Off the back of an electrifying Get Together performance, Exposed caught up with Sheffield noise punks Drastic Automatic to talk house fires, nuclear war and the health of the Sheffield music scene…
Banging down a pub door ahead of opening time wasn’t quite how we envisaged our meeting with Sheffield three-piece Drastic Automatic, but, as The Closed Shop, in Commonside, had err… closed up shop, we hastily relocated round the corner to the Springvale pub, where thankfully there were (faint) signs of life.
In a way it was a fitting start to a meeting with a band who describe their output as ‘music for people who are always running late’ and, once the landlady had begrudgingly let us and the local early boozers in, we settled in the beer garden to catch a glimpse into the world of the dystopian tune merchants.
Drastic Automatics (r-l): Benji Wilson (Drums), Sean Hession (Vocals), and Sissy Green (Bass). Photo credit: Liaaaaatgigs (Lia Qin)
While they might be fresh on our radar, the current incarnation of the band, which features Sean Hession (Vocals), Benji Wilson (Drums), and Sissy Green (Bass), has actually been knocking around since 2020, with Sissy telling us they ‘had more line-up changes than the Sugarbabes!’ before he joined.
Ever-presents Sean and Benji met while studying at the University of Sheffield, striking up a musical kinship through the uni’s Music Society. The pair then began jamming and eventually writing songs together under various, interestingly named guises in 2016.
“It’s the first band I’ve ever had”, says Sean, “It’s not only been me learning how to play live though, Benji didn’t even play drums when we first started jamming, he was a bassist.”
Benji adds: “The drummer quit, and we couldn’t find another one, so I thought, I better learn!”
Photo credit: Soph Webb
Sissy started uni the year before and wound up living with Sean in halls in 2016; In his possession was the cultural capital of a fully functioning guitar amp and after borrowing it for a few years Sean and Benji finally asked Sissy to join in 2020, cementing the current line-up.
“I used to be into DJing and clubbing, and I still am,” explains Sissy, “but I had this amp that I didn’t play, and they knew that, so they’d come round and be like, ‘Can I borrow it please? Promise to bring it back.’
“They were called the Gareth Barry’s at that time and were making the ‘Whale Milk Demos’, and I was like, ‘please let me be in this band’, and, eventually, they did.”
Sean added: “We couldn’t find a bassist to fit the sound, or one that was committed enough to keep playing, so in the end, I was like, fuck it, Sissy, can you just come and play?”
Drastic Automatic’s bassist Sissy Green. Photo credit: @jacob_flannery_
Sissy duly borrowed his brother’s bass guitar, started lending pedals, ‘smacked it and whacked it’, until he had some riffs and thus, Drastic Automatic was born.
Sissy admits: “I’m not the most technically gifted, but I’ve got the rhythm in me. I like to play bass like a guitar and turn up the high end.”
Sean adds: “That’s kind of our ethos when it comes to making music together. I don’t know anything about music theory. The only instrument lessons I’ve ever had were on drums when I was a little kid, but I lived in terraced housing in London, so the neighbours got really pissed off.
“We’ve all learnt without thinking too much about how it’s supposed to sound. That’s why a lot of our music has these segments that are sort of just noise or abstract components.”
Photo credit: Soph Webb
Their unique sound was cultivated during lockdown, in the abandoned, former home of Sheffield nightlife landmark, The Night Kitchen.
Benji said: “It’d been left to rot. There were holes in the floor and we were risking bronchitis from the mould. It was eerie and creepy, lots of silence – basically, it was just right for us to make music.”
Sean says: “At the time, it was fundamental to how the music sounded. Everyone was struggling mentally because of the lockdowns, and it became a place we could go once a week and be really fucking loud. It was a release.”
For Sean in particular, it provided some much-needed stability and focus at time when his life had been thrown into chaos.
Sean explains: “I had loads of crazy stuff happening in my life at the time. I was in a fire at my old student house in Broomhill. The equipment was really old, and it just caught fire one day. After that, I had this year of chaos and was living a little bit homeless.
