{"id":941299,"date":"2026-05-06T10:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941299\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T10:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:07:16","slug":"villanelle-are-becoming-rocknroll-stars-in-their-own-grungy-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941299\/","title":{"rendered":"Villanelle are becoming rock’n’roll stars in their own grungy image"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI<\/strong>t\u2019s going incredible!\u201d bursts Gene Gallagher, leaning back on a sofa with his arms behind his head. The nonchalant ease with which he presents himself certainly reminds us of a certain someone, with his rock\u2018n\u2019roll air completed by some oversized fly-eyed Kurt Cobain<\/a>-esque sunglasses. Joined by his bandmates, guitarist Ben Taylor and bassist Jack Schiavo, the three pals chatting to us from the basement of their label offices seem a really tight unit considering they only met through a chance encounter in the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n

Since then, the NME 100<\/a> stars have been building up their scuzzy sound, as showcased in the early Nirvana<\/a>-indebted debut single \u2018Hinge<\/a>\u2019. As you might have guessed from that song, Villanelle<\/a> prefer to rock out rather than get their Britpop on. It\u2019s an approach that\u2019s found them a camp of fans of their own, assisted by some pretty relentless touring of late. When NME speaks to them in early April, they\u2019ve recently come off the road with Miles Kane<\/a>. \u201cIt was great, man,\u201d Schiavo says. \u201cWe were playing the Academies and those kinds of places. It was great to be doing that and trying to collect some more fans as we hadn\u2019t done a support slot for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane and a Gallagher on the road together might sound like the perfect recipe for chaos, but the trio say that wasn\u2019t exactly the case, with their headliner \u201con the waters\u201d rather than the sauce. \u201cI was desperately trying to corrupt him, but he was unflappable,\u201d the bassist says. \u201cGene was sober the whole tour because he was on antibiotics, so me and Ben were drinking for three.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Still, that didn\u2019t stop Gallagher from living up to his family name in some way by staying up all night. \u201cHe\u2019d remember everything we\u2019d been up to and we wouldn\u2019t necessarily, so he\u2019d always have something over us the next day,\u201d says Schiavo, as Taylor shares: \u201cMe and Jack were acting like all three of us were drinking, because we normally are, then the next day Gene would be like, \u2018Do you remember when you did that\u2026?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

They compare him to the physical embodiment of a hangover, while Gallagher admits to being their \u201csleep paralysis demon\u201d. His vice on the road was staying up all hours \u201cfishing and making sushi\u201d on his favourite game, Dave The Diver, on his Steam Deck. If his bandmates dared to stop the party and retire, he\u2019d call them out. \u201cYou can\u2019t be going to bed when I\u2019m fishing, bro,\u201d he says, shaking his head.<\/p>\n

Still, Gallagher did at least get on it when they played the \u2018Punchbag\u2019 tour of uni venues<\/a> last year \u2013 a run that meant a lot to them in a bid to \u201cbring to light a just cause of trying to get band music back into university culture\u201d. It was a gruelling run, they say, but one that brought them up close and personal to their late teen and early twenty-something rock fans. \u201cYou see the whites of their eyes, you can see their reaction to what you\u2019re doing, and it really can be fulfilling,\u201d says Taylor. \u201cThere are so many degrees of separation when you\u2019re playing arenas. If they\u2019re yawning, then you can\u2019t really tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gene shares a memory of a gig in Leeds where he briefly lost his mojo when he spied someone in the crowd scrolling Instagram reels. \u201cThat is peak,\u201d he smiles, \u201cand fair, because I would do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d scroll through reels on stage if you could \u2013 even between songs,\u201d Taylor ribs his pal. Just wait until you see someone chopping up a tuna on Dave The Diver at the next gig. \u201cThat\u2019s just pathetic!\u201d laughs Gallagher. \u201cHaving a Steam Deck in the crowd?\u201d Imagine.<\/p>\n

