English Teacher: “Are we post-punk? You tell me.”
Printed in The Mic Magazine, Issue #52.
Primed to go stratospheric with their cerebral bangers, English Teacher are the new Leeds exports you can’t help but pay attention to. Olivia Stock caught up with the band on literature, lyricism, and life on the cusp of punk stardom.
A glorious irony underpinned my recent interview with Leeds upstarts English Teacher. Not least because the band are a riotous hoot, ricocheting off each other like wily school children, but because they are named after the career direction my doting parents always hoped for me.
It is clear that a similar restlessness pervades lead singer Lily Fontaine, whose forays into the music industry have been far-reaching and immersive. An arts writer, DJ, and label assistant, she has explored every corner of the trade over the past ten years in an attempt to find the crossroads between aptitude and enjoyment, along with a space she can feel safe as a woman of colour. “I just wanted to work in music somehow,” she muses, “I didn’t really mind where. Obviously being in a band was the preference, but I feel like I’m a better writer than a musician sometimes.”
It was only after meeting English Teacher’s now ex-guitarist, Daniel Thomas at a DIY Musicians Conference that Lily began to share her own music with the world. Swirling Soundcloud demos traversing matters of racial identity, imposter syndrome, and life in pastoral England quickly formed the foundations of English Teacher’s mesmeric sound: “After a few years of lineup changes, sound shifts, and lockdowns we became what we are today,” she grins.
When I ask the band what that is exactly, they laugh in perplexed unison. With sprawling layers and string-fuelled breakdowns, English Teacher’s sound feels like an elegantly crafted beast but the foursome insists they are playing it by ear. “Are we post-punk? You tell me,” a wide-eyed Douglas Frost (drums) grins. “We kind of just make music that feels right at the time. Everything we’re writing at the minute we’re calling post-R&B. Maybe that’s our niche!”
Though English Teacher have fast become known for their genre-hopping antics, the stringsman is actually referring to the band’s Spring mega-single. A disarmingly DIY punk bash born of Fontaine’s failed attempts to write actual R&B, it trades in the foursome’s previous stolidity for a biting, passionate plea for contrariness, for not trying to be cool and live up to someone else’s expectations. ‘If I have stuff to write, then why don’t I just write it for me’, Fontaine asks, shedding her pretensions and inhibitions, ‘despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B.’
In a post-punk zeitgeist domineered by nightmarish vignettes, social lampooning, and dialogue that brings to mind Victoria Wood or Alan Bennett (a brutal caricature of a well-to-do pro-leave voter manifests in Yard Act’s Fixer Upper), her use of first-person feels particularly striking. A peeved internal monologue on racial clichés in the music industry paired with layers of dense, maximalist instrumentation and frustration seeping from every pore. That is except Fontaine’s vocals which are delivered in a deadpan sprechgesang as if to ask ‘why the fuck are we still having to write songs about this?’ It’s whip-sharp commentary without the frilly bits.
B-side single Wallace – an apocalyptic, Theo Verney-produced monologue on Titanic band-leader Wallace Hartley – is equally mesmerising and perfectly exhibits the band’s versatility as a more atmospheric, layered approach takes to the fore. Born on Lancashire turf, his name donned the walls of Fontaine’s local Wetherspoons: “Thinking about the irony of it all got me wrapped up in how the metaphor perfectly expressed my feelings towards the political leanings of the area and the general rise of the right-wing in modern England,” she explains.
This deep sense of time and space, of regional charm (or lack thereof), pervades much of English Teacher’s material. In particular, earlier cuts like You Won’t Believe How Beautiful She Is When It Has Snowed (2020) which despite coming in just a few syllables shy of a 1975 track, boasts lyrics of a similar spacial magnitude: “Friedrich will come out of his grave / Shelley and Byron will be on their way / Begging for my postal code.”
Like the band’s namesake, it is clear Fontaine is partial to a literary reference or two. Calling this time on East Lancashire landmark, Pendle Hill, famed for its association with witchcraft, the cathartic single captures moments of anxiety and change through its lyrics and tender composition. “I think I would’ve studied English Lit if not music,” she muses, a woman after my own heart. “Studying the Romantic movement at college was a massive source of inspiration. The way those kinds of writers capture a setting is definitely something I try to do in our lyrics.”
This, combined with what Whiting describes as “jaggedy” guitar work, sets English Teacher on their own plane. Sometimes they sound like they’re at the front of the new guard of peppy, discordant indie-pop-via-post-punk – all thick, pulsating basslines, and Shame-esque distorted soundscapes – and then sometimes Fontaine’s vocals drift into something more sublime. Whatever you want to call it, the band’s astronomical upwards trajectory from Leeds Uni drinking buddies to one of the city’s most tantalizing new exports is more than deserved.
Reflecting on the past year, the band express their giddy gratitude for London label Nice Swan who, in the absence of showcase festivals and support slots, took the opportunity to solidify their position as a stronghold for exciting new bands. “They’re like our musical guardian angels,” Frost laughs, “we wouldn’t have got half this far without their backing.” Providing a space for the band to experiment and transgress genre lines, as well as produce music at their own rate (which Fontaine admits isn’t always regular… “we still work on student time!”), they were a vital leg-up in whittling English Teacher’s unbridled talent into a rich, ruminative whole.
Fontaine reassures though, that this is just the latest draft: “We have so much we want to explore. So many weird and wacky inspirations we each bring to the table that we haven’t even delved into yet.” The band exchange excitable virtual glances and it’s impossible not to join in. Simultaneously volatile and vulnerable, taut and loose, it is clear that whatever happens, Fontaine’s spoken word is vital at the helm. Providing an intoxicating accompaniment to Frost’s fierce percussion and Eden x Whiting’s six-string havoc, the band succeeds in feeling not just contemporary, but vital. An absolute page-turner with a twist at every turn, English Teacher are the new book you can’t possibly put down.
Words by: Olivia Stock