“In a way it kind of incentivised me. I’d never played a gig live and me and Benji had been playing together for years. I was like, I need to actually do this now. I want to make tunes and play them to people.”
photo credit: Liaaaaatgigs (Lia Qin)
Following the lockdowns, they finally got their chance to get up on stage, however, in keeping with Drastic Automatic’s chaotic style, it wasn’t always plain sailing.
“We genuinely thought we were cursed for a while.” Says Sissy.
Sean explains: “We’ve played nearly 20 shows now, but in a good proportion of the early ones something unexpected always happened. My very first show was at The Washington and my guitar just broke on the second to last tune.”
“It’s often been conducive to having a good show though.” adds Benji, “It happened in Nottingham, where the guitar just completely broke in the final song. Sean just threw it to the floor, grabbed the mic stand and kicked it over. He was doing it because he was pissed off, not because he wanted to put on a show, but the crowd just thought, ‘this is sick!’”
Now, with more gigs under their belt, they’ve begun to hone their stagecraft, displaying this newfound confidence at a recent Get Together performance. For us, they were the unexpected highlight of the day, setting the festival alight (thankfully, not literally) to a packed-out audience, who, by the second half of their set, were moshing amongst the dartboards of Neepsend Social Club to their almost unrecognisable cover of ‘Where’s Your Head At’ and original stompers like ‘The Cup Final’.
Photo credit: Jam Burrito
Get Together was easily their biggest show to date in their adopted hometown of Sheffield, a city they fell in love with in the years through uni and beyond.
Sean tells us why: “Sheffield is a great place to be in a band if you just want to make music.”
“It’s always had that spirit.” says Sissy, “the whole DIY scene and everyone helping each other – It’s got a collaborative spirit.”
Benji adds: “The band scene has come into its own since COVID. Loads of good bands, who were there before, had two years to properly hone their craft and now they’re really good.
“Sheffield often gets ignored by the touring band circuit. The silver lining of that is that local bands have to be really good.”
Drastic Automatic at Get Together. Photo credit: @jacob_flannery_
With momentum steadily building, last year they released the first of four singles, A Smash Hit for the People, a cheery reminder of the ever-present threat of nuclear war.
Sean tells us: “The first version of that tune was written when there was a lot of tension between Iran and America, and potential nuclear fallout. I was trying to write lyrics based on the headlines and the media sensationalism around it.
“When we eventually released it, Vladimir Putin was arming up Belarus and it was around the time of the war in Ukraine, so it still seemed depressingly relevant.”
Benji added: “We’d always written songs about dystopia and apocalypse, and then COVID happened. We’d walk to the studio and there was just no one anywhere. Like full on Apocalypse Sheffield. The songs made even more sense.”
Sissy quips: “We write songs about dystopia – the pandemic happens. We write songs about nuclear war and Ukraine happens, maybe we should be more careful what we write about.”
“Maybe world peace, or financial stability?” offers Benji.
Between the band members, musical tastes vary wildly, with everything from trap and early noughties rap, to psyche rock and hardcore represented. Some of these influences are overtly reflected in the sound, and they often get compared to Gang of Four, but as a collective, the band they most wanted to emulate,at the outset, was Modest Mouse.
Sean said: “The thing about the bands we get mentioned alongside is that their rhythmically driven punk bands. We wanted to make music, not necessarily that you can dance to, but that you can move to. You can get lost in it. It’s quite hypnotising at times.
“We’re making music that we would want to go and see.”
With that in mind, the band have been considering the next iteration of their sound while recording tracks for an EP, which will include previous singles and new material recorded in Wolverhampton with Thom Edward (formerly of God Damn).
“Our new sound and songs are gonna be getting louder, and we’re getting even more intense. We’re trying to break the boundaries of our sound. It’s definitely still our style, we still sounding like Drastic Automatic, but it’s just even more wild. We’ve got a few new tracks penned and they just need refining. They’re nearly there.”
In the meantime, you can get hold of their new single Ravenscourt Park, 2004, this Friday (23 June), or catch them at Tuned in Festival, at Sheffield’s Sidney and Matilda, this Saturday (24th June).
