The Bug Club are doing it for themselves

After finding the spot in the Airbnb with the strongest WiFi connection, the smiley faces of Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris greeted me from their home in Caldicot – “Just say near Newport,” they half-joke. “No one knows where Caldicot is.”

Very Human Features – their second album, released on stalwart label Sub Pop – is a statement of intent from the Welsh band, a 13-track garage rock delight that is equal measures lyrically sharp and sonically playful. It turns out, it’s just a musical miniature of the people who made it.

Having met and started playing music together since they were 14, often at the local pub back home, the duo has developed a chemistry apparent in all their work, as well as in the way they joke and riff off each other. It’s especially apparent on Very Human Features: they weave in and out of each other’s lines, guitar and bass parts ascending and dropping within one hivemind.

“People say that about us a lot,” drummer Tom Rees says. “It’s a really high compliment that we always appreciate.” The riffs are infectious, and the drums played with such confidence you’d be forgiven for thinking Rees has played with them since 14, too, rather than being a newer addition to the core duo.

“We’ve worked with Tom on so many of our past albums; he’s always been there to give notes or produce the whole thing,” Harris says, “so when he came in to drum for us, it didn’t feel like we were missing a beat. This record is definitely a natural progression, just because we don’t like staying doing the same thing for too long.” Annoyingly, you get a feeling that all of this comes very easily to them, that their songwriting is whip-smart, not because they spend a painstaking amount of time on it, but because they are as smart as their songs.

“For this album, a lot of the old-timey sound just came from Sam fiddling with the guitar and bass, then Tom would fill in the blanks of silence,” Harris explains. She’s referring to a comment I’d made about how this album has a familiar nostalgia to it, with the earnestness of The Pastels, and almost a McCartney-esque convention to the song structures. “That might be unwarranted praise!” Willmett says with his eyes wide in surprise. While not suggesting that they will necessarily have that forever-lasting influence, songs like “Sound of Communism” or “Beep Boop Computers” carry themselves with the same whimsical charm of the ex-Beatle’s work.

That said, that kind of everlasting success doesn’t seem to concern them that much at all. This is their fourth LP since 2022, in addition to all of the EPs and standalone singles they’ve released. “At the heart of it, we just really enjoy writing, playing, and performing music,” Willmett says. “I wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell you why we wrote each song, exactly why a certain guitar sounds the way it sounds apart from the fact that we really liked how it sounded in the studio.” There’s a certain low-stakes confidence behind how they both speak about their music, that they truly relish in its creation, but can equally move onto the next project just as quickly.

Even the songwriting, so witty and clever but also honest, comes from short sessions. “I think we both enjoy setting time aside to write songs,” Harris explains. “It usually gets too crazy on tour, so we might just be writing some bits down in a notebook, but when you get home, you’re almost able to sit down and say ‘I’m writing now’, and when you do that, we can pretty quickly put together some tracks.”

Their prolific nature comes, simply, from how much they enjoy making music – not the other way around – and when I ask if they’re ever scared of burning out from their relentless stream of new work, they are entirely unbothered. “I mean, we’ve enjoyed playing to crowds of no one, and we enjoy playing to the crowds now. I don’t think we’re ever going to get burnt out, really. That sort of implies that it’s a bad thing if we ever stop,” Willmett says, and Harris picks up the thought: “We do this now because we want to and can, and if we ever don’t, then I’ll just go be a gardener or decorator or something!”

Recording the record in Cardiff, as with most of their discography, the duo are not shy about their Welshness. “I really enjoy being Welsh, though because we’re so close to the border it’s a bit of an insecurity of mine,” Harris says. “We think we’re from the right side of the bridge.” It wouldn’t be a surprise if they were British, though, with much of their lyrical wit coming from niche observations of local culture, even when some crowds don’t pick up on it. “I actually find it really fun when our jokes go over people’s heads: sometimes I feel like some people don’t even know where Wales is, let alone the Brynglas Tunnel,” Harris jokes.

On top of these local references, their media palettes are broad and allow for a spectrum of inspiration. “I recently bought a Jack Dempsey book about punching, and how to punch really hard,” Willmett says. Harris eggs him on as he explains what the power line is, or how the book opens with a diagram of a baby punching a truck, before summarising Reg Presley’s book about crop circles with manic passion. On a more serious note, the poetry of Anne Sexton and Daniil Kharms is brought up as a point of inspiration. Especially on the latter, Harris notes that even “in such a dire situation, he was still seeing the funny side of things.” Consciously or not, the power line probably influences the band’s energy, and the duo’s songs often follow Kharms’ guiding principle of seeing the light.

Our time is winding down, and I have to get ready to go to the first day of Primavera Sound, lamenting that they won’t be performing and I’ll have their songs stuck in my head all weekend, while they have to listen back to side B of more music they’ve recorded. Answering the typical what’s-next-for-you question, Harris is wise and candid: “It’s hard to say what that might be. We just want to make this as sustainable for us as possible, so that we can continue doing it for as long as possible.”

Willmett agrees, arguing that “if there’s one big thing, then when you get there it’s difficult to see a way forward. We’ll just be doing more of this, you know. We were doing this long before anyone was listening.” This feels typical of The Bug Club: the talented Welsh duo at their core just really enjoy making music, and the fact that they can do so is not lost on them. The combination of musical aptitude, lack of pretension, and well-natured humour is a rare one, but The Bug Club possess all of it in spades, and I’m sure it won’t be long before we hear more from them.