Reason To Leave on their debut album “Live, Laugh, Leave”

PRT: I guess my first question would have to be: where have you guys been hiding and how come I never heard of you up until now?

MIKE: Well, being from the UK, most of the world wide audience wants to hear stuff that sounds like Cock Sparrer or ska as most of the world think the UK is just London. But there’s a whole array of hardcore and skatepunk from here that’s influenced by the American sound. Also, we’re 100% independant so we can fight against algorithms that want your money to be heard. We play a lot around the UK though.

TOM: I don’t think we’re hiding, we’re just unfortunately on a small isolationist island in decline, that is no longer relevant on the world stage.

HAWKY: Well, we’ve been around for a few years now and it’s about a year or so with the current line up, when I joined a few years back the lads had only really recently released the Rise and Grind EP. We got to work from there and what we’ve created so far is something I’m proud of .

PRT: You play the kind of skatepunk that would have—for the most part—blended right in on the Epitaph or Fat Wreck roster of the 90s. What is it about that style that appeals to you the most?

MIKE: It’s the music we grew up on, that sound was very popular here in the late 90s, I feel like it’s the bridge between the gap of hardcore and pop punk. It’s great to have catchy music with the speed of hardcore with the melodys of pop punk, lyrically for the most part it’s good to hear music that catchy but isn’t about high school.

TOM: Something about double time drums and fast palm mutes on a distorted guitar just sets something off in my brain, add some big vocal melodies and it can’t be beaten.

HAWKY: Well for me being the youngest in the band I didn’t grow up in the 90s so punk didn’t really reach me until I delved into it myself at about the age of 20. The skatepunk style fits the way I play bass, fast and sometimes technical with loads of energy. With bands like Rancid being my absolute top of the food chain when it comes to punk it was only natural for this style to appeal to me.

PRAV: Apart from the technicality and skill involved in playing at close to 200 BPM, I think it’s the social messaging and politically charged themes that really appeal to me. When I discovered bands like Ignite, particularly through songs like “Bleeding”, that kind of messaging about the military-industrial complex really resonated with me. I was exposed to that music quite late in life, but it had a real impact on me, and I think those themes come through in our own writing as well. That combination of high-energy music and something meaningful to say is what I love most about the genre.

PRT: Most of those classic skatepunk bands are from the US. Do you think being from the UK—or Merseyside in particular—had a direct effect on your sound and attitude?

MIKE: Merseyside is a very working class area of the UK, and I think that shows in our music. Life can be tough here. You wouldn’t hear a northern band sing ‘na na na na’ in a song that’s for sure. People here always have a very sardonic sense of humour but there’s always been an understanding that taking the piss is a form of love.

TOM: There’s a saying;“It’s grim up north”. It’s wet, it’s cold, and it’s dark. There’s a large north/south divide in the UK, the northwest has always been one of the most deprived areas of the country. Liverpool was put into “managed decline” by the government in the 1980’s following the Toxteth riots, which gives the city rebellious, anti-establishment, against the grain mindset. It also means you tend to develop a wicked sense of humour.

When you’re working class and there’s no help or support for you, it means you either figure out how to do things yourself or you don’t do them, and to me that’s the DIY heart of punk rock. Certainly everything I know about music stems from me finding one of my uncle’s old guitars and thinking “I can probably do that.”

HAWKY: Being from a working class family that lived on a council estate till I was 18 definitely influenced the way I carry myself and the way I play my instrument. I’ve always had the ethic of always wanting to learn new things, never backing down from a challenge and if someone tells me I can’t do something, you best believe I’m gonna do exactly that ! It definitely gives you a certain drive being from this kind of place.

PRAV: ⁠Yeah, definitely, particularly when it comes to the lyrics and attitude. Being from Merseyside, we naturally end up writing about things like the cost of living and how nobody in the establishment seems to have any real answers to the issues we’re facing today. I think that frustration definitely feeds into our attitude and the themes we explore in our music. There are some pretty gritty themes in “Bite Back”, one of the singles we’ve just released, which reflect a lot of those frustrations.:

PRT: You don’t just emulate that style though; you mix it up with heavier hardcore parts, tons of vocal harmonies, and singalong hooks. Are you all listening to very different music individually, and is Reason To Leave just what happens when you bring those styles together?

MIKE: I think we all enjoy the whole spectrum of punk rock, I have generally spent my life listening to punk rock and music like rap and drum & bass too. When it comes to punk I think you can be very creative within a set of boundaries and having our own heavier spin on a classic sound seperates us from the rest of the pack so to speak

TOM: Skatepunk will always be my first love but I’ve deliberately pushed myself to become more open minded as I’ve gotten older. I listen to a lot of everything, from Hardcore to Hyperpop, and I try to check out a lot of new stuff. My favourite bands are ones that push genres or blend a few ideas, like A Wilhelm Scream, RX Bandits, and Propagandhi. I played in a much harsher hardcore band called Snakes Among Us before joining RTL, and I also play in a 80’s covers band, so I’ve got a few little different tricks up my sleeve in my playing and song writing toolbox.

