Sir Elton John has always championed up-and-coming artists. The music legend’s patronage of stars including Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa is well known. But socially conscious, bitingly witty, Leeds-based indie sprechgesang (spoken singing) band Yard Act? Well, it turns out Elton loves them too, to the extent that he offered his services to the group as a musician for hire in 2022.
“He said, ‘You’ve hired me as a session player. I’ll do whatever you want,’” says Yard Act frontman James Smith of the day when the superstar visited their studio. At one point, Smith found himself telling the Rocket Man that his piano playing “wasn’t the right vibe”. Elton took the direction well. “Yeah, he loved it. He said that it was amazing. He was, like, ‘I’ve been doing this for so long, I’ve never wanted to stop learning. I don’t know how your band does what you do, but I want to learn.’” Yard Act bassist Ryan Needham says that despite the initial jaw-drop moment of seeing him — “It was Elton John, dripping in Prada” — the musician “wasn’t a daunting presence” at all. The fruits of their joint labour can be heard on a version of the track 100% Endurance.
Elton’s got solid taste: Yard Act are one of Britain’s most exciting bands. They sprung from the ashes of lockdown with tracks such as Fixer Upper, about a myopic second-home owner called Graham. Their Mercury-nominated debut album The Overload was a collection of startling post-punk funk that sat somewhere between The Fall, Gang of Four, Pulp and Ian Dury. It was stuffed with character sketches and tales of crumbling, stagnant Britain, regaled in Smith’s bone-dry delivery. But the tag of post-punk poster boys riled them, so Yard Act’s second album — 2024’s assured Where’s My Utopia? — embraced disco, baggy and electronica music. Their imminent third album, You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, is a different beast yet again.
“It’s our best work… I would point people to this album,” says Needham when I put him on the spot and ask him to describe the record for Standard readers. He, Smith and I are sitting in the air-conditioned rooftop bar of a central London hotel as the capital melts outside in the summer’s second heatwave. Naturally, Smith and Needham’s vintage shades remain on throughout our chat. A mezze platter sits on the table in front of us and Smith sips a spicy alcohol-free cocktail called a Mockarita Del Diablo, which should be the name of a Yard Act song. The pair are at the pivot point where the artistic process of making a record as a tight unit turns into the practical process of promoting it and flinging the metaphorical doors open, a process that Needham says can be “tricky to navigate”. No complaints here.
Album review: You’re Gonna Need a Little Music
★★★★★
Wow, this is something else, the third album by this Leeds group that combines the spiky storytelling wit of first album Arctic Monkeys with the restless nutcase verve of Warmduscher and with a new expansive flair of Pulp. Indeed, frontman James Smith comes on like Jarvis meets Baxter Dury on speed, the scabrous hero we all need right now. Somehow Yard Act can shift from the epic punk-metal state-of-a-divided-nation track Empty Pledges, to the poppy glory of New Beginnings; it’s hard to remember a band managing this as effectively since The Fall where Mark E Smith would occasionally smash into the charts just to annoy everyone and show people he could — it’s just he’s not usually bothered. Yard Act — best group in the country now. Martin Robinson
Out July 17
You’re Gonna Need a Little Music opens with the crepuscular Empty Pledges, which shares the creeping menace of Massive Attack’s Angel, and features the tense and dark lead single Redeemer. Smith describes Redeemer’s release as a deliberate “spanner-in-the-works move”, chosen because it was the “exact opposite” of Where’s My Utopia’s upbeat lead single Dream Job (he initially wanted to do a Led Zeppelin and not release any singles at all, something he quickly realised wouldn’t fly). Lyrically, the album finds Smith less certain and more careworn than before. “By now you’re either with us or you’re not/ So you can sit down, shut up and listen… or switch this shit off,” Smith says on Empty Pledges.
