you’re in a girl band, and it’s always hard to prove to people that you’re a credible artist and that you’re worthy of appreciation. When we first started in like 2011 — especially coming from a show like The X Factor — we were constantly proving to people why we deserved a seat at the table and why we deserved longevity.

“Being in Little Mix really was the ultimate test of enduring that. Time and time again, we reinvented ourselves and to be in a girl band that lasts for over 10 years is pretty remarkable. You don’t hear of that often. I’m so proud of that part of my life, and going into my solo music, it was like ‘OK, now I get to write just purely about my own experiences’, because in a girl band the topics have to be a bit more universal. On my own, though, it was important for me to express myself.

“It’s not a case of ‘[Little Mix] was the old me, and this is me finally being who I am’, because I love Little Mix and I love what we stood for! It’s not about [that era] being dead and gone. That was the past and I loved it, but now this is the new chapter.”

How would you sum up ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’ in three words?

“I would say ‘That’s Showbiz Baby’ is pop-tastic, chaotic, and grand. With every song on the album, there’s nothing that’s just like a cheeky little acoustic number. No, everything’s full and has got the kitchen sink thrown in. Expect big productions and big vocals, that’s the vibe of the record.”

Jade releases ‘That’s Showbiz Baby’ on September 12, with a UK and Ireland tour following in September.

Check back here to find all of NME’s news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.

The post JADE at Glastonbury 2025: “It’s more important than ever for artists to show that it’s OK to speak out” appeared first on NME.