With new album ‘The People’s Cub’ out now and gig’s in London .
Sometimes London based three-piece Best Band’s band name genuinely angers people and they think that the band are being cocky and are exclaiming that they are the ‘best band’ ever created. However, the name came about after drummer Simon and guitarist Richard were inspired both personally and creatively with the goal to make the ‘best band’ that they possibly could.
The pair first met as members of improvised band ‘Improvisi’ and then they formed ‘Baffy’, a surreal band with a dada approach and a failed musical. Then came punk / free jazz band ‘Madchen 84’ and instrumental / experimental project ‘Stan Dingwater’. ‘Best Band’, however is the evolution of these previous incarnations, with the name being a triumphant marker of Simon and Richard’s journey to date.
“It was always a dream to do this- the “best band” that we could make”, explains Simon. “After failing many times to try and find singers and band members for all the cool instrumentals Richard makes, eventually after some debating and persuasion, I just said, “Fuck it, I’ll sing and put poems to it”, which makes things easier for everyone. We are finally living our dream, with also Cai, who was the ONLY person to answer our advert for bassist”, he further adds.
Musically, Best Band are influenced by post punk, disco and drone rock methods and emerge as an intoxicating blend of outsider pop / avant punk, groove rock, pub rock and weird pop which they themselves describe as ‘Zolo dada no-wave avant bogrock’. The tracks on the ‘The People’s Cub’ all have a looping bassline to make a sort of hypnotizing repetition, instead of conventional verse-chorus-verse changes, which the band find more interesting and fun to play. The People’s Cub himself is a quasi-political figure, with many of the tracks on the album involving creature characters. There’s a flea, a hedgehog, voles, owls, vultures and beasts.
With their drummer also being their singer, Best Band have an unconventional and chaotic presence, both live and in the studio. The three members also span three different generations: one being from Gen Z, one being a millennial and one being from Gen X. It’s an unlikely combination that somehow works awesomely and has given birth to two albums ‘Life as a Baby’ (2024) and ‘Go In Rooms’ (2025), with the third, ‘The Peoples Cub’, now ready to be unveiled.
Overall, the record is a bizarre and surreal journey through Best Band’s own disturbed inner psyche, set within erratic fuzzy rock styles that veer between 70s / 80s punk and 90s lo-fi indie worlds. With its offbeat themes of psychosis, unironic irony, modernity, depression, pathetic love, street nomadism, smelting, the afterlife, bus journeys, dread and defiance, ‘The People’s Cub’ is an excellently odd and candidly potent soundtrack to the times in which we all now live.
For more information visit: www.Bestband.co.uk
