Left Hook

Profile: Future Of The Left

Words: JJ Dunning

I’m the kind of person that can’t keep quiet about things that really fucking annoy me,” says Mr Andrew Falkous, frontman with the sensationally angry and literate rock band Future Of The Left. “It comes across to our label as just burning bridges, but it’s genuinely not, you know?” We’re sat between an empty go-kart track and a dismantled merry-go-round in the beating May sunshine at Butlins in Minehead. Inside the main shopping-centre-like hall, All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Fans Strike Back, the festival where the punters pick the performers via an internet poll, is in full flow. This being the last day, it’s a bit like an indie ‘Dawn Of The Dead’, where the crowd are a drifting mass of craggy cardigans and oversized sunglasses, lowly murmuring about their horrible hangovers. Not rich Future Of The Left soil, you might think. “I was genuinely surprised to be picked,” says Falco humbly. “The first time I looked, we were 40th on the list, I don’t know exactly how it works, maybe we got 14 votes as opposed to eight, but next thing we knew we were second behind Fugazi.” Barely an hour ago, the band showed their appreciation to the crowd by taking the piss out of them, bassist Kelson Mathias bellowing, “Alright, you miserable, bearded, flannel-shirt wearing bastards. Who likes sweets?!” before flinging fistfuls of lollypops into the audience. Bridges burned? Um, well, not really. Future Of The Left have developed a reputation for entering semi-stand-up routines with the audience, but Falco won’t stand to hear that they’re not serious about what they do, especially when new album ‘Travels With Myself And Another’ is as furious an album as we’ve heard all year. “We like humour as an aspect of our music,” he says. “At the end of the day, we’re not a comedy band, we’re a band who play on stage and then engage with the crowd, for better or for worse, with the full force of our personalities.” Which brings us to Falco’s forte: dealing with hecklers. Today, one particularly vocal chap in a distasteful multicoloured hoodie has felt his ire. Falco explains, “It’s like going to somebody’s birthday party, and then calling them a cunt in front of their friends and family. Whatever I say, even if it isn’t particularly funny or well measured, people are gonna generally agree with me rather than a guy dressed like a nightmare from the imagination of a graphic designer who’s working on Tron 2.0.”

‘Travels With Myself And Another’ is released on XL on June 22nd.