Emma Harrison
Aspiring journalist who is fond of music and writing about it. You can probably find me in a crowd with a lukewarm pint of cider.
Crawlers speak about their fearsome new EP ‘TURN OFF THE TV’ and the power of returning to music by doing exactly what they want.
“Whatever our infrastructure is at the time, we are gobshites and we will do what we want to do”.
Alt-rock three-piece, Crawlers, have returned onto the scene and are doing what they do best – whatever they want. Straying from industry standard, they took a couple of years to reset after the release of their successful 2024 debut album, ‘The Mess We Seem To Make’. Instead of picking up the pace and ramping up the promo, they chose to take a breather and figure things out.
Their newest EP, ‘TURN OFF THE TV’, comes after a couple of years of falling apart and coming together, creating a version of Crawlers that better aligns with their values – a change which Holly Minto dubbed “a new band, not a rebrand”. Continuing, they said, “the reality is that the new band is just an energised version of those youthful kids who started this band in a shed”.
The EP’s first single ‘Afraid To Die’, released in June, was a triumphant re-introduction to Crawlers. Accompanied by punchy guitars and vulnerable lyricism, Minto comments that this track “encompasses everything that we’ve gone through as a band and sums up this new era and who we are as individuals, reconnecting to ourselves and to each other again”.
After being catapulted into the spotlight with 2021’s ‘Come Over (Again)’ – a track which has now amassed over seventy million streams on Spotify – the band has spent the past two years navigating their overwhelming success. The track rapidly transformed their lives, and at the point of its release, Minto hadn’t even left the country before and money seemed to be non-existent for the three of them – “When me and Liv were living together, we were on the Crawlers‘ email, and we were trying to pay for a big shop. We got an email from two of the biggest major labels in the world being like “We want to call you. Oh, my God, this song”. I was like, “What the hell’s going on!?” I then tried to order our shopping and my card declined.”
So, the time spent readjusting to this newfound success was not only needed, but also helped the band return stronger, commenting that “from everything we learned from the hardships of the industry, and also our inner stories, we managed to forge music that felt the most us that we’ve ever been able to do”.
Going from releasing a deluxe debut album consisting of twenty tracks to an EP with just four tracks may look like a step back to some, but for Crawlers it is a strong step in the right direction, having created a carefully thought out collection of songs that feel authentic to them both sonically and lyrically.
Regarding their debut album, Minto admitted that “I feel like we weren’t given as much time when we were put in the relentless force of the music industry. We had to write on the go and didn’t get time for us to kind of pause, sit in a room together and play the songs”.
This fast-paced, full-on approach is one they didn’t choose for themselves, and one they firmly decided against during the making of their upcoming EP. Instead they opted to make music on their terms – “we really took the time to create music that sonically, and performing wise, felt like the best of all us”.
They explained that the most important part of their process this time round was to prioritise reconnecting with themselves after being catapulted into a blur of fame and success – “We were just going back to what we were trying to do when we were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, but with a lot more confidence and a lot more knowledge under our belts”.
“For ‘TURN OFF THE TV’ we wanted that electric feel of how we feel playing the songs live. So when we took a pause, whether the songs were written in the room or I went away at my acoustic guitar and came back, we illustrated them together and made sure they were at a point where they were playable, felt good to play and felt like they had a story to tell narratively and performance wise. So when we went into the studio, it was completely different. It was like, ‘yeah, we know this song like the back of our hands’. This is like my first-born child”.
Consisting of four grungy alt-rock tracks, ‘TURN OFF THE TV’ is Crawlers’ authentic return, doused in a “certainty of who [they] are”. And, who they are, they declare, is a “band that is bigger than us. We’ve always wanted to be a space for kids who are misunderstood or feel like they don’t belong. That was something that we didn’t have growing up.”
This agenda is one they have undoubtedly achieved over the years, having had “absolutely gorgeous moments” with their loyal and dedicated fanbase. Way past the point of fan tattoos, Minto recalls a moment early in their career at their first London headline show. “This was our first time as a full-time band playing London and this beautiful couple got engaged during the show and we recorded the whole thing. It was insane. Every time we play London, I always look out for them and they’re still together. Gorgeous couple.”
Although Crawlers are sonically inspired by decades-old bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and more recently Deftones, their lyrical inspirations come from modern day life, with ‘TURN OFF THE TV’ discussing topics like AI, politics and mental health. Honesty remains a huge feature of Crawlers‘ lyricism as Minto uses songwriting as a tool to untangle her feelings – “I think me and the girls realised I was always ahead of my feelings in my writing.
Like, I’d often foreshadow a breakup before I kind of did it in my writing. Or foreshadow politicism in the world before I was even feeling it”.
But for those who aren’t blessed with the gift of writing, Minto has other advice. With “work demanding everyone all the time to be everywhere all at once” and society being in such a “financial pinch”, she emphasises the importance of “practising those basic forms of mindfulness and those little things that keep your body and mind well. It’s something that I kind of neglected. I got to a point where I was being therapized and taking medication, but I was neglecting a lot of the foundation stuff. Until recently where I’ve started meditating and journaling again. I started having those moments of being extremely present. It’s hard to do that in life because life doesn’t want you to do that because that doesn’t earn rich people money and that doesn’t earn you a place that people think they deserve on this planet, but when you’re present, you’re at your best”.
Having returned to the core of who they are – “three queer kids who want to play music and make a difference” – Crawlers are officially back and better than ever. ‘TURN OFF THE TV’ leaves the three-piece impatient to start sharing these tracks with live audiences – “I’m at my happiest when I’m on stage playing with my girls. So, I just want to be playing again”.