Panic Shack against the world

The music industry is notoriously difficult to break into – “especially for working class women” – and the band note this as their motivation: forming as a middle finger to the gate-keeping of the indie/punk world.

“We’d go to gigs every weekend and our friends who were men – or boys, at the time, we’d always be down the front and we’d see them on stage fiddling with pedals,” Fretwell says. “We thought, ‘We know these guys. If they’re doing it, it can’t be that hard’ (no offence).”

Noting that boys tend to “make it look hard,” Panic Shack didn’t take long to realise that playing live didn’t have to be this big, daunting task either: “We’ve got synths going on on the new album, and we realised we don’t necessarily need to be playing the synth on stage to make it work,” Fretwell says. “We have effects now and triggers that make it easier to play in time.” But even then, playing live isn’t always smooth sailing: “We’ve messed up along the way haven’t we, Meg?” Lawrence quips. “Mistakes happen but we just laugh it off.”

Beautiful chaos aside, their 2022 release “The Ick” was met with significant backlash on TikTok with misinformed internet warriors accusing the quartet of cosplaying as a working class band, despite their background being exactly that. “It was all misogyny disguised as telling us we’re shit musicians,” Fretwell says. “Wet Leg had just released their album, and at that time conversations about industry plants were rife – it still happens now, but nothing compared with 2022,” Lawrence adds. They note that TikTok users seemingly “jumped” on the hating-Panic-Shack trend. “People don’t have an original thought and it just snowballs,” Fretwell laments.

Following “The Ick”, the band doubled-down with the release of “Tit School”. A witty twist on Brit School, the track explores their working class roots and debunks the private school rumours. “It was to put our mark on the map – this is where we stand, and we didn’t go to private school,” Fretwell says. “We were literally just taking the piss – which is usually how most of our songs start,” Lawrence adds. “It was never meant to be a ‘retaliation’.” And to anyone who doesn’t realise their world is steeped in humour? “If you can’t get what we’re about from Panic Shack, I don’t think there’s any helping you.”

Drenched in anger but equally balanced with carefully selected satire, “Tit School” exemplifies the rest of their discography – punk cuts that toe the line between call-out culture and humour (“SMELLARAT”, “Gok Wan”). “Even when something really dark is happening, we can collectively quite easily find the funny side in something. I think it’s just so easy to get fully bogged down by stuff, so it’s opening that conversation in a more lighthearted way.”

Despite being mislabelled as disingenuous industry plants, it’s been a long, arduous journey to get to where they are. But the best part? They’ve had the time of their lives: “We were always the ones to start the party; we were getting people to dance and bringing the vibes.”

“We’d get trolleyed after every rehearsal and do really silly stuff. It’s a crazy busy world and it’s full of lots of leopard print and vodka soda limes and cherry ice vapes,” Fretwell says of the early days of the band. It’s from touring with acts such as Soft Play, however, that they learned to turn the party down every once in a while: “We’ve learned from some of the other bands not to cane it too hard on the booze – the big bands don’t necessarily drink as much as we do,” she continues. “We’ve learned to pick and choose when we have that extra vodka.”

With comparisons to the leaders of the Riot Grrrl movement, Meg Fretwell notes Kathleen Hanna as a heavy inspiration: “I really loved a documentary called The Punk Singer – it’s about Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill. It was very inspiring to my graphic design work, which I was studying, but I never thought I was going to be in a band.” Asked how Panic Shack align with the Riot Grrrl ethos, they offer: “I think it’s doing DIY from the very start. We’re authentic and we’re also women, and I’m glad that maybe we’re inspiring people in some way.”

On their debut record, Panic Shack, this authenticity shines through. “It’s almost like a stream of consciousness of our lived and joint experiences… that we have as a friendship group,” Fretwell shares. “It’s also a wider commentary on being women – but the point was to introduce the world to us, and how it feels to be us.”

Although its predecessor is titled Baby Shack, this new release is by no means Adult Shack: “It’s a step-up but it’s not full-on adult yet, maybe teenage,” Fretwell explains. “Even on Baby Shack we touch on important things, and there’s serious undertones on the album, but we’ve approached it in our own silly way.”

The album closer, “Thelma & Louise”, perfectly demonstrates the love they have for each other, not just as a band, but as a chosen family. Even on tour, when most artists might want a break and a breather, Panic Shack choose to share rooms. “We still want to spend all of our time together, which maybe for other people is crazy, but we never get bored of each other,” Lawrence says. For this reason, “Thelma & Louise”, a tender yet punchy cut, was always destined to take its place on the tracklist, with them “not seeing it any other way.”

“We wrote all the songs alongside each other, so it just felt like the most natural place for it. It’s a bit more of a ballad if we were ever to have one. We discussed how we were going to order the album and it just had to be that one – it just made sense.”

With their debut album release fast approaching, and Glastonbury, SXSW, and huge support slots under their belt, Panic Shack have two main goals yet to hit: touring the world, and making their music a full time job. “It’s a humble goal, but I feel like it’s hard for working class musicians to achieve that – I think we’re close, we just need to keep pushing,” Lawrence concludes.

Through thick and thin, they’ve had each other’s backs. They’re scrappy, they’re sexy, they’re loud – they’re the one and only Panic Shack.