Tooth have built a reputation as one of London’s most promising new indie rock bands by word of mouth, offering very little for the internet to hold onto. From handing out self-made zines at gigs to posting free CDs of live recordings, the London four-piece have taken a stubbornly old-school path: no official releases, no teaser drops, no TikToks telling us why we should listen to them. Now, though, the moment to release has arrived, and their forthcoming track ‘Age of Innocence’ stands as one of the most convincing debut singles in recent memory – an immediate statement, raw, energetic and tightly written. We caught up with lead singer Tom Pollock, drummer Roy Lowe and guitarist Ben Ashley at their secret show at Notting Hill Arts Club to talk about “losing sight of the music” in their former band, finding their footing in the London scene, and why they love the DIY approach.
The release of your debut single, ‘Age of Innocence’, has finally been announced. How does it feel to be so close after such a long wait?
Tom: It’s a big, big relief. It feels like we’ve played a million times in the last two years, and to seemingly no avail at the beginning. Now that all that hard work is finally coming to some fruition is really nice – it’s very, very fulfilling. We’ve grown up with these songs so the fact we’ve recorded it and we’re happy with it and it’s coming out is just so exciting.
Roy: It’s also the first song we finished with Tooth, so we’ve sat with it for so long and we’ve got this far – like, we’re able to play shows to people who come intentionally to see us, so it feels real now and I can’t wait for it to be an official thing. It feels like we can move on, we’ve got stuff coming up that’s really exciting. New gen.
You’ve been playing ‘Age of Innocence’ and the other new songs live for a while now. Have they changed at all from how you first performed them on stage to the versions you recorded in the studio?
Tom: Lots of them have, yeah. Schoolyard has literally seen about a million different iterations, but Age of Innocence was, strangely, the one that had the least changes. There were a couple of tweaks that we made for the recorded version that’s coming out, but it mostly stayed the exact same since we wrote it. Which has been nice because it was written at a time when we were about to leave school and it felt like we were saying goodbye to a certain part of our life, so it was kind of a reflection on our teenage years and stuff. It felt like both the end and the start of something.
Tooth was originally The Aftercare before you restarted. What made you want to change?
Tom: I think by the end of The Aftercare, we’d essentially lost sight of the music. We’d fallen deep into the realm of TikTok band, we’d achieved quite a lot of momentum on TikTok and decided that if we wanted to pursue music credibly and actually have some kind of integrity within our music, we wanted to like start afresh and rid ourselves of any associations with the kind of Tiktok rabble. So we decided to rebrand, took a hiatus while we were doing our A-levels and settled on the name Tooth and started again.
Roy: I did the last Aftercare show and then Tooth became a thing, and I think during that transition, everyone realised that the music that you’re making wasn’t really the music you were listening to. So it took a big transition and we went through trials and tribulations with a label, we got our first manager and things, and then we just started being like, fuck that, let’s make music we like rather than music that other people like.
Tom: There were about a million things that got in the way of us actually focusing on the music. It was a really important period because it helped us regain focus on the most important bit of being a band, which is writing songs, playing together and, you know, making music that we all love. So that transition basically reignited the flame of why we wanted to be in a band.
You all grew up in London and are still based here, what’s your experience of being an upcoming independent band in London?
Roy: It’s fucking amazing. To be so privileged to have grown up in such an amazing, world-renowned city, and then as you leave school, you venture further out from where you’ve grown up – I’m from West London, nothing happens there so I spent my life on the train and you get to go to all these places, all the classic sort of small independent venues and see all these people who are making music as a scene.
Off the back of bands like Black Midi, who we love, and Black Country, New Road and all the bait ones, you get bands like, well Tom lives with a band called Morn who we really like. And Uncle Junior and Man/Woman/Chainsaw are friends of ours – I would say friends of ours?
Tom: I live with them so I’d hope so.
Roy: Friends of ours who are making all this really cool shit, and it’s very freeing because a lot of the music is about transitioning from being a kid into growing up into this busy city where you’ve got to be independent, so it’s amazing to travel around and discover parts of your home and yourself.
Tom: For me, it was super exciting because when we first left school and rebranded as Tooth, we said we were going to dive headfirst into the London music scene and play every gig we got offered. Through playing all these venues we met so many amazing people and bands, and it was such an inspiring journey because you meet all these people that are in the same boat as you, writing songs and trying to pursue music. There’s a kinship there and now all of my best friends are people I met in the last two years, just through playing shows and hanging out with people who are also in bands.
