unpeople have a debut album to be proud of (Image: Bridie Cummings)
There’s something immediately likeable about unpeople. Four musicians united by a love of what they do, a passion for the stage and an almost obsessive commitment to getting every detail right, they’re a band who can hold their own on any bill. They may have shared the stage with Metallica early on – and since made their mark on the festival circuit – but their debut album, we are unpeople (out October 9 via Sharptone), proves they’re capable of far more than simply filling a support slot.
Across 11 tracks, including singles ‘the garden’, ‘friends’ and ‘blueprint’, the record is meticulously crafted and perfectly balanced, packed with anthemic choruses and infectious melodies. It’s the sound of a band that feels instantly familiar while still unmistakably their own, with something for everyone. Even when the lyrics take aim at the frustrations of the world around them, the overriding mood is connection rather than confrontation – making for an album that’s upbeat, uplifting and a joy to listen to.
Currently on tour with Don Broco, with an upcoming slot alongside Royal Blood, unpeople are already looking ahead to their own headline run in January, including a major London date at the Electric Ballroom. Yet for all the milestones, there’s little pretension about them. Speaking to Jake Crawford (vocals and guitar), Luke Caley (vocals and guitar), it’s clear the hours spent refining their debut album came from a simple desire to make the best music they can, together. With we are unpeople now out in the world, they’ve got a record to be proud of – and plenty more to prove.
Hi both, congratulations on the album! It’s fantastic.
You have the wonderful tagline ‘we are unpeople. you are unpeople. we are all unpeople.’ When did it properly click for you that unpeople was fully starting to take shape?
Jake: I think when we put ‘The Garden’ out [at] the end of 2024. That was kind of when it felt like it had properly solidified. Because that song was the first song we wrote, but it wasn’t the first one we put out. When it came out, and it was broadly well received, it was like oh, we’re doing the right thing.
Luke: Also, around that time, we started playing shows where it was just getting more and more hectic and more people were singing along with the words and we sold out our first headline show.
How does that feeling compare now you’ve released your debut album we are unpeople?
L: We’ve only been together three years touring and playing shows, but we’ve had to fit so much into those few years because we got picked up by Sharptone before we put any music out which was an incredible opportunity. Normally you’d spend those first three years sort of cutting your teeth on the touring circuit and figuring out what you are. But very quickly we had to come out the gates and present something that felt fully formed. So, it’s been interesting.
J: We did have two years of getting it all ready behind the scenes before we actually unleashed it, which was great, because to any outsider, we did come out of nowhere. Really, we were working hard behind the scenes for quite a while before that.
unpeople are made up of Jake (left), Em, Richard (right) and Luke. (Image: SUPPLIED)
L: Mine and Jake’s previous band [Press to Meco] came to an end right at the end of 2021 and a week later we were sat in my room with two guitars, not knowing it would be unpeople, not even knowing what the lineup would look like, or how many members. We were just like we love working with each other creatively and we’ve always wanted to play guitar. Now’s the chance.
Your first show was 2000 trees, wasn’t it?
L: That’s right. We played our last ever [Press to Meco] show at one of the stages of 2000 trees, and luckily James Scarlett, who runs 2000 trees is a real gem. We kind of pitched it to him, like look, our old band’s dying, is there any chance we could launch our new project at the same festival? And he said, ‘yeah, open the new stage’. We kind of said goodbye to one project, went and slept in a funny little cottage down the road, came back, and launched unpeople.
You’ve said that in making this album you’ve been incredibly meticulous, and that level of detail definitely shows. Is that a natural part of who you as artists?
L: We couldn’t turn that off if we tried. All four of us are so tuned into what we do because we love it so much, we can’t help but care about every detail. That’s part of the reason why the album took a little bit longer. I always say, 10 years from now, you’re not going to look back and be like ‘oh, that took six months longer than we all thought it would’. You’re going to measure it by the quality of the songs on it.
J: It also took really long because we did it all ourselves, which is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes you will have an engineer and a producer and they’ll be like: ‘it’s cool, that was fine, move on’. We’re like, no, do it again, and again, and again until you hate yourself. Then, at the end of the day when you sit back and listen to what you’ve done, you go, it’s definitely worth it because it sounds exactly how we want it to sound.
Their debut album ‘we are unpeople’ was released October 9 (Image: SUPPLIED)
L: When you create something and you get to listen to it and you feel your senses are all heightened and everyone’s buzzing, it’s such an amazing feeling. It’s focussing on that rather than all the other b******t around it.
J: We can’t leave any stone unturned because that’s doing our future selves a disservice. It’s like, we’re in it now, so we just need to keep the consistency of quality control up from beginning to end.
After spending so much time obsessing over every detail of the album, were there any tracks you grew to hate during the process?
J: [haunt]. It wasn’t necessarily that I hated it. It was a demo that I’d done ages ago. I’d already written it off and then it got brought back up again when we were doing the album. I was like, absolutely not, I don’t want this song going anywhere near the album. Every single person had to convince me that it was worth putting a bit more time and effort into it because they could see the potential. But I think it’s because I was the one who birthed the idea originally. I mean, your own worst critic, right?
L: I remember Jake had the verse into the chorus and I remember instantly when he pushed play on just those sections, it pricked my ears up because it was such a different feeling and vibe, and a different emotion to anything we’d written before. A bit dark and moody. So then we just had to write the rest of the song.
Luke, in our last interview at Radar Festival you described unpeople as ‘a sum of its parts.’ Did that collaborative spirit still hold true when you were making the album?
