Bolton band Pageant Mum have crafted an intriguingly grungey, punky and catchy post-hardcore sound that aims to offer a voice for people going through the “shit parts of life” and they describe as “angry, dynamic and messy.”
The young band, all aged between 18 and 20, formed during the pandemic through ROCKIT, a music youth project they were all part of. The quartet of lead vocalist Izzy Ingham, guitarist and backing vocalist Liam Ormes, bassist Elliot Calderbank and drummer George Garnett-Easton were all part of separate acts performing everything from metal to contemporary pop. One day, Liam’s family went to Izzy’s for dinner, and they cooked up the idea of Pageant Mum over a takeaway at the dinner table. George’s band had just left town for university, so they recruited him and Elliot to join the band.
As Izzy explains: “We didn’t know each other that well and we all had very different ideas of what to write, but with the help of our ROCKIT mentor – Phil Kennedy – we managed to find our sound! The name actually came from us all mocking my mum – she didn’t want me to perform this kind of stuff. She wanted me in pink dresses with an acoustic guitar, we told her ‘stop being such a pageant mum,’ and the band name stuck. Safe to say, mum has definitely changed her tune and is one of our biggest fans now.”
And on the sound they’ve crafted since, Izzy told us: “I would describe our sound to those who wouldn’t know as something they’ve been waiting for, everyone has experienced the scenarios of at least one of our songs. Which is what we want, our goal is to give a voice to the shit parts of life. You hear songs all the time about boys and feeling heartbroken, but they never sound the way you feel when that stuff happens… We want to sound like the bad feelings you get, the anger, the pain, the grit, that’s the Pageant Mum sound.
“I would definitely use the word angry to describe our music, cliché I know, but I have always been an angry girl – it hasn’t done me many favours in life and I feel judged for it a lot. Finding my sound with Pageant Mum has been the perfect release for all the pent-up frustration, and this way, I can help people who feel the same way know that it isn’t something abnormal. Another word I like to describe our music is dynamic, you can definitely see our personalities in every component of a song, Elliot’s cheeky bass lines, George’s strong drum fills, Liam’s nonchalant yet heavy guitar riffs and my moody vocals/lyrics, everyone has their own element contributing to making our songs sound the way they do. It’s unique. I also like to describe our music as quite messy, we aren’t perfectionists and I don’t think sounding perfect is our style, we like risking sounds that not everyone will enjoy and throwing in random sounds in the studio. Reversing a cymbal hit, using the triangle, even an organ setting on the keyboard, we want our sound to reflect the stories of our songs, which definitely aren’t about being clean and tidy.”
Our latest taste of this is Hackles Up, which was released today. It opens up with a chunky guitar riff, which is joined by a cheeky bassline and rolling drums then Izzy’s engaging vocals. Faster guitars kick in to tee up a catchy chorus supported by darting guitar chords and crashing cymbals. The pace drops again for another atmospheric verse, before the heavier guitars kick in ahead of another big chorus. It drops into a quiet section of light guitars, before the tension builds with Izzy’s drawn-out vocals, a repeating guitar and rolling drums, then a crash of guitars and drums tee up a big final blast of the chorus.
On the track, Izzy said: “People should be expecting a pretty generic sound with this one, mellow verses with a hit in the chorus. We want the song to be relatable, a classic heartbreak anthem for the heavier music fans.”
Hackles Up is the latest in an impressive back catalogue of singles released over the last few years. That includes the anthemic Crucify Me, the lively Home Again and It Burns, a personal favourite in the intense Up To My Temples, the absolutely belting singalong Choose, and the feisty All My Life and Can You Can’t You, which you can check out in the video below. And all of that builds up to their second EP, which will be released next year.
“We are super excited for the things ahead as our first EP, tiara, was released when we were babies,” Izzy told us. “All 14-16, we love the music we wrote on it, but we hadn’t found our feet in the industry and didn’t know what sounds worked for us. The album cover of tiara was actually supposed to be a placeholder picture that we later found out we couldn’t change, so our only EP has no representation of our image as a band. Our upcoming EP will truly show who Pageant Mum are and what we want to give to the world – the distinctive colours, the unique artwork, the feminine rage in our songs – that’s what this EP is going to bring to you all. It’s gonna kick arse.”
The Pageant Mum and Izzy’s vocals are heavily influenced by Paramore’s Hayley Williams. As Izzy tells us: “I love her voice and the way she can tell a story with the ranges of emotion and power she sings with. Other than Paramore, I listen to mostly make vocalists who don’t often influence my music – however, it would be a dream of mine to learn to scream like Chester Bennington.”
And on what inspires her to write music, Izzy explains: “Although I look like I would be tougher than most I’m really not, I love writing about ex boyfriends, I love writing about TV shows that have made me sad, anything that sparks a negative emotion fuels my writing.”
There’s plenty more to come from Pageant Mum, who recently signed to Red Tape Music, the same Berlin record label as one of our favourite featured bands Le Rox, as they build up to their EP release. That includes some exciting gigs like playing Manchester’s O2 The Ritz and an end of year party in Huddersfield, tickets here, and heading back to their recording studio in Wales “to smash out as many new songs as we can.”
You can follow Pageant Mum on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Deezer and YouTube.
Listen to Pageant Mum and more new bands on our Spotify playlists GigRadar Grunge and GigRadar Post-Hardcore
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