Meet: Millie from Millie Manders And The Shutup

Millie and the band have been busy preparing for the Less Than Jake tour, and their own headline tour in June. The band have created a GoFundMe campaign to help get a new van for the tour (after their previous one gave up the ghost)

Give us a potted history of you and your band

George and I have been playing instruments since we were very young, Alex and James started later and are both self-taught musicians. I started writing and touring as a solo musician in 2012 but didn’t meet Alex until 2014 and James and George both joined in 2019. It was a long road to finding the right musicians in terms of personality, musical taste, skill, and creativity, but we have a great team now. I think so far, our most notable feat was opening the Fuelling the Fire Tour at Brixton Academy at the end of 2019. That was an incredible experience, and we are about to go on tour with Less Than Jake who were playing that show. We are all super excited.

Who inspired you to start making music?

Personally, I’ve never not been playing music, so I wouldn’t say any person as such, though my parents influenced my love for it because they were constantly playing music in our house. My Dad bought me my first record player and bought all the new artists in the early 90s, and my Mum subscribed to magazines with CDs for rhythm and blues and classical music.

As a band, our debut album has influence from Enter Shikari, Skindred, Skunk Anansie, Gold Finger, No Doubt and many more. We all have our own set of influences and I think we melded them well in the writing process.

And the one or two records that inspired you artistically?

That’s a hard ask to limit to two records, but I would say the one that started my rock vocal career would be Stoosh by Skunk Anansie. I tried to replicate every soaring note and every growl.

If you’re trying to explain who you sound like to someone that’s never heard you, what do you say?

We generally say we are cross genre punk – all the attitude and activism of punk with a sprinkling of a multi spiced sauce.

Tell us about your new single?

Not OK is our new single and is a song I wrote about having panic attacks at shows. Both George and I suffer from anxiety. James wrote the guitar lines and sent them over to me, and it kind of wrote itself from there. It’s an anthem for the anxious. A mental health banger for the misconstrued. Not OK was developed by the loving musical hands of James Pendle, George Boreham, Alex Vitiello and Dom Walker before being cooked in the studio oven by John Mitchell (Enter Shikari, Lower Than Atlantis, You Me at Six).

Where can we get hold of it?

Not OK will be available on all streaming and download platforms from 8 April 2022.

Tell us how you write?

We write as it comes. Sometimes I have words first, sometimes a whole song with chords. Other times James will come up with a guitar riff that fits something I have, or I write something new. George has come up with some amazing bass riffs lately that we are turning into tracks, so we just go with the flow rather than limit ourselves to a formula.

Tell us about your live show? And how much have you been missing it recently?

I actually desperately needed the break that lockdown afforded me. My mental health was in a bad way, and it gave me the space to recover and to concentrate on promoting our debut album. A lot of fans have since told us that the fact we kept releasing singles over lockdown really helped them too. It has been amazing to get back on the road though, and incredible to have so many people coming along and singing the words to the album. Our show is pretty lively and I’m a bit of a whirlwind on stage and I love it!

What can we expect from you in the near future?

We have three tours right now – Less Than Jake now, a UK tour in June, a couple of EU dates and then more UK touring in the latter part of the year. Writing has started but it’s a slow process at the moment. We aren’t worried and we aren’t rushing it, though. New music will come.

Tell us your favourite records (apart from your own) that’s rocking your headphones / tour bus / stereo?

• Delilah Bon (self-titled album)

• Panic Shack (all their singles)

• Less Than Jake (Silver Linings)

• All the roller disco playlists you can shake a stick at

Find out more via the bands Website or Facebook or Bandcamp

Read our Live review of the bands gig at the Islington Academy, London 02.02.2022 here

Toot Sweet Tour for June this year as follows:

June

Wed 01 Newport Le Pub
Thu 02 Weston-Super-Mare Brit Bar
Fri 03 Derbyshire Under The Castle
Sat 04 Morecambe Nice N Sleazy
Sun 05 Argyle Punk On The Peninsula
Tue 07 St Albans The Horn
Wed 08 Brighton Brunswick
Thu 09 Reading Face Bar
Fri 10 London Dublin Castle TBC
Sat 11 Salisbury Winchester Gate
Sun 12 Abbotsham The Big Sheep
Wed 15 Northwich Salty Dog
Thu 16 Stafford Redrum
Fri 17 Nottingham Old Cold Store
Sat 18 Leeds Key Club
Sun 19 Blackpool The Waterloo