London's shame stick to doing their own thing, falling into genres seemingly by chance. Their last record Food For Worms, released in 2023, is packed with gritty anthems and complicated instrumental patterns to make any music nerd call it edgy and post-punk, but its straightforward lyrics that don't hide their feelings of despair and loneliness expose a surprisingly soft core.
Now two years later, the band is wilder — writing songs that don't adhere to a single genre, tone, or even language — but well-rounded and focused. With Cutthroat, which comes out today via Dead Oceans, it's clear they're not afraid to follow wherever the song leads them. Cohesion comes with a good story told by a skilled band.
Cutthroat is fueled by hunger — a desire for life to get better, for people to be kinder, and for the paradoxes of human behavior be acknowledged, if not resolved. Behind the walls put up by rowdiness, guitar riffs and drum crash outs, and indulgence in humor and flamboyancy, shame writes a delightfully sensitive album. With lyrics written by front man and vocalist Charlie Steen, the new record doesn't distance the band from the world of hypocrites and shams. Instead, it seeks to poke fun at our flaws, direct anger towards the systems that produce the cowards, and just try to enjoy the chaotic bits of life.
Last week, I caught up with Steen to discuss the new record. From its inspirations in Brazilian folk heros, punk anthems, and indie films, to the bits that make it "strange," he offered a little more insight on the paradoxical world of Cutthroat.
This interview was edited lightly for length and clarity.
Victoria from TND: I would love to know a bit more about the album — more precisely, the concept of it. This seems to be a year where a lot of people are producing records that focus on evil, cowardice, anger, and the world being messed up. Where is the band at in terms of reacting to everything that's going on and writing an album that, while it is angry and about awful people, is also very fun and playful with its satirical lyrics?
Charlie Steen: The album is about paradoxes and contradictions, and it definitely contradicts itself — like any living being. It's kind of what you said. Like, it sets its crosshairs on a lot of people, but there's also, at least in some of it, a celebration of life. There's a lyric in “To and Fro” that’s like, “It's not about the greed; it's about the hunger.” I think there are a lot of people who deserve more than what they're getting; they deserve more than what they're shown. And it's that sort of… some of it is looking towards that idea of sorts. Like no, you do deserve a good life — that's the bare minimum. And then with other bits, it's looking at hypocrites and cowardice and stuff like that. You know, telling people to fuck off. And then in others, it's a bit of a celebration of life. I mean, I know there’s this sort of “born to die” spirit and stuff like that.
We were in Ireland recently, and I was doing some press. I grew up Catholic, so there are a few lines [on the album] like “cast the first stone” in “Spartak”, as well as in the albums before, that have always been a kind of reference to that. I was talking to this person in an interview about it, and she was saying that, when she talks to a lot of bands in Dublin, it's interesting to hear about generational Catholicism or religion nowadays, and how we look at it. I grew up with a crucifix on my wall, so that reminder of impeding death is going to do something to you. But then I always remember there's quite nice ways of thinking about that. Funerals and stuff could be a celebration of life instead of a downer. So I hope with some ideas like “born to die,” it's like, you're just here for the ride, you know? You never know when you're going to go.
It's the song “Cowards Around” where I feel like you play with the idea of contradictions a lot. With a lot of statements you make in the first verse, you then go and flip it around in the second. I was wondering where your mind was at with that specific song, why you had this speech song-y, shout-out-the-words, stream of consciousness tone with it.
I thought it was funny to do something that targets everyone. There's a The Fall song — it's my favorite The Fall song — called “The N.W.R.A.”, which is “The North Will Rise Again.” I always just loved the way Mark E. Smith says “cower” in that song. I think it's a word and theme in music I don't hear about that much: just the common hypocrisy of a lot of people. And so, I just thought it was a bit of a funny piss take, as a song going for everyone. But, yeah, it's mostly, you know, politicians and real estate agents, but then also people who got a degree, and people who like people like me.
The “Cowards are real estate agents” line, yeah… That one struck a chord. Real.
Yeah. And people who don't share their drugs!
The record’s lyrics go a bunch of places and take on a lot of forms. Like, “Cutthroat” is full satire, living in this sort of raucous fantasy world, whereas “Spartak” takes on a quieter, more personal angle. As the primary lyricist of the band, how did you go about balancing your own life with these more outsider observations of the world to come up with the conclusion, “The world sucks, a lot of people suck, but also a lot of people are great, and we all deserve better”?
I wrote the majority of the lyrics in the studio while we were recording the album, which I've never done before. I had a lot of ideas and a lot of melodies, but I wanted to just work on it there. And it was kind of a song-by-song basis. It was quite similar to our first album [Songs of Praise] where there are not only a lot of characters on that album but also a lot of personal moments as well. With this one, I was just sort of hyper-fixating on characters. I was interested in conflicted characters, real like Lampião or not.
Like on “Plaster” – I had seen that film Anora, and what I liked is that it's not really about her. You're shown this sort of hyper-materialistic person living in a world very different to mine, and maybe with different goals, different desires, and stuff like that. But there's also a lot of humanity there. So, I liked that idea. I mean, with Anora, you’re watching her like, “You know what? You fucking go!” You're rooting for her even though she might not be the person that you'd hang out with or get to know because the film has given you such good writing and acting. So, I liked that idea of writing characters [like that].
For the other ones I was like, “What does this song feel like?” “Spartak” and stuff just felt a bit more sort of personal, and it felt more straight to the point.
You mentioned “Lampião”, which is my favorite on the album because, I will say, it comes out kind of randomly. I just wanted to pick your brain on using the inspiration of the Brazilian folk hero for the song, as well as this greater trend — because it's something that I've noticed and wanted to ask you about — of a lot of British musicians getting really into Brazilian music for some reason. So, why Brazil, why this specific folk hero, and why write a folksy Brazilian rock song?
My girlfriend's Brazilian, and I was over in São Paulo with her parents. Her mum basically just told me about Lampião and the 20th century in Brazil one day. I'd never heard of him before. To break it down, he was basically the most successful bandit in Brazil's history. He was quite embedded in the culture: there's cordel literature, which features him. There were songs that a person called Volta Seca that are still sung in Brazil. (He joined [Lampião’s] band at age nine, and he was illiterate but wrote two songs, “Mulher Rendeira” and “Acorda Maria Bonita”, which I sing at the beginning [of “Lampião”].)
This is a country that is almost the size of Europe, so I found it very interesting returning to London from that trip and seeing nobody knowing who Lampião or Maria Bonita are — even though it seemed like they knew these Jesse James or Bonnie and Clyde characters, something that's so prominent in Western culture. Also, in the age of information, it was very nice to not discover something through Wikipedia. To be sat at a table and be told this information from what her mom and dad knew, and then be shown all this literature and go out the next day and see his iconography at this ice cream place I went to. It was quite interesting in that way.
But with the Brazilian music, it was quite funny. When I was there, even our manager was like, “Oh yeah, what you going to come back with?” Because I mean, for however long, it's been going on: Rod Stewart stole “If You Think I'm Sexy”, The Doors’ “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” took from Bossa nova, and then “Smoke on the Water” [by Deep Purple] was stolen from Brazil. And so, I think there has been a very, very long history of taking interest in it. And also, when you're over there [in Brazil], music and stuff like that is… Like, that song I sing at the beginning [of “Lampião”]: I definitely don't think we have something like that in England. I mean, maybe we have like, “Ring Around the Rosies”, but here there are many songs that have been passed through generations like that.
And then on top of that, I guess like the cherry on the icing was that I was interested in paradoxes, and here was this amazing example of one, you know? [Lampião] was on the run for basically the entirety of his life, pursued by the entirety of the northeast of the Brazil police force and heavily sent for by the capital. But someone who should have been in hiding regularly did interviews; he would have this photographed taken with people. He was quite a public figure! A documentary crew came and spent a few months in total with his gang. And then there's also the thing of like, some people praise him, and some people consider him a monster. So that was an interesting thing as well: these constant contradictions of someone who you would assume would be very much out of sight, was very much in the public. He also had a connection with a guy called Padre Cícero, who was heavily involved in the Church. So, that's the short but long story.
With “Spartak”, it seems to be much more direct, as it’s coming from a personal place. On top of that, you also directed the music video for the single. What was your vision was for the visual aspect of that, and what did directing the video and having yourself be at the center of it add to the song and the story that you wanted to tell with it?
Yeah, narcissism.
Fair!
Recording with John Congleton, who did [production on] the album… It's cheesy as fuck, but he was very helpful asking us, “What is the identity of every song?” And then with the lyrics, I wanted to do the same thing, you know? I’m better if I have a sketch rather than immediately attempting to do a painting on a white piece of paper.
With “Spartak” in particular, I had the chorus’ lyrics of, “You’re no better than me,” and I was like, “Okay, it's a sort of Pogues-y song.” And then I was like, “Okay, it's like sort of like I'm walking back from a night out and pissed off at these people, cliques, fashionistas, and stuff like that.” I've been in that position many a time, so it wasn't very hard to think about what I wanted to say. The video, then, was basically where I was with the vision of writing the song. So I was like, “Okay well, we could film that easily! Going through London, it might look as interesting, so why don't we do it the way 28 Days Later did it?” [We filmed at] the break of dawn so that London's empty — which, I was born in London, but that was maybe the first time I saw stuff that empty ever. It doesn't come across very well in the video, but the main idea was that everyone has an individual place in the band. A sort of a feeling of outsiders coming together. So it's supposed to be like, an ode to London and friendship and kind of like, you know, all that. Yes.
You guys were at a gig in Dublin recently, and you talked about a bit about that, but the one performance that I'd love to know more about is when you sang alongside Fontaines DC. The album itself also feels like a contemporary album to the music that they're making as well. Could you paint a picture of the collaboration in the scene in general — the rock scene in the UK and Ireland — and how you guys are interacting with other people in the scene and creating this very interesting, almost cohesive sound?
I think it's funny because a lot of people are our friends. We're very lucky in that sense. We've known some people for honestly 10 years now, which is crazy — since I was 17 basically. But I guess, most people who are our friends in this world, we only see when we're touring. There are some occasions when people are off tour for a year and stuff like that, and then you'll hang out, but a lot of the time it's quite nice because you'll be at a festival or stuff like that. It was really nice doing those Fontaines support shows because it was just like hanging out with our mates and playing to their crowd, which is fucking massive.
I remember with Romance, Grian [Chatten] was around here before that came out, and he played me the album. But we had quite a lot to drink, so in my mind I was like, “Fuck, this is going to be massive.” And I played them “Quiet Life” [and some others]. At that time, we had a few demos and some other stuff. I think there's just so many people doing a lot of good music right now; that feels like a rare thing. I guess [after] watching people that are our mates play as well, we’re kind of like, “Oh, I’ll do that!” Like, that's just a really cool thing that they're doing live. I guess the scene is just a friendship, I guess, with a lot of people. It is a nice thing. And yeah, you do also get the benefit of the crowds.
Although your own Dublin crowd was massive. That one was huge.
It wouldn't be as big as Fontaines, though!
“Quiet Life” and “After Party” are noticeably gentler songs, if you could call any of your songs “gentle.” You’ve been pretty vocal about the influences that came through for the record, like the rockabilly swing for “Quiet Life”. So when it comes to changing tone and shifting around the sound and genres for each track, how does this composition approach come along with the rest of the band?
A really big part of this whole record is definitely John. He really steered the ship. I think when it comes to the individual songs, when we were doing the album, it became clearer throughout the process of what the overall themes were going to be. Like, faster, a bit heavier, more cutthroat, you know? And then with the individual songs themselves, that just kind of came quite naturally.
I think the one thing we did is: if we were going to lean into something in a song, we just went all the way with it. Like, yeah for “Lampião”, I’ll sing in Brazilian Portuguese and record like, 700 percussion tracks for it. And if we're going to do “Spartak”, and it's going to be a bit more of a simple beat and more classical, let’s just keep it that way, you know? Within the band we all have sort of varying tastes. I would get more attached to the more straightforward ones like “Quiet Life” and “Spartak”, even “Cutthroat” and “Screwdriver” and ones like that. And then there are people who like “After Party” and the more electronic-sounding ones. Everyone just took the reins where it worked; if it sounds good, it sounds good. After we got “Cutthroat” the song down, we knew that this is just going to be a strange album anyway. It's quite a strange song that I think just set the tone that we could just do whatever we wanted on the other ones.
What specifically about “Cutthroat” makes it such a strange song?
Oh, the autotune. Like, it's quite electronic, but also very rock at the same time as well. It’s a bit of an odd combination. I remember when we were doing the album, I was thinking of things to describe it for the press. They’re like, “So what's the album?” And I was like, “It's like a joyride!” You know, if you're a teenager — I mean we don't do it here because no one really drives — and someone steals a car but doesn’t really know how to use the gears, it goes too fast, and then slows down, and then goes too far. That song, to me kind of sounds like that: a joyride. It kind of hops and skips a few gears.
Yeah, this song is firing on all cylinders. It starts and it does not stop.
Yeah!
Before we go, anything else about this moment in shame’s life?
No, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time, and we're excited to come back to the States! It's going to be fucking cold.
Yeah, you're coming in January! Good luck; bring boots.
I’m very excited to come back to the States. And Canada, of course. Can't forget Canada. Although Canada likes us more than the US probably.
Interesting. Why do you say that?
I don't know! I feel like in Canada, maybe it's that we only ever go to the three main cities of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Whereas in America, we will go to some strange places. I don’t think we've seen the strange side of Canada yet.
You haven't gone to Saskatchewan yet?
No, we have not. But yeah, I'm excited to see what comes from the live performances!
Cutthroat is out now via Dead Oceans.
What do you think?
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