Those breakdowns on Erased and Treading Water came from last minute tinkering with arrangements in the studio (shout out to Danny from Fair Do’s/Blagged who we did the record with.), I just grooved them out when we were looking for a little something extra for those songs. I really love the Treading Water one.

HAWKY: For me I didn’t grow up listening to punk I grew up listening to my dad’s record collection of bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai to name a few. I’ve always had an eclectic music taste listening anything from rock to jazz to pop and funk, but when I discovered punk in my 20s most notably Black Flag. I realised right then that this is the music I want to play and aligns the most with my attitude and feelings. I’d definitely say all of our individual styles definitely combine into something fierce as when I started playing bass I was learning rock tunes and technical bass solos etc so it definitely shows in our songs.

PRAV: ⁠Yeah, all four members of Reason To Leave have quite different musical backgrounds. I’d say I’m probably the least exposed to Punk in the band haha. Over the years though I’ve been heavily influenced by grunge, alternative rock, heavy metal and even some pop punk. Some of the bands that have had the biggest influence on me over the years are Soundgarden, Alter Bridge, Nirvana and Dinosaur Pile Up to name a few. And I think those influences come through in what I bring to the table, particularly with the vocal harmonies and drum parts. I think that mix of different backgrounds is what helps us bring something of our own to the skatepunk sound.

PRT: You’ve already released a couple of EPs like Rise And Grind, but Live, Laugh, Leave is your debut full-length. Was the process different this time around in terms of songwriting and structuring a full album?

MIKE: Well the line up has been different on every EP up until now, early on we where still figuring things out and as some people left the band and others joined, our work flow has been more refined. The current line up just works so well, like a well oiled machine, and we really do just bounce off each other and compliment each others musicianship.

TOM: I’m the new guy, this is the first RTL release I’ve played on. I bullied everyone to play everything 5-10bpm faster.

HAWKY: I can’t speak to what it was like for the process of the earlier line up recording Rise and Grind but for this album we all had individual input on what we wanted to do and how we wanted certain things to sound and there was so difficulties or anything like that when recording it. It was just like one big hangout and we happened to record an album out of it. I must say as well that Danny from Blagged and Fair Dos definitely pulled the best out of me and some of the bass tracks on there are wilder than I had first previously imagined I’d record!

PRAV: Yeah, I’d say so. This time around, we did a lot of pre-production with Danny Cummings, who also recorded our last EP, What Is True. We really went into detail with the different parts, exploring the limits of where we could take our compositions. Personally, I think Danny really pushed me to come up with new parts and fills for the songs. It was great having someone there to bounce ideas off and challenge us to push things further. I’m glad we had him on board for that process, because I think it really helped us get the most out of the songs.

PRT: The “Live, Laugh, Love” motto is probably still hanging on walls all over the world. If there is one motto you’d like to have embroidered on a cushion to curl up against at night, what would it be?

MIKE: ‘Make punk rock fast again’

TOM: “Fuck shit up, fuck it up, up, up, up.”

HAWKY: ‘I Put The Punk in Punctual’ – Henry Rollins. Thanks Hank!

PRAV: ⁠I think it has to be Live, Laugh, Leave — the title of our album. Honestly, I think that would make a great piece of merch as well!⁠

PRT: Given the band name and the album title, what would you say is the absolute biggest “reason to leave”?

MIKE: Mike, after one of his burritos.

TOM: To go and do something to better yourself, your situation, and to take steps towards self actualisation.

HAWKY: Mike after too many cans and he starts talking about Wallace and Gromit. IYKYK.

PRT: What’s up next for Reason To Leave now that Live, Laugh, Leave is out?

MIKE: Just going to crack on cracking on, we’ve already started writing our songs for album 2, and I’m sure we’ll be bringing them into the rehearsal studio soon. Other than that we’re available for bookings and tours so be sure to hit us up on the socials

TOM: It would be pretty cool to play a mainland Europe tour, if anyone wants to help sort that out give us a shout.

HAWKY: We plan to keep on demoing tunes and get album 2 panned out. I’ve got some crazy ideas for the 2nd album so I’m eager to get them recorded. As for that we plan to play as many gigs as we possibly can to promote the new album as well getting new merch and vinyl out which is definitely a personal highlight of mine to get our record out on some physical vinyl. Being a bit of nut for it myself.

PRAV: We’ve got an album launch gig in Feb and several shows booked for 2027. Hope to get on the road and have people vibe to the new tunes!