Leeds newcomers Bathing Suits are blasting out a fearless mash-up of screeching noise-rock and ribcage-shaking techno, all dressed up in the glossy hooks of late-00s pop. Born from the hedonism of indie sleaze, they’ve cranked the dancier side of post-punk up to full volume. We caught up with Freyja Blevins (drum machine/vocals), George Dickinson (guitar), Alex Mulholland (guitar), and Elise Hughes (bass) in the noisy Old Blue Last bar just before they played upstairs to celebrate their new dance-punk banger ‘iCanBeAFreak’. We talked everything from the story behind the iconic bathing suit and how Leeds shaped their sound to the onstage fight that went too far…
When and how did Bathing Suits come about?
Elise: Well, we all went to uni together in the same year, and we met Freyja because me and Alex were running a promotion company and we booked Freyja’s old band. We were mutual friends, and they were about to move up to Leeds. A friend was like, “Yo, check out this band, they’d go really well on your line-up.” So I was like, “Yo, that shit’s sick,” and I booked Freyja. That band broke up like two days after the show, so we were like, shit, I guess we need a new project – and that’s how we started making music together.
The bathing suit has become such a signature part of your shows. Is it about building a strong visual identity, or more like stepping into a persona when you perform?
Freyja: Well, Alex came up with the name.
Alex: George came up with the name Soft Torture. I had such a guttural anger towards it, I was like we need literally anything but that. So I suggested this, and then we just rolled with it.
Freyja: Yeah, and I was like, you know what, I’m sexy as shit so I can just play in a bathing suit, because our name is Bathing Suits. I love fashion, and I love dressing up. I love cool clothes – bathing suits are lit – so I put a bathing suit on.
Elise: The best bit about your performance style is that you’re exactly the same on stage in a bathing suit as you are in your pyjamas in our kitchen. You’re exactly like that in real life, off stage.
Freyja: Yeah, because my pyjamas are also bathing suits.
Your new track, iCanBeAFreak, is out today. How did it come about, what’s the inspiration?
Freyja: Well, it started when I wrote this song on my computer using the I Can Be A Freak sample. I really liked it, and I was like, okay, I’m going to bring it to the band. We kept it going from there, restructured it a little, and added new parts and shit.
It samples Freak by Estelle, too. I used to be really obsessed with that song when I was in secondary school, and I think I re-listened to it around the time I thought, “The ‘I Can Be A Freak’ bit is really fucking good.” I really wanted to use it in the song because I’d been listening to a couple of tracks that sampled older songs, and I thought it would be cool to do something like that.
There are cassettes of the single available today. Is this the first time your music’s been released physically?
Elise: No, we’ve done a few with a cassette label called Shooting Tzars – they’re really good friends of ours from Leeds. I think the whole idea of doing a physical run is well important, it stops your music just being in control of the internet and Spotify. Shooting Tzars make it so easy as well – they handle a big run of tapes, we sell half, they sell half, and you don’t have to front any money.
Alex: And as a listener, most music, especially from new bands, is digital. So having something physical is nice – it’s a good way to support the band, like buying a tshirt but you also get the bonus of having a physical release.
There’s a lot of other unreleased songs that have been playing live. What made you pick iCanBeAFreak as the next release?
Freyja: I think it’s just because we’ve been playing it for a bit now, and there was a point where we realised it was our favourite song, and it just felt right to do it as the next single. And it’s the one people sing back to us when we play it.
George: Yeah at the Windmill show the other day, everyone was singing it to you before you even started playing.
Freyja: Yeah it’s so catchy, the same line over and over, it’s like a mantra or a chant. I remember a month ago, Maz was filling in on bass and we were running for a bus. We missed it, and we were fucked. But we started chanting, “I can catch my bus, I can I can catch my bus.” You can do it to anything.
Do you have plans for the other unreleased material? Are you thinking about more singles or an EP?
Freyja: With everything we’ve got at the moment, we definitely want to put out an EP. We have a body of work that feels right to release together as one package at some point.
Alex: It’ll also put a full stop on this era. Our newer stuff will probably be a bit softer, longer, more dancey – less of the pop vibe we’ve done before. That’s just the direction the last couple of tracks have hinted at anyway.
When you go to record the EP, your live shows are so intense – how do you replicate that energy in the studio?
Alex: We actually go in the opposite direction, it’s very split into sections and rigidly recorded. We work with DJ Subaru – they’re based in Leeds and takes our absolute guitar songs and turns them into club tracks.
Elise: She very much gets electronic music, so she produces it as a dance track. I mean, we still blast the guitars in the studio, we want that rough, live energy, but it’s more compartmentalised and precise. Live is an explosive wash, while the studio version is a bit more structured.
You’re all from Leeds – how does the city shape your approach or your sound?
Elise: So much, I can’t lie. Leeds is a massive music city with a really big community of people. There are so many genres, bands, and promoters working there. It has a real community vibe in a way that London or other cities don’t — almost like a favours economy.
George: People go out of their way to support each other, especially if they believe in the music. And then you do the same in return. It’s definitely different from London. We’ve really put our teeth into that scene, and I think that smaller, close-knit vibe informs our approach.
You’re headlining the Old Blue Last tonight, do you have any pre-show rituals to get yourselves psyched up?
Elise: Fruit and a Lucozade, probably. I can’t perform hungry, that’s not happening.
Freyja: Getting changed into my bathing suit – that’s my pre-show ritual.
Alex: I like to pace around on my own for a bit, run around. I get kind of twitchy, so I just walk up and down outside for a while.
Where do you see Bathing Suits in a year’s time? What do you want to have achieved?
Alex: Number one album, world tour, Oasis opening for us – and then we can break up, not go on stage, have a fist fight. And then we all hate each other afterwards.
Freyja: Speaking of fist fights, there was this one gig in Leeds. Alex had pushed both me and Elise, and I went over the sound desk. It pissed me off so much that I grabbed him by the collar and threw him over the PA, it was so bad.
Elise: We used to fight on stage a lot, but this gig was different – we had to kill it because we were getting hurt and breaking stuff. My amp fell off a huge podium, my pedal went flying, and Alex’s shirt was completely ripped. This was the gig where we were like, yo, we’ve got to stop it, it’s going too far.
At one point, we were supporting The Armed in Leeds and they had this massive drum rig. We were doing the fighting thing and I went flying into the rig and knocked all the drums over. They were on tour from America so if we’d broken their gear, they would’ve been fucked – but it was alright in the end.
Words: Donovan Livesey Photo: Matt Auger