Interview: Two Pound Tea (Written)

Two Pound Tea (2£T) are a punk rock band about to release their new album. The first single, ‘Generation Medicate’ is out now, and in this interview we get to know them a little better.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

No worries! My name’s Will Pye, I’m the lead singer of 2£T – a band started by our current bassist and my oldest friend, Jimi Chialoufas, our former drummer and still good friend, Dan Davies and Jimi’s brother and our still sometime collaborator, Marshall way back in 2017. I joined later in the year when they realised they weren’t nearly talented enough to be an instrumental band.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

Punk, but mainly because that’s easiest and espouses our ethos. There’s elements of grunge in there, as well as what I suppose would be considered classic rock even though that makes me cringe a bit – we’re definitely more like The Clash than the fucking Eagles.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We’ve finished our (not so difficult) second album and our talented producer has been tweaking the tracks with our input. Our first single, Generation Medicate is out and doing pretty well. As for tours we’re not currently throwing ourselves in to gigging and letting the music stand on its own two feet. Jimi and his partner have just had their second child, our guitarist Troy has about a dozen other bands he’s in and as sad as it is (especially from a self-proclaimed Punk), I’m having to focus on work that pays. That’s depressing isn’t it?

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

Reactions from public, especially people who only come in to contact with us through our music. It’s easy to get down on yourself and wonder who you’re doing this for at times but even just by listening and sticking with our stuff, you get a powerful reminder. I particularly love it when older, OG punks tell me we remind them of ‘the good old days’, our stuff isn’t just for them but the energy we want to give is heavily influenced by their era. In an age where apathy is everywhere, we want you to get fucking angry!

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

For me it’s probably the ability to fully commit. I love working, performing and recording songs but living the other side of London to the rest of the band means even rehearsals can be too hard for me to make, not great from your lead man! But when we need to, we make sure we put the hours in, we just have to be careful we don’t overpromise for fear of under-delivering. Hence, the current hiatus on gigs.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

I’ll be honest with you, Jimi is our media manager and I just post band stuff when we’ve got gigs or releases coming out. The only reason I’m doing this interview is so all our interviews aren’t in his words, that way madness lives! In all seriousness, it’s a shame that things like follows and likes are what people are looking at rather than performances and musical output. Could we play the game a bit better? Maybe but would we be any happier? Doubt it.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

The ever shrinking amount of music venues across the country, all tied in to extortionate rents and ridiculous noise complaints. More financial help needs to be given to things like pubs, bars and clubs. If this carries on there’ll be no where for bands to play as well as friends to socialise on Friday, Saturday nights and we’ll all waste our lives away alone on our sofas, with Ant and Dec providing the soundtrack we fade in to obscurity to. Something like that anyway!

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

Tell your friends, do all that liking, following and subscribing. Follow us on socials, just because I don’t play the game doesn’t mean you can’t. Play our stuff at parties, in the taxi home, at record executives houses.

9. Outside of the music, what’s do you do to relax?

I’m making sure I give myself more time to read, which I love. Outside of that I listen to music, watch good TV (Shogun being my current recommendation), watch football and go to the theatre when I can, although working on it can make it hard to get time to go.

10. Where can people find you?

Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter