The Rills

“Energetic indie anthems and poetic vulnerability” - NME
 

“Character-driven writing saturates both the lyrics and the music” - The Line of Best Fit
 

“instantly addictive indie rock” - Clash

Today sees The Rills share their long awaited debut album Don’t Be A Stranger, along with focus track ‘Drive’, via AWAL & Nice Swan Recordings. The Rills have a series of live shows across the UK coming up at the start of November to celebrate the record’s launch, including a performance at London’s Rough Trade East on album release day - buy tickets HERE.

Produced by Dave McCracken (the indie mastermind behind many Ian Brown solo records and key works by dEUS and The Rifles as well as lending a hand to albums by the likes of Depeche Mode, Sports Team, The Snuts and Beyoncé), Don’t Be A Stranger sees these three young friends take that untapped energy that made them viral sensations and darlings of the grassroots scene and direct it something more considered, complete and heartfelt.

“We’re romantics at heart,” offers The Rills bassist Callum Warner-Webb. “When we were recording this album, we watched a lot of romance films like La La Land. They leave you with that question at the end: was it worth it? You have your dreams, but was it worth it to lose so much of yourself?”

The Rills have certainly shed a skin or two to reach this point, on the eve of their effervescent debut album Don’t Be A Stranger. Warner-Webb and frontman Mitch Spencer met in their native Lincoln as young teens, losing their spare time in a skate park. A few years later, that same urge to kill smalltown boredom saw them pick up guitars and start jamming together. A brief stint living in Sheffield chasing some of that Arctic Monkeys magic saw them soon return home to university where Essex lad Mason Cassar joined as drummer and their line-up was complete. Often referenced in their music, there’s a Lincoln Imp spirit baked into The Rills’ DNA - notably in their ability to always see over the horizon and carve something out for themselves when no one else will.

They didn’t have a lot of choice when they came out of uni, hungry to make a break when COVID shut the world down. “We were just a little idiot band,” admits Spencer. “Obviously we had these dreams, but then lockdown happened and we were forced into doing TikTok and all that stuff because we didn’t have a way to play or release music.”

It worked, and The Rills quickly found themselves with millions of likes on TikTok, thousands of streams, and a healthy following on social media. “All of a sudden, it blew up, we had fans and we we’re talking to the NME. Everything in that time, we scrambled together.”

The fans followed them to the shows, where their live performance and the songs came with that same young punk charm, “trying to match our online personas”, as Spender puts it. “The indie funniness was working for us, so we thought, ‘That’s who we are’.”