Boxing Club are the kind of band that could only form in the cracks of a city, through forum ads, collapsing rehearsals, and the beautiful chaos of the London underground. A London-via-Glasgow four-piece, they fuse the city’s ambition and late-night frenzy with Glasgow’s grit and brutal honesty. Their live shows are sweaty, frantic, theatrical; their lyrics pull politics, nightlife, class pressure, and modern-day disillusionment into the spotlight.

With their debut release ‘Barbra,’ Boxing Club channeled temptation into something both confrontational and strangely cathartic. Now, as they step out of the undercard and onto bigger stages, they’re less interested in perfection and more obsessed with truth, messy, unfiltered, political truth. The kind that asks, What’s the State done to you? and doesn’t flinch at the answer.

This interview finds Boxing Club in that exact moment: between cities, between classes, between who they were and who they’re about to become.

You formed through the London underground circuit and forum ads, the most beautifully chaotic way to start a band. What was the moment you realised: Oh shit, this actually works?

In the beginning we went through a lot of different variants of the line-up. London life is chaotic, people are busy, rehearsals fall apart, and it actually took about a year for us to land on the version of the band we have now.

The moment it clicked was a show at The Social back in May. That was the first time we walked offstage and thought, ‘this feels decent…’ Trying to pull a group of strangers together in a city like London and make them feel like a unit was always going to be tricky, but somehow we’ve ended up with the right combination. Thank goodness we did.

There’s a Glasgow-London duality in the band, two cities with very different energies. How does that geographical split shape your sound or your identity?

We’re based in London, it’s where we live, rehearse, record, and where we’ve spent the last year playing the gig circuit. But there’s always been a Glasgow–London split running through the band, and heading back up in January ’26 for shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh feels like returning to the other half of our DNA.

The sound recognises that departure, leaving one place behind and stepping into the big-city ideal. London has always been the land for the aspirational, the place people come to test themselves. But the Glasgow upbringing brings its own imprint: a streetwise aggression, a sharper sense of observation, a grit you don’t shake off.

Those two energies collide in the music: London’s ambition and chaos meeting Glasgow’s brutal honesty and pride.

Your music drags politics, nightlife, drugs, and the underdog into the spotlight. Do you write from lived experience, observation, or just a refusal to look away?

There are a lot of reference points in the writing. Some of it comes from lived experience, but a lot of it comes from things we’ve seen, real scenarios, real people, and then building new characters to live inside those stories. A big part of it is giving a voice to people who don’t have a platform, trying to tell their stories in a way that feels honest.

There’s also a thread of social commentary running through the songs: the way people are being treated, the state of the country, how all of that bleeds into daily life. Ultimately, we’re just trying to connect people, to make someone feel seen, even in the chaos.

As a band, what does your creative process actually look like? Structured chaos, democratic debate, or someone screaming ideas until they make sense?

It’s a slow process for us. Everything starts with Ableton demos, rough shapes and early ideas, before moving into writing sessions in the studio where things start to take form. Our lead singer usually kicks things off, building the structure and lyrics and layering in the first elements of the sound.

From there it becomes a band job: taking that skeleton and turning it into something that actually feels like a Boxing Club track. We work closely with our producer Michael Smith at RYP Studios, and he’s a big part of shaping the final version. It’s not chaotic or overly democratic, it’s more like each stage hands the song over to the next until it finally clicks.

‘City Boy’ feels like a nocturnal character study, tense, wired, a bit dangerous. Who is the City Boy to you, and what part of yourselves leaked into this track?

‘City Boy’ is about a man trying to fit into a society he thinks is above him, someone who leaves his hometown to better himself but finds the cost of that ambition isn’t what he expected. It’s a tale of aspiration and the challenges that come with it. His upbringing leaves a mark, the people he left behind chastise him for wanting more, and the people he’s trying to join still don’t fully accept him.

He’s trapped between two worlds, belonging to neither. That pressure, that confusion around class and identity, twists him into someone he barely recognises. His desperation to fit in becomes its own kind of madness, and in trying to reinvent himself, he starts to lose sight of who he really is.

Your upcoming EP “What’s the State Done to You?” sounds like a loaded title. What’s the story behind it, and who exactly are you pointing that question at?

The title comes from a track on the EP called ‘Father and State’. It follows the life of one man who’s been let down repeatedly, by family, friends, and, ultimately, the State. The song looks at how all of these things are tied together. Politics isn’t distant; it bleeds into every corner of our daily lives.

“What’s the state done to you?” is an open question because it applies to almost everyone. There’s been generational dissatisfaction with politicians from every side. Thatcher’s destruction of industry, Blair’s war in the Middle East, Cameron’s austerity, Boris and his lockdown circus, and now Starmer’s managerial middle-ground, it’s a long line of leaders who’ve made us distrust one another while they hide in plain sight.

The EP is basically asking: What have our politicians done to you? How has society changed and negatively impacted your life? Why are we letting these people get away with it?

If someone listens to your EP and walks away changed, what do you hope they feel in their chest? Fury? Relief? Recognition?

Unity, more than anything. We all live completely different lives, but the struggles overlap. The songs are trying to find empathy, to connect people who might think they’ve got nothing in common. If someone walks away feeling a bit more seen, or a bit less alone in what they’re dealing with, then we’ve done our job.

If you could design the perfect night out, the exact chaos your music deserves, where would it start, and where would it inevitably go wrong?

It would probably start quite politely, a sit-down meal, a few drinks, then heading out to see some live music. You can see something brilliant any night of the week in London. After that, it splits: half the band heads home at a reasonable hour, and the other half ends up talking absolute nonsense until closing time. That’s usually where it all goes wrong.

What’s a piece of music the band collectively agrees on, the artist or album that always finds a spot in the van, no arguments?

The beauty is we’ve got varying tastes in music. From Baxter Dury, Idles and Fontaines D.C. to Jamiroquai, Change and Prince. Somehow it all fits, it keeps things interesting.

What’s something each member brings to the band that the others absolutely couldn’t live without? (Chaos encouraged)

It’s a four-way balancing act: one organised, one forgetful, one consistent, one permanently busy. On paper it looks like a disaster, but weirdly it’s the exact mix that keeps us afloat.

When you’re not making post-punk, what’s your peace mode? Any hobbies people wouldn’t expect from you? Baking, long walks, conspiracy documentaries?

Celtic FC is a big part of life in the band and with Scotland heading to the 2026 World Cup, that’s going to take over our lives for a bit. Outside of football, Charlie, our drummer, makes bespoke jewellery from scratch, which is pretty impressive. It’s a strange mix of chaos and craftsmanship, which kind of sums us up.

You’re stepping from the undercard into headline territory with The Grace in 2026. How are you approaching this moment?

We’re building the momentum properly. We headlined The Dublin Castle in July and then The Victoria in Dalston in September, and The Grace feels like the next step up. We don’t just want to play a gig, we want to put on a show, something people feel part of. We’re also playing Glasgow for the first time on 16 January 2026, which feels like a homecoming. It’s a big moment for us.

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