SHREDS. UNITED KINGDOM
Shreds are a band, who are based in Sheffield, UK (although they have members further afield in the UK) who play loud and fast hardcore in the vein of Negative Approach and SSD with their own spin on it. Formed in late 2022, Shreds brought out a well-received EP, “The First 12 Months”, last year and have followed that up with their new one titled “Step Back” which came out on April 15th. In Effect’s senior UK correspondent Gavin Brown caught up with Shreds guitarist Dan, vocalist Jim and bassist Trevor to hear all about Shreds and their forthcoming music, live shows and who the bands influences are. This interview was conducted in March and we thank Shreds for their patience while the In Effect Hardcore website went through its rebuild!
Lead photo by: Scott Bradley, graphics by: Paul Turano.
IE: Can you tell us how Shreds got started as a band?
Trevor: It was the bits and pieces of a previous band.
Dan: Trevor and I were in a band previously, that came to an end and then we played with Bart, who’s our drummer, at a gig… he was in another band, they weren’t that active really and he joined us and Bart got Jim along on vocals, and we went from there. I think we wanted to play something fast and inspired by all those 80’s US hardcore bands really. We wanted to reimagine that for the modern world. All those bands are probably more relevant now to be honest.
IE: You released your debut “The First 12 Months” last year. How’s it been received so far?
Dan: Yeah, pretty good, actually. We didn’t aim to release it as an EP… we recorded tracks which were going to form part of an album, but we had these five tracks so we stuck them on Bandcamp, and they said it had to be an EP so we put it out as that.
Jim: Most people seem to like it, and it’s interesting, because we’ve not really had to scout around for gigs very much, people have been coming to us and offering, which is nice and we’ve got shows set up for this year so far, which is really cool.
IE: Are you gonna look at doing a physical release of the new stuff?
Dan: Yeah, we are. We’ve now recorded fourteen tracks, so the five songs from the EP and nine new songs which is going to be an album that’ll probably go out on Bandcamp first and then we’ll do physical releases to sell at gigs.
Jim: We’re going to do a short run initially and see how that goes.
IE: Which bands are the biggest influences on the music that Shreds make?
Dan: It’s probably different for each of us.
Jim: It’s all fast and loud.
Dan: For me, it’s stuff like SSD, Negative Approach, early Black Flag, 7 Seconds, Jerry’s Kids. That early US stuff.
Trevor: Dan’s kind of the British guy who likes American punk and I’m the American guy who likes British punk. GBH, Crass and Conflict. On the US side, Black Flag for sure, DRI.
Jim: Definitely DRI and SNFU! We’ve all got bands we like even if they’re not our main influences. The thrashy skate punk style is where I’m at. Plus Motörhead and the Ramones!
IE: Of course! Going back to the album, did you feel any pressure with the newer stuff when you’ve been recording given how well received your EP has been?
Dan: Not really, I mean, we’ve been playing those songs for quite a long time, before we actually recorded anything because we thought, let’s just play some shows, and get competent playing those tracks, and then we’ll go out and record something.
Trevor: The EP was just the first batch of tracks we recorded… those are the ones that when Jim joined, we had all four of us. They were the ones that we were the most confident recording at the time and we always intended to go back in and record the others.
Jim: Yeah, we didn’t intentionally go set to record an EP, and then an album or that kind of stuff. It was just let’s just record the songs that we’ve got. We did the EP, and it was going well. We kept writing new stuff, so we just got into the studio and did as much as we could.
IE: Are you constantly thinking of new material?
Trevor: We’ve got a whole Google Drive of new ideas! During the pandemic, we started writing tons and tons of stuff and just dumping it on the Google Drive, so we’ve been through it trying to harvest the best ideas!
Dan: I write all the time, pretty much, I probably write something every other week but probably 80% of our stuff doesn’t see the light of day but the stuff that’s good, we keep and take it to rehearsal and see what we can do.
Jim: It all sounds different when we get to the studio anyway. When we get into the practice room and start actually writing it and then we change bits.
IE: What are the hardcore scenes like in Sheffield and other places around that Shreds have played and what bands would you recommend to check out?
Dan: Lincoln has got a strong power violence/grindcore thing going on. When we’ve played in Lincoln, quite often we played with bands who were a lot heavier and sometimes a lot faster but we seemed to go down okay with that. There’s quite a healthy scene in Lincoln for that sort of stuff. Sheffield’s a bit different, a bit more crossover. The main venue is a place called The Lughole which is wormed by punks and run by punks and that’s where most of the punk shows happen really. We’ve played there and hopefully we’ll play again this year. It’s got a good vibe to it. Leicesters got a good beatdown scene, quite young bands, really slow and heavy. I think it’s interesting, different places have quite different scenes. Bands to check out are, Nylon from Sheffield, This Is Not A Drill from Sheffield, Grail Guard from Coventry, Reason To Leave from the North West, 77 Spears from the North of England, Snakes Among Us from Liverpool and King Of Pigs from Nottingham.
SHREDS LIVE! PHOTO BY: ARCHIE BOWMER
IE: What have been some of the best gigs that Shreds have played so far?
Jim: Gnarfest… for me was one of my favourites.
Dan: We played this squat in Sheffield, really tiny room. There was probably twenty people there but it was a really cool vibe and you don’t really get the chance to play those sorts of shows often.
Jim: People were coming in who lived there, like it was in their front room! That was good fun to play.
Trevor: The Boston (Lincolnshire) crowd… that was fun!
Jim: Boston (UK) was a crazy gig, surprisingly.
Dan: We played with On The Brink, who are a Sheffield band and King Of Pigs. That was a good show.
IE: It seems like you’ve got a good stream of gigs happening fairly regularly?
Jim: Yeah, the one thing that really surprised me when I joined Shreds, is when we first started getting going, we’ve not really had to fight to get shows.
IE: Have you built up a bit of a network across the country for gigs?
Jim: Yeah, we’re playing gigs and meeting new people at these different gigs and then booking more gigs from playing gigs, you know, so, it’s cool and it’s spreading, and because we’re not all in the space there’s range there as well.
IE: What has been the best hardcore show you’ve ever seen?
Trevor: Well, for me, it would be GBH in 1989 in the US, because a friend of mine… he was also doing interviews for a radio station. He managed to get backstage with them, and he knew I was a big GBH fan so I got to meet those guys. That was pretty cool. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying! The Birmingham accent is a bit difficult!
Dan: I saw OFF! play in the small bar at The Leadmill in Sheffield and there was literally about sixty people there, a really small show but packed into a small room. That was amazing and I’ll probably never see that again. Keith Morris walked past me on the way to the stage!
Jim: You’ve stolen my thunder there Dan, because I was going to say the same show!
Dan: Oh yeah! You were there before we knew each other!
Jim: They were fucking great, but I think other than that OFF! gig, I would probably say the one and only time that I saw SNFU because they’ve been a huge influence on me for the majority of my punk rock life and to see them, it was awesome. It was in Manchester, no barrier, no security. Mr. Chi Pig walks past you on the way to the stage and all that kind of stuff!
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