“I’m more comfortable with admitting that I’m not really sure of myself… I don’t really trust people who think they know it all”
James Smith
Between offering me an olive and sip of his Mockarita, Smith explains that he’s “getting more comfortable with admitting that I’m not really sure of myself… I don’t really trust people who think they know it all.” In other words, life isn’t cut and dry. It is, to quote 10cc, a minestrone. Or in this case a mezze platter.
But You’re Gonna Need a Little Music buoys as well as broods. Over the Barrel and New Beginnings sound joyous. Of the stylistic evolution, Smith says he gets “unnerved when people think they’ve got me pegged” (there’s a pattern here). The first two albums gave Yard Act “quite a big playground” to operate in, says Needham, who has a theory based on Blur’s Parklife: it’s only on a band’s third album that they outgrow their influences and become their own thing. “We finally stopped looking left and right,” he explains. Sonically broad, You’re Gonna Need a Little Music is richly produced by former Beck, St Vincent and Nine Inch Nails collaborator Justin Meldal-Johnsen. It was recorded half in Leeds and half in Los Angeles (which may explain its darkness and light) and is the first record the four-piece have recorded in a studio together (guitarist Sam Shipstone and drummer Jay Russell complete the band). The previous albums were done via laptop and sound files.
The American Meldal-Johnsen is a long-established fan of goth music so loved being in Leeds, which spawned the scene via bands like The Sisters of Mercy and The Rose of Avalanche. Meldal-Johnsen visited a goth club, but chickened out of knocking on the front door of Sisters frontman Andrew Eldritch’s house. “He wouldn’t do it,” says Smith, admiring the fact that even musical veterans get nervous about meeting their heroes.
With all their shape-shifting, Yard Act sound like a band who are deliberately wilful. They’re not. They just don’t fit in with the clippable, easily categorisable direction in which culture has headed. They are unashamedly musicians’ musicians. A vignette from the past. When Smith and Needham first met at a house party in around 2013, they had a 4am debate about which was better — Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica (Smith) or the albums of The Longpigs (Needham). “There was an iPod dock. That sets the scene,” says Smith. Back to today, the problem is that so much of popular culture relies on content that “grabs [people] within three seconds”, says Smith.
“I’m suspect of it. It’s icing out a lot of interesting perspectives and a lot of interesting art because it’s not immediate. A slogan carries a lot faster than putting your hands up and spending 45 minutes saying, ‘I’m more confused about the world than I’ve ever been. I’ve got no answers, I’ve got questions,’” the singer explains. Yard Act will square this circle by “playing the long game” and having faith that “if you believe in what you do, it will grow and resonate with the audience,” says Smith.
Still, Yard Act enjoy poking people. They all still live in Leeds, apart from Shipstone who lives in nearby Bradford (“We’re slowly falling apart at the seams,” jokes Smith). A few years ago the band told a London crowd that they were kicking off the tour in the capital to “practise for the more important cities”. Just a bit of fun, says Smith. “Some of our best shows have been in London… It’s an amazing city. But you have to pay your dues and you give it a kick,” he says. Needham compares such statements to comedians who deliberately alienate their audiences at the start of their act before winning them back. Yard Act play a 15-date UK tour in November, this time ending in London. By the time they reach Brixton Academy, they should be well warmed up.
Yard Act’s current level of fame is manageable, even enjoyable, says Smith. “I was in Asda the other day. I felt this tap on my shoulder, I turned around and this guy held up his phone and he was listening to Where’s My Utopia? doing his shop. He didn’t say anything. He just nodded and walked off. And I was, like, ‘That’s amazing.’”
If fame levels ratchet up with the fantastic You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, then Yard Act will just have to learn to deal with it. Learning’s important. Just ask Elton.
James Smith’s playlist
Small Car — Marvin Pontiac
“The jump-off for the title track of our new album. They’re both road songs.”
Tom’s Diner — Suzanne Vega
“An observational song — in Janey Said, I wanted to present a man who isn’t noticing anything but himself.”
Intruder — Peter Gabriel
“The groove heavily influenced how we approached Redeemer.”