Roy: There’s a real kind of energy in London that’s really nice to be around. People who share the perspective, it’s very important. A lot of people who aren’t from London look down on it as quite a snobby, uppity place, but when you’re from London, you really have an appreciation for how amazing and accessible it makes being in a band. There’s so many venues, so many bands to play with – it just makes it so fun. And it’s cool to see the people who cut through. We’re rambling.
It feels like things have grown a lot for Tooth in the past few months – selling out the Lexington, the videos of your Christmas headline, increasing talk online. How does it feel to see the band grow after being part of it for so long?
Tom: It’s obviously exciting and it’s nice that there’s a kind of, I guess, buzz around it, but in all honesty, I’m still looking to what we’re wanting to do next in terms of writing new songs and which directions we want to go creatively, what kind of ambitions we have within our music. That’s kind of where my focus is mostly, which has actually surprised me because when I was a teenager, I just loved the idea of being in a band but now that I’m actually there, I’m wanting to make sure that it’s as good as possible.
Roy: It becomes less what it looks like and more self-fulfilling once you realise there’s people who actually care enough to buy a ticket and stand there and watch you do your thing, which we’re kind of all like working out ourselves. So that is such a nice scaffold for what we can build on, it’s very reassuring. From now it’s in our hands to see where it goes, now all the songs are coming out and it’s a real thing.
Tom: I’m just excited for where we go musically – my favourite thing in the world is writing music with Tooth, it’s the most fulfilling thing in my life so I’m just excited for where it goes next. That’s where my mind is at least.
A lot of people are probably drawn to Tooth because of your DIY, community ethos – the zines at shows, sending out free CDs. What is it about that community element that makes it worth doing, even if it means losing money?
Tom: With the zines at least, it’s less so money it’s more just the time and effort. I hand make them all and then photocopy them, but to be honest, I just love doing it. It’s really, really fun, and I love creating this tangible thing that is representative of our band. The creation of that was mostly just for my own amusement, but handing them out and seeing how excited people get when they have something tangible to take home with them is really rewarding.
Roy: And we love badges and little trinkets and stuff, and there are lots of bands that we love where that was the thing, that was how you spread the word. There wasn’t Instagram, it was
things to remember someone by. So I think Tom has been amazing making the zines and they are lovely, my mum is begging me for one. Even if it gets chucked in a box and forgotten about, it’s a nice thing. The fact you’ve asked the question means something, so that’s cool.
Tooth formed a little over two years ago. What have you learned in that time, and how has the band developed?
Tom: For me, I think my visions of what being in a band was wasn’t as pure back then. I was more focused on measures of success – ‘can we sell out this venue?’ – and now as we’ve started developing, I’ve come to realise that the most important thing beyond anything else is just making music that we love. As long as we’re doing that, everything else feels less important. The main thing is making sure that we’re all happy with the songs that we’re writing, and we’re all collaborating well together – that’s the main thing I’ve learned.
Roy: I’d say communication gets better as well because Tooth started at a point in our lives where there was such a weird transition of time. I met the boys from a different school, so we were becoming friends at the same time as transitioning into this new period and getting to know each other. And now I feel like I understand all of them more than they know. We have more trust in each other, and it’s become less of, ‘yeah, I’m in a rock band’, and more like, yeah, I’m in a band with my friends. It’s a trust circle, and a place to vent.
Tooth formed two years ago, where do you see Tooth two years in the future? What would you like to have achieved?
Roy: What a queue. Go on Ben, see it off.
Ben: It would be a privilege if we’re still playing together. To be honest, I don’t care what stage it’s in, even if it’s back in your basement.
Tom: I love that. If we’re able to still get together in a room and still love it as much as we do right now, that’s a success.
Ben: We’ve seen a lot of bands that came up with us at a similar time, and they haven’t been able to just continue playing together as life’s got in the way. As long as that doesn’t happen, I’ll be happy.
Roy: I completely agree. I think we’d have a really good time if we got to properly tour. When we’re in the latter hours of a night, that is a conversation that always crops up. But as long as we’re able to still do it, people still care, we still care, we still like each other – that’s the most important thing. I think with being in a band, you don’t start doing it thinking about the security of it, you do it because you love it. So if we’re able to maintain that love, then that’s a success.
Words: Donovan Livesey Photos: @syds.celluloids
