Band: Grade 2
Album: Grade 2
VÖ: 17.02.2023
Label/Vertrieb: Hellcat Records / Indigo
Website: https://grade2official.co.uk
Famed for blistering live performances and exceptional musicianship, UK band Grade 2 bring no-frills classic punk to the modern era. Their self-titled album due on February 17th is a bone-crunching 35-minutes that agitates, intoxicates and liberates in equal measure. Ahead of its release they share their new single “Midnight Ferry” out today, featuring slick guitar riffs and lively shout-along verses that lead into crisp vocal harmonies.
“This song is our story, a tale of a night out and the truth of growing up in a rural town,” the band explains. “Capturing the adventurous spirit, trying to escape any mundane responsibilities, if just for a night. Just know you’ll be brought straight back down to earth on that journey home.” Listen below!
LISTEN TO “MIDNIGHT FERRY” HERE
50 years after the genre turned the music world upside-down, UK based Grade 2 are bringing the raw power of old school punk to a new generation. United by a love of old-school punk, ska and oi, childhood friends Sid Ryan (vocals, bass), Jacob Hull (drums) and Jack Chatfield (guitar, vocals) formed the band at fourteen years old, honing their craft playing Clash and Jam covers before refining their own sound. Melding the near-mythical musical heritage of their native Isle of Wight with the humdrum reality of growing up in a tired seaside town, Grade 2 spit out blistering punk music laced with passion, angst, humor and despair.
After signing to Hellcat Records in 2018 - helmed by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong – they put out their second album ‘Graveyard Island’ in 2019. With the release of ‘Grade 2’ comes their most representative work yet; a thumping fifteen track tour-de-force melding the uncompromising ethos of punk with the howl of contemporary injustice, personal identity and frustrations of Gen-Z youth, authentically told by three lads with punk coursing through their veins.
EU Headlining Tour w/ Death by Stereo
March 25, 2023 - Vechta, Gulfhaus (Germany)
March 27, 2023 - Hamburg, Hafenklang (Germany)
March 28, 2023 - Berlin, Cassiopea (Germany)
March 29, 2023 - Regensburg, Tiki Beat (Germany)
March 30, 2023 - Dresden, Chemiefabrik (Germany)
EU/UK Tour Supporting Rancid
June 12, 2023 - Berlin, Columbiahalle (Germany)
June 13, 2023 - Wiesbaden, Schlachthof (Germany)
Tickets available via band’s WEBSITE.
‘Grade 2’ Tracklisting
1. Judgement Day
2. Fast Pace
4. Doesn't Matter Much Now
6. Brassic
7. Gaslight
8. Don't Stand Alone
9. Streetrat Skallywag
10. Parasite
11. It's A Mad World, Baby
12. Doing Time
13. Celine
14. See You Around
15. Bottom Shelf
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Band: Grade 2
Album: Grade 2
VÖ: 17.02.2023
Label/Vertrieb: Hellcat Records / Indigo
Website: https://grade2official.co.uk
Today, UK punk band Grade 2 announce their third studio album eponymously titled ‘Grade 2’ due for release on February 17, 2023 via Hellcat Records. Their most representative work yet, the record is a thumping fifteen track tour-de-force melding the uncompromising ethos of punk with the howl of contemporary injustice, personal identity and frustrations of Gen-Z youth, authentically told by three lads with punk coursing through their veins.
Today, Grade 2 also share a new music video for “Under The Streetlight” ahead of the album. The high-energy track with a spirited, hopeful melody comes with a feel-good music video that praises the power of community. The band comments, “Even though there are times when life can feel stagnant or things aren’t going to plan, there will always be people there to support you whether it’s mates, a partner, or your family.” Watch the video below!
WATCH THE “Under The Streetlight” MUSIC VIDEO HERE
50 years after the genre turned the music world upside-down, UK based Grade 2 are bringing the raw power of old school punk to a new generation. United by a love of old-school punk, ska and oi, childhood friends Sid Ryan (vocals, bass), Jacob Hull (drums) and Jack Chatfield (guitar, vocals) formed the band at fourteen years old, honing their craft playing Clash and Jam covers before refining their own sound. With an album and EP already under their belts, in 2018 the trio signed to Hellcat Records - helmed by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong - and put out their 2019 record ‘Graveyard Island.’ After getting invited to work at Armstrong’s Ship Rec Studio for Grade 2, the band was stoked to be back. "Returning to Ship Rec Studio resparked that magic dynamic," says guitarist Jack Chatfield. "When we're in there I feel like we reach our full potential. Tim would offer tweaks and tips for some songs, while others he'd compliment the first time we’d play them."
Melding the near-mythical musical heritage of their native Isle of Wight with the humdrum reality of growing up in a tired seaside town, Grade 2 spit out blistering punk music laced with passion, angst, humor and despair. With a commitment to the cause, lead single ‘Doing Time’ is a thunderous hardcore punk track screaming “Spoon feed me corporate lies; I left that place with a noose to my neck.”
Frontman Sid Ryan explains, “Like everyone else, 2020 left us proper fucked off.” He continues, “Yet we were able to channel every ounce of that despair into every second of this record.”
What results is a bone-crunching 35-minutes that agitates, intoxicates and liberates in equal measure. The trio is famed for blistering live performances and exceptional musicianship, and they have successfully packaged the essence of their live show in the limited format of an album. Tune in and turn up. Here’s a record to rattle your bones, stir your heart and have you singing till you’re hoarse like it’s the first day of punk.
‘Grade 2’ Tracklisting
1. Judgement Day
2. Fast Pace
3. Under the Streetlight
4. Doesn't Matter Much Now
5. Midnight Ferry
6. Brassic
7. Gaslight
8. Don't Stand Alone
9. Streetrat Skallywag
10. Parasite
11. It's A Mad World, Baby
12. Doing Time
13. Celine
14. See You Around
15. Bottom Shelf
The band will be doing a UK tour in March next year, please find the dates below. Tickets are on sale via band’s WEBSITE
March 7, 2023 – The Lexington, London
March 10, 2023 – Louisiana, Bristol
March 18, 2023 – Classic Grand, Glasgow
March 19, 2023 – Star & Garter, Manchester
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Band: Grade 2
Album: Graveyard Island
VÖ: 11.10.2019
Label/Vertrieb: Hellcat Records / Indigo
Website: https://grade2official.co.uk
Grade 2 understand that the first rule of punk rock is to make something happen.
Formed in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 2013, when its members were schoolboys aged just 15, the three musicians quickly discovered that their options on a small island south of Southampton were limited. Casting their gaze upon wider horizons, the group boarded the Isle of Wight ferry for shows on the mainland, and, in time, concerts in continental Europe and, lately, the United States.
It was on one such jaunt that Grade 2 met Lars Frederiksen, the rhythm guitarist with, among others, Rancid. Himself no stranger to operating at the budget end of the touring market, Frederiksen looked at the English lads’ sense of derring-do and liked what he saw. The two parties became friends.
“We told him we were getting ready to do a new album,” says Jack Chatfield. “Originally he thought about producing it, but he said that he didn’t think he was that he was the right person for the job. But he told us to leave it with him, and then he came back to us and told us that he’d had a word with Tim…”
Tim, by the way, is Tim Armstrong, Frederiksen’s bandmate in Rancid. As well as this, Armstrong also operates the punk rock record label Hellcat, to whom Grade 2 are now signed. Lars told the band that he’d shown Tim some of the band’s videos – taken from their first two albums, Mainstream View and Break The Routine, from 2016 and 2017 respectively – and that his friend had liked what he’d seen; so much so, in fact, that he’d like to produce the trio’s forthcoming record.
“For about a year we were demoing tracks and sending them over to him,” remembers Sid Ryan. “We worked really hard to make sure we were ready to go.”
Last December Grade 2 flew to Los Angeles, and, over the course of two weeks, tracked the dozen songs that comprise Graveyard Island, their third LP.
“I reckon Tim is one of the most efficient people we’ve ever worked with,” says Sid. “We all knew exactly what we wanted. . In the studio we wanted to capture how we sound onstage, so we were tracking songs fully live – guitar, bass and drums – with a scratch vocal. We were tracking four songs a day. What’s more, when we were in there we ended up writing another eight songs with him. We went out there with eighteen songs, and by the time we’d finished we had twenty six!”
The result is Graveyard Island, an album that offers proof that punk rock is still as relevant in 2019 as it was in 1976. As Grade 2 themselves sing on the tub-thumping Dover Street, it may well be “hard to keep your head up when life seems so bleak, but this is a place where the soul can live for free.” With songs that make their point like a punch on the nose, this is the sound of a fraternity hanging tight through tough times and becoming all the tougher because of it. Raw like sushi and as catchy as an airborne disease, the record provides a master class in how to make a watertight point using muscle and melody.
“Although we’re more than forty years on from when punk began, I actually think the times are very similar now to how they were back then,” says Sid. “The political climate today means that people see the worst in everything, which means that for us there’s a lot to write about. Basically, everything in the country is pretty much turning to shit! There are certain parts of our record that would make sense were it released in 1976.”
But as well as bringing anarchy to the (southernmost tip of the) UK, Grade 2 are also products of their time. Opening track Tired Of It – “I’m tired of it when they say privacy’s a privilege” - and closer On The Radar – “they know where you’ve been, they know what you’ve seen” - deal with the absence of privacy in the modern age.
Elsewhere, on Murder Town the trio take a frank but affectionate look at what it means to be a band that earns its living on the road, and the sacrifices this involves. Still, the band have no regrets, as they sing in the lines “I’ve cancelled my subscription to your way of strife/I’ve penciled my subscriptions to a new way of life.”
But as well as being a state of the union address and a dispatch from the passenger seats of a splitter van, Graveyard Island also sends postcards from the band’s local ends. The Isle of Wight isthe seaside, after all. So if you’d like to know what’s going on down on Bowling Green Lanes, “I’ve got a twenty in my wallet and it’s pissing down with rain.” And while there might not be as much to do over on Dover Street, there is a crowd of people who care for each other with whom to do it. They gather “in a basement of a church,” where it’s “damp and its dark.” But that’s okay because they “keep it warm from the fire in our hearts.” Outside is the beach, from which “you can see the outside world” and “nothing’s out of reach.”
Like many a fine punk band – in fact, like Rancid themselves – Grade 2 use poetry to combine the sinister with the mundane, and then play the results at a volume that is considerate of their neighbours – they turn it up loud so they can hear it, too.
“There’s also a lot of new bands that are making a new name for punk, like Slaves and Idles,” says Jack. “And then you’ve Amyl & The Sniffers over in Australia. So it seems like punk’s re-energised at the moment, and I like to think that we’re a part of that. It’s great that that rough DIY sound is making a comeback.”
Armed with a new album that finally captures the band in all its spirited energy, Grade 2 are planning once more to get in the van and to bring the noise off the island.
“I want us to be a band that stands the test of time,” says Jack. “I want to be able to listen back to Graveyard Island twenty years from now and go, ‘Yeah, that still sounds good; it still sounds relevant.’ And if we can manage that, we’ve got a chance to make not just the songs last, but also the band.”
“And that’s what we really want to do,” adds Sid. “We want to go out there and do this as hard as we can, and for as long as we can.”
Why?
“Because the last thing in the world we want is to have to go out and get proper jobs,” he says, sounding like the punk that he is.
By IAN WINWOOD
