OUT 21ST NOVEMBER – PRE-SAVE HERE
NEW SINGLE DRIVE MYSELF HOME OUT NOW – LISTEN HERE
Currently winding up their US Tour, South Arcade have announced their brand new EP, PLAY!, which will be released on 21st November, via BKM Artists & LAB Records and is available to pre-save here. As a teaser from the EP, they have released the highly anticipated single Drive Myself Home, which premiered as BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record. Listen here.
Drive Myself Home perfectly captures the band’s signature blend of catchy guitar riffs, anthemic choruses, and creative sound-effect infused hooks. Speaking on the new song, the band said, “Drive Myself Home is about realising that time spent on something or the history attached to it isn’t the reason to hold on. What was right once may not be right now and letting go doesn’t make you a bad person, it just means you’re doing what’s best for you.”
The track arrived in the middle of their 22-date US tour, where fans across the country are already getting a first listen to the song’s soaring melodies. With shows across the country, the tour saw them kick things off in Orlando before hitting Atlanta, Austin, and New York. The sold-out tour includesd shows in Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Dallas before wrapping up in Nashville yesterday (8th November).
New 5-track EP PLAY!, will feature their latest singles, FEAR OF HEIGHTS and Radio 1 favourite Supermodels, as well as previously unheard singles Bleed Out (feat Bilmuri) and Blood Run Warm. PLAY! is due to be released during their biggest UK and Ireland tour in November, playing some of their largest headline shows to date including London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
The four-piece are rising at an incredible rate, having had one of their busiest years to date. As well as their own headline tours, the band played to huge crowds at Slam Dunk and Radio 1’s Big Weekend and following a riotous headline set of the BBC Introducing stage in 2024, they were invited back onto the main stage at Reading & Leeds this August, sharing the stage with the likes of Limp Bizkit and Bring Me The Horizon. A force to be reckoned with, South Arcade have found a huge following across their social media with over 16.9 million likes on TikTok and a rapidly growing YouTube following after gaining popularity with videos of their rehearsals and live stage antics. With over 1.3 million monthly listeners, last year’s EP, 2005, now has over 50 million streams on Spotify alone and includes tracks stone cold summer, MOTH KIDS and HOW 2 GET AWAY WITH MURDER.
South Arcade are Harmony Cavelle (vocals), Harry Winks (guitar), Ollie Green (bass) and Cody Jones (drums).
The band having just come to the end of their, relatively short, US tour, take a rest to prepare for the UK dates that start on November 18th in Dublin.
November
18th – The Academy, Dublin, Ireland
20th – New Century Hall, Manchester, UK
22nd – Stylus, Leeds, UK
23rd – Studio SWG3, Glasgow, UK
25th – Y Plas, Cardiff, UK
27th – O2 Institute, Birmingham, UK
28th – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK
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South Arcade Bio: The band formed as university friends, initially through lead singer Harmony Cavelle and guitarist Harry Winks getting demos down before recruiting the rest of the band.
“Me and Harry go way back”, explains Harmony, “from being in bands when we were younger. But then we got to uni and we were like ‘let’s just make the band we always wanted to be in.’ We hadn’t found any other members, so we just sat and wrote loads of tracks, loads and loads of demos. Then, we had the tunes…now we need to get some members that make this a full thing.” Joined by Cody Jones on drums and Ollie Green on bass, the ads searching for members to join the “Royal Blood meets Charlie XCX” band were enticing enough to pull in the rhythm section to bring the whole thing together.
They draw influences from further back to create that sound though. Harmony continues: “Our favourite sort of music, not with regards to genre, was just the music from 1995 to2005, like across pop and rock really.”
“When rock was sort of pop” adds Ollie.
You can hear that clearly in the music. There are elements of Paramore, a bit of early 2000’s Avril Lavigne but also, the band tell me, they’re influenced by the likes of No Doubt, Linkin’ Park and Limp Bizkit. These are the sounds that drive their breakout song DANGER, which took on a new life a year after release, blowing up on TikTok and more recent releases Nepo Baby and Riptide, and the latest single, How To Get Away With Murder. The delayed success of DANGER brought the band back to their roots. “When it starts to blow up, retrospectively, you go ‘OK, so there is some sort of demand for this, people DO like it’” Ollie says. “So, we went back to that genre”
Harry adds: “Seeing what other people like, it actually gives us a perspective on what we like. We love that genre, so let’s do more of that. That’s so much fun, you know?” Their sound taps into the vibrant energy of the 2000’s era, but coupling it with modern production to keep moving seamlessly around the genre. Harry explains “We’re jumping around like different sub-genres of the 2000’s. Each song is a different world, or has different production. That’s what we love, being inspired by different bands.” The goal here is to create a feeling, driven by the nostalgia of the resurgence of the late 90’s/early 00’s sounds rather than be bound by a specific genre. “Somehow our music makes people feel old but young at the same time, and that’s really cool” says Harmony. “I love that it does that because then it appeals to everyone.”