L: Yeah, as much as ever. I mean, ‘haunt’ is a really great example of all the four elements coming into that. Jake had the verse and the chorus, I sort of went away with it and got the riff and the vocal bit together to create a structure. But then you bring it to Richie and he’s bringing out his percussion drawer and putting his amazing funky beats over it. And there’s Em’s input of the harmonies. There’s no set way a song comes together [and] I don’t think we’ll ever confine ourselves to being like ‘oh that works’, so we have to do it that way every time.
When the project first started, seeing your music on Spotify felt surreal. Now that you have a full album out, how does that feeling compare?
J: It’s very similar. Just slightly more because we put a bit more effort into it. There was more work to do.
L: I don’t think I’ll ever lose that feeling of, wow, how did we do that? I don’t even know how that happened.Obviously, it’s completely subjective externally, whether it’s good or not, but it’s just that when we’re stoked on it and we think it’s good.
J: When we were sort of finalising some other songs for the album, I was like, I think we’ve completely f****d it and the EP was a total fluke. But then we rewrote a few more tunes. I was like, oh, okay, no, no, we’re going to be okay. I think.
You’ve set the bar too high now.
The band are a joy to watch on stage (Image: Getty)
J: Yeah, that was a concern. We really put a lot of time and effort into these songs, which are great and we’re really, really proud of them. But then just being like oh s**t, we’ve got to do that another 11 times.
L: You just have to learn to make peace and trust the process, be like, well, we’ve done it this amount of times. We just have to do it again and make friends with those demons that are going to show up.
Jake, you’ve mentioned being hesitant about bringing more personal themes into your lyrics, but took a chance with ‘friends’. Why were you initially worried about opening up that way?
J: I don’t think I was necessarily worried about it. It’s just difficult. I don’t like to keep it too on the nose thematically because I want to keep it open to interpretation. I think if you’ve got enough brain cells, then you’ll be able to figure out what I’m actually referring to. But, I’ve never written anything like that before. It was such an overwhelming feeling that I thought, I’ve probably got some cool stuff that I could get out of this, and I’m still really chuffed with it. People really seem to be resonating with it, which is great, [and] which makes me more confident in potentially exploring more things like that in the future.
L: Something I love about Jake’s lyrics is he writes in a very open way that’s very on brand for the band. It might not be the exact way that Jake had in his head when he’s talking about it, but there’s a lot of things that you can latch onto of your own interpretation. But also it was nice for friends to see Jake be like, this is coming from my personal feeling and my personal situation with this.
When listeners put on the debut album, is there a particular feeling or message you hope they take away from it?
L: I always think it’s kind of entitled of us to assume what someone else is going to take away from it.
J: It’s very difficult. First and foremost, if people who are into what they consider good music will listen to it and go, I can tell that they really care about writing the best songs that they possibly can, that’s good for me, personally. If you wanna be a fringe listener and be like, oh, yeah, I love that band’s album [but] I’m into hiking. That’s fine. If you want to be a super mega fan and be at every show, that is also unbelievably valid and we really appreciate all the support. Any amount of support. Thank you so much.
L: But also if they don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine. Because we really do. I think so much about our band is just about connection and I think in our lives we get quite frustrated with the world that seems to be shouting at each other and everyone’s telling each other how to think or feel about things. The last thing I want to do is say that about our own album.
J: Lyrically, I may say things that I staunchly believe. But in the next line, I’m like, but don’t f***ing listen to me. I ultimately don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m very careful not to push stuff too hard because I don’t like it when it’s done to me, so why should I do it to other people?
L: And we really don’t have the answers.
They’ll be headlining their own tour in January 2027 (Image: Getty)
When you played Radar the first time, the project was still getting off the ground. At the time, Luke, you said it felt like there was something to prove. Does that feel different now?
L: No, we hit every stage like we’ve got something to prove. On this tour we’re the main support to [Don Broco], and a lot of people don’t know who we are. They might have heard the name, but we’re playing to lots and lots of new people. So I think we feel as fired up as ever to go and be like here’s everything we’re about. We want to leave the stage where even if it’s not for you, you can at least be like do you know what? That was a good show.
You bring so much energy to your live shows!
J: It’s just that we all legitimately, absolutely love playing live. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do. I always say, if we don’t look like we’re having the best time ever, how can you expect an audience to have a good time? Luckily for us, we’re not putting it on. It is very legit.
L: There’s so many times on the road where I’ll catch Richie as we’re about to go on stage, and he’s like, ‘we get to do the fun bit now’. So much of what we do is just building up to when we get to walk on stage together and do the thing that we love.
With your headline tour coming up in January, what can fans expect, and are there any specific venues you’re most excited to play?
J: I’m really looking forward to playing King Tuts. I mean, that’s the stuff from legends. So, that’s gonna be incredible.
L: Electric Ballroom as well. That was a bit of a little bit of a roll of the dice for us because I remember we sat down having the conversation about where the London venue should be. And you know, the Electric Ballroom’s three times bigger than anywhere we’ve ever headlined before in London. And not only that, it’s the first time we’d be putting a show of that size on alongside regional shows, which we’d never done before.
We were flying to a festival in Finland the day the tour got announced and we had two flights and both times we landed more shows had sold out, so we were just so, so blown away by that. And, you know, we’re X amount of months out and Electric Ballroom’s more nearly sold out now, so we’re incredibly excited about that.
we are unpeople is out now
