Issue 111 / November 2022

In terms of merch designs, the assertion is evident. Yet their
early releases do little to back up this asserted lack of care. First
singles Not Yr Man and Football reflect the purposeful, snarled
societal countenances of Shame and Idles, with distinct shades
of local contemporaries Eyesore & The Jinx in the barbed lyrical
humour decrying the washed-out English Rose. If anything, the
songs emit a confused energy through a collision of apathy
and protestation.
Murphy-O’Neill notes how much of this feeling is centred on
contemporary Englishness, with the rest of the band nodding in
agreement. It’s a theme that places national identity in a frame of
impassivity. A sort of headstrong carelessness in its day-to-day.
“Let me be your Northern Rail/I wanna let you down”, he laments
on the band’s first single Not Yr Man – a feverish two-and-a-halfminute
stab at garish masculinity and lad culture.
The swipe at the English pastime of mundane repetition is
picked up again on Football, their follow-up single released in
January. “It’s a bit more of an observational piece,” says Murphy-
O’Neill of a song that screams football over 50 times in less than
two minutes. “I think the community sport provides in this country,
and that whole pub culture that goes with it, is what we’re taking
the piss out of. When you subtract the racists from that equation,
there’s something quite romantic about [English] culture – when
you can overlook the awful politics that are omnipresent.”
The pub culture, weekend casuals and casual racism Murphy
O’Neill refers to serves as the centrepiece for the band’s breakout
single, David Byrne’s Badside, released in May. Taking aim at
English exceptionalism, the song pulls up a sticky bar stool at
your average local before listening in on the “I’m not a racist,
but…” mantra swirling between walls adorned with bric-a-brac
championing colonial victories.
“That was a big step for us. For the first few months, we
were trying to do punky songs, then we wrote David Byrne’s
Badside and thought ‘this is not very punk at all’, but it’s just as
good,” he says of the song, which was released by indie label
Nice Swan, where company has been shared by Sports Team,
Queen Zee and Pip Blom.
Stepping away from the clattering riffs, the track dials
down the distortion and borrows the sails from Doherty and
Barât’s good ship Albion for a breezier nod to mid-2000s indie
– complete with sax solo and sarcasm. “I think from that point
onwards, we just kind of make whatever music we want, where
we’ll try to leave some kind of touchstones between the songs.
So, for us, the lyricism is really involved,” Murphy-O’Neill explains.
The lyrical touchstones, as the band elude to, coalesce
around social discomforts. Personal discomforts for themselves
– the social expectation to love football in a city defined by its loyalty to red or blue – and the wider
communities of England. It’s well documented that the picture of little England is far from the sedate
image framed on the walls of the Queens Arms, The Crown, Red Lion or The Ship. But the band don’t
want to add to the barrage of sloganeering that’s caught hold of contemporary guitar bands. Instead,
there’s only a deep-set irony worn as armour against the regressive tendencies of broken Britain.
“I think it’s hard-pressed being one of those bands where their mission is to, like, save the world
and, and fix all these problems,” says Murphy-O’Neill. “We know it’s impossible to do that as a band
or as an artist. But, if you can, you can maybe start a conversation and do it in a way that’s not so
pretentious and not so harsh. I think that’s kind of the way to go.”
It’s a feeling that chimes well with Football, a song which questions so much of tunnel vision
casual sports culture even when saying so little.
“The fact that it got adopted by, like, actual people who like football was quite amusing to me,
because it was just meant to be a bit silly,” laughs Murphy O’Neill. “It was a bit of a joke at the kind
of bands where the chorus is just one word being shouted over and over again, just because it
sticks in your head. But people took that quite seriously.”
Seriousness is clearly something that goes against the raison d’être of the band.
“Our goal is to not take anything we do too seriously. Everything should be taken with just a bit
of a hint of piss-take,” Murphy-O’Neill confirms.
“I think you can you can find that in most of our songs anyway,” adds Thomas. “The songs are
centred on a topic which is serious, but then there’s other lines that will just, like, ease the tension
a bit.” Namely references to The Chase, the appalling reliability of Northern Rail pacers, or the
possible ill temperament of indie-god provocateur David Byrne.
As Murphy-O’Neill stated earlier, there remains a fascination of English culture in Courting’s
music. It’s one that draws on the jaded regression of contemporary politics and its tired rhetoric.