\"Villanelle,Villanelle, 2026. Credit: Simon Emmett<\/p>\n

N<\/strong>ot many bands of their age have played such a variety of stages, but Villanelle were given a proper baptism of fire when Liam Gallagher<\/a> invited them to be the opener on his 2024 anniversary tour<\/a> of Oasis<\/a>\u2019 \u2018Definitely Maybe\u2019. The gigs were their first-ever shows. \u201cIf you\u2019re about this life and you want to do it, then fucking do it, right?\u201d relays Gene of his dad\u2019s offer. \u201cWe look back now, having got a little bit more experience behind us, [and] it felt insane, but we weren\u2019t so aware of what was going on at the time,\u201d admits Taylor. \u201cIt was slapdash, and we were doing it off our own backs. Now we\u2019re doing smaller gigs, but we\u2019ve got a tour manager, a guitar tech and all this. It was blissful ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not feeling part of The Windmill\u2019s talky art rock crowd or like they fit into any other indie pockets, the threesome say they\u2019ve been gigging in a bid to \u201ccarve out their own scene\u201d. As they\u2019ve toured, they\u2019ve noticed a younger generation\u2019s ever-increasing thirst for harder and heavier sounds. \u201cThere\u2019s a hunger for a previous age of rock that\u2019s definitely coming back,\u201d says Taylor. \u201cYou\u2019ve got Deftones and Oasis, but they\u2019ve paved the way for the new wave of music, which we\u2019re hoping to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do their fans have a name yet, like \u2018Swifties\u2019? \u201cNah,\u201d shrugs Gallagher, \u201cthey\u2019re just called \u2018absolute fucking legends\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AFL team will have been eagerly awaiting the release of the band\u2019s debut EP \u2018Measly Means\u2019: a gnarly dose of Smashing Pumpkins<\/a> and Black Sabbath<\/a> with a truck full of \u201890s colour and swagger, and probably more \u201cgrebo\u201d than anything LG would have gone near back in the day. From the paranoid and chugging title track to the more introspective scuzzy ballad of \u2018Squeeze\u2019, it\u2019s an EP bursting with energy and ambition, perhaps best told by Gallagher in \u2018Opportunity\u2019 when he mourns days lost to \u201csitting facing backwards\u201d. \u201cThat song\u2019s just about getting your shit together,\u201d he shares.<\/p>\n

That seems to be the band\u2019s MO right now, already working on their second EP, with some big ideas being held back for an eventual album. There\u2019s no rush, mind. \u201cI\u2019m like a footballer, man,\u201d he adds. \u201cI take it game by game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPeople know who Gene is. We\u2019re a band that own that and appreciate everything that\u2019s coming from that, but we also work extremely hard at the same time\u201d \u2013 Ben Taylor<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With the simple drive to keep \u201cspunking out tunes,\u201d as Gallagher puts it, Villanelle feel like they have little to prove, especially in the face of the inevitable \u201cnepo baby\u201d discussion. \u201cWe\u2019ve never not been open,\u201d says Taylor of the elephant in the room. \u201cWe\u2019ve always just said what we are. People know who Gene is. We\u2019re a band that own that and appreciate everything that\u2019s coming from that, but we also work extremely hard at the same time. People can not like the music, but we\u2019re making music that we really enjoy. We work really hard in the studio, and it\u2019s something we take a great deal of pride [in].\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher agrees: \u201cI\u2019ve always stuck to the ethos of doing stuff that I like and that we like, because then it never gets old. If you start listening to what other people say, then you\u2019re just going to drive yourself fucking crazy. As long as I like what we put out as a band, then I\u2019ll never get bored of it and keep that drive forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding that they\u2019re \u201cnot trying to be some pop band\u201d, Gallagher says that he has no interest in returning to the arenas from the \u2018Definitely Maybe\u2019 tour. \u201cI was happy just to play The Lexington because I used to go there all the time,\u201d he says, beaming. \u201cThat\u2019s my one little box that\u2019s been ticked now, so all this afterwards is just fine. I\u2019ve officially made it, lads!\u201d<\/p>\n

Villanelle\u2019s \u2018Measly Means\u2019 EP is out on May 6. The band play The Great Escape<\/a> on May 15<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s going incredible!\u201d bursts Gene Gallagher, leaning back on a sofa with his arms behind his head. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,453,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-941299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-rock","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116527082126257368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}