Those ideas are just the tip of the iceberg on \u2018You\u2019re Gonna Need A Little Music\u2019 \u2013 the quartet\u2019s most sonically confident and adventurous record to date, but also their most outward-looking and existential. Where 2024\u2019s \u2018Where\u2019s My Utopia?\u2019<\/a> saw them wrestling with the sudden success that their Mercury-nominated debut \u2018The Overload\u2019<\/a> afforded them, on their latest we find Smith facing \u201cthe hangover after a very wild ride\u201d of the band\u2019s story so far, set against a backdrop of rampant capitalism, institutional corruption, and a society rooted in selfishness and solipsism.<\/p>\n The timing of today\u2019s conversation feels fitting, and not just because Smith (who recently started sharing his paintings on Instagram as @mrmuckybrushes) is riding high from the thrill of seeing his work displayed as part of the prestigious RA Summer Exhibition: proof of the giddy kicks that following your creative nose can get you. As the UK erupts into a climate disaster-based ball of flames, and with Keir Starmer\u2019s resignation as Prime Minister igniting yet more political upheaval, \u2018You\u2019re Gonna Need A Little Music\u2019\u2019s titular message of art as a salve and a place of sanity seems more appropriate than ever.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all coming together as we planned\u2026\u201d Smith jokes wryly, before referencing Starmer\u2019s slated successor. \u201cMaybe Andy Burnham will use [recent single] \u2018New Beginnings\u2019 on his campaign trail like D:Ream<\/a> and \u2018Things Can Only Get Better\u2019\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018New Beginnings\u2019 opens with an insatiable Beck<\/a>-like swagger, proclaiming that \u201csociety has not been kind to my efforts\u201d. However, when Yard Act came crashing onto the scene during the pandemic, the public immediately lapped them up. \u2018Where\u2019s My Utopia?\u2019 hit the UK Number Four spot, maintaining their success at a similar level, but Smith nonetheless found his perceptions heading into a tailspin. \u201cIt was almost like\u2026 are we failing?\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd we weren\u2019t, but \u2018The Overload\u2019 happened at such an intense level that most bands don\u2019t ever reach and you can\u2019t repeat that excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n Chasing the next big milestone, he soon began to realise, \u201ccan end up changing the way you do things to appease the commercial ambition in you, and then you lose a sense of why you did it in the first place. Eventually there\u2019s nowhere to go. What does Dave Grohl<\/a> actually achieve by doing another stadium tour?\u201d the frontman questions. \u201cDoing this has to be about the avenues you can explore creatively.\u201d<\/p>\n To ensure their priorities were straight on LP3, the quartet did everything differently. They moved into their own studio in Leeds, spent months playing around with ideas, and recorded together as a live band for the first time ever. For Yard Act, resisting the looming pull of external validation became about keeping things fun and pure. But as the snarling prowl of \u2018Thrill Of The Chase\u2019\u2019s ferocious lyrics argue, \u201cthe chase is just a ploy to keep us in our place\u201d \u2013 no matter what world you find yourself in. \u201cIt\u2019s a merry-go-round. It\u2019ll lead you nowhere. You cannot win. And the people at the top of society have realised that, and now they\u2019re trying to get to space because what else is there to do?\u201d the frontman sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe division of the left is harrowing. We can\u2019t agree on anything\u201d\u00a0\u2013\u00a0James Smith<\/p>\n Boil down the problems in most industries, says Smith, and \u201cit\u2019s just capitalism\u201d. \u201cI think the only way forward is a universal basic income,\u201d he suggests. \u201cThe reason we\u2019re trying to reach such a big audience is because we know how big the audience needs to be to pay four people\u2019s wages. If we didn\u2019t have that pressure we wouldn\u2019t even be thinking about the metrics of success; we\u2019d just be doing our own thing. It\u2019s all part of the shackles of capitalism. And it\u2019s any industry \u2013 it\u2019s not just the music industry that has a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of writing, MP and former Greater Manchester mayor Burnham seems like a shoo-in to step into 10 Downing Street. With his policies on devolution, shifting power back to local authorities, there are ideas here that could align with the band\u2019s thinking, but Smith is still hesitant. \u201cI would have many issues with him; I would not be celebrating, but I absolutely know with certainty that whilst we live in a first-past-the-post system \u2013 and whilst Zack Polanski is not polling [well enough] \u2013 I would do anything to keep fascists out,\u201d Smith says. \u201cThe division of the left is harrowing. We can\u2019t agree on anything. I do not see Andy Burnham as a shining beacon of hope, but I do see Nigel Farage as a dark, dark entity that must be struck out at all costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Away from Whitehall, however, there have been efforts in recent years to pull the music industry out of its historic London centralism. The BRIT Awards will return to Manchester<\/a> for a second time next year, while the Mercury Prize will return to Newcastle<\/a> in October. Smith notes that the changes still need to be coming from a \u201cmore grassroots level if you want true regional diversity\u201d, but the conversations seem like a move in the right direction.<\/p>\n Both band members recall the difficulties they had in believing that, as people from regional northern areas, they could have a place in the music world. \u201cIt\u2019s a product of our upbringing. All four of us come from small towns \u2013 Derby, Warrington, Northampton, Sam\u2019s from somewhere near the Isle of Man. It\u2019s kind of hammered into you [in those places] that this is something that other people do,\u201d Needham says.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the second album, Remi [Kabaka Jr, co-producer] basically told us to believe in ourselves and accept that we were artists because we kept making self-deprecating comments in the studio,\u201d Smith recalls. \u201cHe was basically like, \u2018I know you have imposter syndrome, but you are artists, and you\u2019re allowed to be artists, and you\u2019re allowed to create what you want\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a shift in mindset that\u2019s central to \u2018You\u2019re Gonna Need A Little Music\u2019. Exploratory and audibly excited, Yard Act\u2019s third is the sound of a band shaking off any shackles of expectation and revelling in the joy of possibility. They might be asking bigger, deeper questions than ever, but the four musicians have also unwittingly provided a possible answer. How do you make sense of a world that increasingly makes no sense at all? You hunker down with your mates, create the most interconnected, enlivened music of your careers and remind everyone just how good it can be when people work together and share the spoils.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic and art in general, it\u2019s the third reality you can exist in. The first one is the world physically as we see it. The second is the one in your head, and your thoughts and feelings. And then, when you make something, it lives in that strange third space where, if you do it right, it can shift someone else\u2019s perspective even though you have no control of it. That\u2019s how I feel when I make music; I feel like I\u2019ve escaped reality,\u201d says Smith. Needham nods: \u201cIt\u2019s a world that I trust. I don\u2019t trust the fucking news cycle and the post-truth-ness of all that. I don\u2019t trust my own thoughts sometimes, but I trust artists. I just do.\u201d<\/p>\n Yard Act\u2019s \u2018You\u2019re Gonna Need A Little Music\u2019 is out on July 17 via Island Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s been a big week!\u201d declares James Smith, sat in a precious patch of Kings Cross shade in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,16127,216],"class_list":["post-762178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-indie","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Yard](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/yard-act-album-interview-credit-james-winstanley.jpg\")
Yard Act credit: James Winstanley<\/p>\n