This inadequacy of England’s hit and hope, cavalier spirit has been fairly evident since 2016
and well-documented in cultural responses, too. That summer aggressively tore what was an
already frayed national consciousness in two. Two neat cantons were left. On one side of the
line, thankfully, for the safety of the world’s ears, there hasn’t been an uptake in pro-nationalist
indie rock. Mainly just cry-arsing about whether a choral arrangement can shout about Britain’s
colonial successes in late summer. But on the other side of the line there’s been a distinct rise in
bands shouting about political injustice. Artists putting forward a charged antidote for the inherent
blindness in Brexit Britain.
It’s a frustration that is likely to have captured those who voted against the outcome in 2016,
and the hopeless trudge in attempting to overturn the outcome in the years after. But for those
who couldn’t vote at the time, like Courting, it’s been four long years of waiting for the inevitable.
No say either way. There’s no sense in shouting at deaf ears, so why bother? It’s an attitude that
punctuates their political outlook. A move where apathetically looking on in disgust has emerged as
the most telling form of protest and activism.
“I think there are a lot of bands who claim to be, like, politically charged, but they’re not really. I
feel like it’s a bit of a label, isn’t it?” Murphy-O’Neill responds.
“It’s really easy for young bands to be, like, you know, ‘Fuck the government’. It’s probably even
easier with everything happening,” Thomas chimes in.
It’s these charged affronts to the current socio-political dichotomy the band speak of that
appear to miss the goal posts. Power is well versed in controlling aggression and outcry. 10 years of
austerity and look where we are. Look who’s in power. Look what they’re doing to us. But it’s satire and
humour that still offers an antagonistic retort which is beckoning ever more authoritarian censorship.
“I think that’s it, [our lyrics] are meant to be a bit cheeky,” replies Murphy-O’Neill, as we
continue to dig further into the band’s defence mechanism of irony.
“A three-minute song where you’re just talking about politics won’t be as fun as a one-minuteand-52-seconds
song where you shout the word football 50 times,” Thomas summarises.
The point does stand. You need only to look back to the acid house explosion of the 1980s for
evidence of this idea previously in action. Eight bars of LFO’s seminal track of the same name offers
are more telling two fingers to Tory rule than Billy Bragg has managed in his entire career. Allowing
space for interpretation can often be the more compelling battle cry than an overt statement.
Ultimately, space is the necessary essence for any movement or protest.
“Start a conversation
and do it in a way that’s
not so pretentious
and not so harsh”
“It’s up to people if they want to read into things,” says
Murphy-O’Neill. “If people want to think it’s just a song about
football, we’re not bothered. We’re not going to get on some sort
of artistic high horse and be like…” He clears his throat to put on
a snooty voice. “‘No, no, it’s not about football, you have to think
about the politics’. We don’t give a shit. Like, if you want to shout
football, that’s the fun of it. If you want to consider what it means,
you can. We’re not really bothered. Our music is less inspired by
Brexit and this idea that England has suddenly become shit. It’s
more inspired by the fact that England has been shit for a long
time. And, you know, you’re kind of born into that.”
On a newly released 7” containing Football and David
Byrne’s Badside, a small English flag is printed on the vinyl label.
Innocuous as it may be, its presence in 2020 often suggests
exclusion or xenophobic rebellion. But the band pin the flag to
their lapel in the same manner they sincerely chant about the footy.
“It sums up how we’re taking the piss,” begins Murphy-O’Neill,
“how that flag is now a racist symbol. It’s seen as a bit nasty.”
“Yeh, if you have it in your Twitter bio or something,”
replies Cope.
“That’s the piss-take,” says Murphy-O’Neill, “I don’t think
we’re trying to reclaim the flag. I’m not arsed about the country
as a country.” Its true presence is there to highlight the same
contradiction displayed by those who celebrate the Georgian
cross but practice casual racism and hostility to minorities, while
ignoring that St George was a middle eastern man.
Through this it’s further reinforced how ironic ownership is a
defining aspect of Courting, a process of wearing the clothes and
looking back in the cracked mirror to show the true sense of folly.
It’s a move that’s typified the band’s visual aesthetic as well as the
lyricism, notably on David Byrne’s Badside which is told from the
perspective of a character with contradictory and racist tendencies.
