The Guest List Are Finding Something Real
With their debut album on the horizon, The Guest List have a sound that feels like them.
A few weeks ago, on a warm spring evening in Bristol, I spoke with Cai Alty, Leio Hunter, and Tom Quigley of The Guest List, before their headline show at Exchange.
If you're unfamiliar, The Guest List are a 5-piece band with Manchester roots, but they don’t let the label of being a “Manchester band” confine them. After forming in 2021, their increasing presence in the live scene and on social media has seen them truly emerge over the past couple of years, propelled by tracks like 161 and Canada. Their rise has seen them supporting the likes of Blossoms and Inhaler, and with every new guitar anthem released, they remind us why they are one of the most exciting up-and-coming bands in the country.
We spoke before the penultimate show of their recent 14-date headline tour. A tour which, Cai shared, had probably been his favourite so far. “There have been some really good nights. Liverpool was really good because we played the album from start to finish. So, yeah, I’ve really enjoyed it.”
The album he referred to is their long-awaited debut, set for release at the end of August. Songs from that forthcoming album have been a setlist staple on this tour, aside from the full play-through in Liverpool. Cai and Leio mentioned that they had enjoyed getting the new songs out, and highlighted “If Ever Your Devil Is Kind” as a track that had gone down really well every night. However, when I asked about their approach to crafting a setlist, Leio suggested it’s not all about the new stuff: “We try to keep it appealing for the fans as well. You don’t want to drain them and just play new songs all the time.”
The tracklist of the album will include songs taken from their EP When The Lights Are Out, which was released at the end of last year, and continued the band’s trend of discussing slightly heavier themes through their music. When asked about his approach to writing perhaps heavier songs, Cai explained, “I think being out of your comfort zone is quite important when you write. So lyrically, that [feels] like the place to go.”
One of the tracks from that EP, “Weatherman”, has quickly become a fan favourite. It paints the image of an apocalyptic world shaped by climate change, with the anthemic lyric “should have listened to the weatherman” reflecting on what could be done to prevent that probable future. Cai had no direct intentions to write a song about climate change, but believes, “If the lyrics take that direction, and it’s something that I care about, then it feels like the right thing to do, rather than to shy away [from it].”
Cai has previously stated his desire to write songs that are “serious but not depressing”. One of their latest, “Something Real”, epitomises that sentiment exactly. On the task of striking that balance, he noted, “It is a challenge, and I find everyone wants it to be depressing for some reason. [With] ‘Something Real’, for example, if you go into politics, people very much want you to be on the nose with it. That’s not really the angle we’re coming at the whole thing from. It’s more about just enjoying the tunes.” The track opens with an instantly catchy riff, before Cai declares, “Hate is on trend / War is on trend”.
With the feeling of an instant indie classic, the song couldn’t be more timely in a world becoming increasingly dominated by algorithms and AI. It’s a song the band is clearly proud of, and they have every reason to be. “That song just felt like the centrepiece of everything that we’ve been doing recently,” Cai stated, while guitarist Leio added that with the track, they achieved a sound which feels like them. With this in mind, it came as no surprise when Cai revealed to me that “Something Real” will share a title with their debut album.
Given the themes they’ve had in mind recently, I was keen to ask the band about their attitude towards their overall image, aside from music. They have been quite inventive with several of their music videos, including a recent shoot inside some illusion rooms.
However, their desire for something meaningful was, for me, most evident in the series of artwork for their releases last year in the lead-up to When The Lights Are Out. When I mentioned this, Leio confirmed as much, saying, “With the EP singles, we tried to keep a constant theme. We wanted something that would last the test of time.” This led the band to collaborate with London-based artist Lydia Miller, who created oil paintings on canvas for three singles and the EP cover art.
A similar approach is being taken as the band looks toward their debut album. They had recently shot the now-revealed cover when we spoke, which Cai referred to as “a bit mad”. The final image came together thanks to 4 mannequins, a Stockport cinema, and the work of photographer Ewan Ogden.
The process took all day and involved putting the mannequins in every seat, then layering the photos. “I think that [it’s] quite funny because the album’s called Something Real, and people see the cover and think it’s AI, and it’s not. We actually did do that.”
The Guest List are a band for our time. Unafraid to tackle important themes in their lyrics, while having the sound to back it all up. Their debut album, Something Real, will be released on August 28th, and you can catch them on tour this autumn.