“We try and play characters of people we don’t like,” answers
Murphy-O’Neill when we press on the subject further. “I read
an interview with Country Teasers where [Ben Wallers] said he
likes to play horrible, horrible people, and tries to sing from their
perspectives. And I think that’s something we definitely took in
mind on David Byrne’s Badside. I think we’ve managed to make
it obvious, without just coming out and screaming what we’re
against. An element of subtlety can actually make it hit a bit
harder than if we were just really obvious.”
The 90s Scottish band Murphy-O’Neill notes were
chameleonic shapeshifters of the unsettling and captivating.
Fat White Family are clear descendants in their quest for an
atmosphere of lurid smut. But it’s the former who controversially
would look to scuff the line between character-led performance
and harboured point of view. The effect can be somewhat galling when listening back. I ask
Murphy-O’Neill if he ever fears wearing the mask will leave an imprint.
“There’s a line to it,” he asserts. “For Country Teasers, the line is blurred. I’m not an advocate for
how they go about doing it. But I think that at least considering the point of view of the person you
hate is maybe a good way of thinking of things to write about them.”
He continues: “Listening to a band like Country Teasers can be incredibly difficult, which can be
a good thing. Because when you listen to them, it kind of reminds you of your own morals, because
you hear something so sickening, you think, ‘I’m glad that I’m repulsed by this’. Even though it’s
coming from someone who is taking the piss, I’m glad it still bothers me. I’m glad I don’t listen to
this in a complacent way when he says things that are so horrible.”
We’ve been sat on the highest point of the hillside for close to an hour. An invasive drone circles
above, a police helicopter treading in the air even higher. At this point the effects of no sun cream
are becoming evident. Solely in sense of weather, the summer has been a good one. Ironically,
it was meant to have been one where football came home again. That was before the pandemic
struck and Euro 2020 was cancelled. Before then it was meant to have been football’s first return
ticket since the summer of 96, another summer typified by its searing heat and national let down.
Not to mention Britpop, a bracket the band are now popping up in.
As genre tags go, the recent labelling of Courting as Britpop could seem a little reductive.
Perhaps there’s similarities in sound on the steady chug and chorus led refrain of their most recent
single, but Courting’s message is incongruent with the genre on the whole. Away from the time
and place encapsulation of Definitely Maybe Oasis, or satirical social commentary of Pulp, they’re
far from the Cool Britannia mould – a cut and paste factory line bearing the signature of faux-New
Labour change. Britpop en masse is vacuous and dangerous apathy. As is ‘guitar music’. Courting
isn’t so much apathy, more so standing your ground, observing the landscape in all its horror. I
suggest Brexpop as a fitting tag, but they aren’t having it. The other genre tag, as Murphy-O’Neill
states, offers up its own incentive.
“We’d like to reclaim the phrase ‘guitar music’ and take it away from being a dirty word,” he says
with a cheeky optimism. “When I hear it, I think of the most boring bands on the planet. I want guitar
music to sound interesting again. That’s what we’re doing. The tag will come more from the music
than the lyrics. It’s our mantra, to stop guitar music from being a dirty word and turn it into something
that’s good again. We don’t want to be labelled as landfill. We want to be thought of as interesting.”
Courting exemplify how not giving a shit is again inherently political. Or rather, they’re helping
to shift the boundaries of protest: what it requires, who it’s aimed at, how it’s carried out. Shouting
back at the Tory void will only lead to exhaustion. So many bands wear that tiredness. Capturing
the miniature, the incidental, the idiosyncratic can reveal much more than making every song a
political flag-bearer. Gyrating carefree to lashings of cowbell can be more rebellious than serving
three chords and “fuck you” addressed directly to Boris Johnson. But even in this assessment it
might be overplaying Courting’s aims. There’s lots of care in what they perceive is a lack of it.
“It is just a laugh, you know. I’m not doing this to put on my CV, we’re not doing it so that we
can just be liked,” say Murphy-O’Neill. “But, at the end of the day, if you want to make your career
out of having a laugh, you’ve got to make sure you’re good at it.”
“It’s a structured laugh,” replies Cope as we exit the hillside, the cast of characters still in their
places. “It’s a laugh with some concern,” concludes Murphy-O’Neill. !
Words: Elliot Ryder / @elliot_ryder
Photography: Marieke Macklon / @mariekemacklon
courtingband.com
Pop Shop will be available from 6th November via Nice Swan Records.
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