Ensconced in a hardy and eclectic North East alternative scene is HMRC. No, not the tax-grabbing government agency, but a four piece punk act with something to say and a catalogue of songs they use to say it. For a political band that formed in 2022 as HMRC did, there has been no shortage of topics for song fodder across both domestic and international events. The band- who along with frontman Lloyd Holmes are comprised of Arian Starfield (guitar), Joseph O’Neill (bass) and Duncan Arnold (drums)- have mastered the art of balancing commentary on the things they see directly in their Newcastle community, with what we all hear about happening across the world via news headlines.
“I don’t want to talk just about the things that are on my doorstep but I also don’t want to disregard it. I don’t just sprout facts in songs, I more allude to real things that are happening and then offer my opinion on matters” says Holmes when we catch up via Zoom.
“For example, in our track ‘Not Another Immigrant Song’ [on their 2023 EP ‘Rwanda’], I say ‘if Jesus came back today they would send him to Rwanda anyway’. I find geopolitics and immigration and the plights of people that are miles away from us very interesting, especially when you bring religion into it because there is something abstract about it when not talking about stuff right on your doorstep. But at the same time, I am a building surveyor and I work in social housing so I see a lot of basic poverty pretty much every day.”
It is clear that Lloyd is not just interested in, but is affected by, what he witnesses happening in the world and the injustice, inequality and exploitation that can be seen on our streets,in our neighbourhoods and embedded in global institutions. It can be suffocating for the best of us and so processing those feelings of anger or helplessness into music is cathartic and necessary. As the band’s chief lyricist, when you listen to an HMRC song it is Lloyd’s words you’re hearing, often starting off as poetry and then funnelled via many late night viewings of Question Time and Newsnight. As a result of those words and the gritty post-punk score that accompanies them, HMRC are establishing themselves as an overtly observant and relevant band in a scene that isn’t always prioritising politics. It is punk from an old tradition of social commentary and a natural way of expressing Lloyd’s long held beliefs on social justice:
“I have been a socialist from a young age. I believe capitalism is a system where it has inequalities inherent in it, they’re baked in, and socialism levels the playing field somewhat. I think you should view a culture by how it treats the least wealthy and least advantaged people in society. Growing up, I listened to mostly 70s and 80s music, and my favourite album of all time is ‘Neither Washington or Moscow’ by The Redskins. What they were writing about, and their ethos is at the root of everything for me. I really love them. They are almost forgotten now… but I like that when the mines were closed [following the defeated Miner’s Strike of 1984-85] they just stopped and locked down the fact they were there for political purposes. It takes a lot of integrity to just stop”.
As the frontman and lyricist, Lloyd has considered how to convey his feelings and thoughts about current events in a way that doesn’t feel preachy but is instead more exploratory, provoking people to dig deeper themselves. One narrative device he often uses in his lyrics is to tell a story or explore a theme through the voice of a third party character and their unique experience or point of view. This allows Lloyd to make sure the focus is not on him personally, but is instead focused on the message of his songs:
“I love being on stage, but I don’t like revealing a lot about myself so I wouldn’t really talk about a breakup or if I was feeling sad or something like that. Not that there’s not a place in music for that because of course there is, but I’m not Adele! I always think of something like The Ramones song ‘Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World’ where it was about WW2 but from the perspective a German soldier. It is that avant garde nature of ‘lets not pick sides, lets isolate one person in a conflict or strange time and look from a humanistic point of view’. I speak a lot from a made-up character perspective, rather than ‘I think this’… I have a song called ‘Frank Bruno’ which uses that technique. I like looking through the perspective of a real person and taking it from there”.
The band got together late 2022, all four members having links to at least one other member (Duncan is a childhood friend of Lloyd’s, Arian and Joe were work colleagues etc). They were eventually all thrown together with the common interest of collaboratively making some noise and seeing what could come of it. Some initial jam sessions yielded positive results and the band became very productive and very politically expressive early on:
“Immediately we were incredibly political. We started talking about problems in the general vicinity of Newcastle and the North East and then it grew out to be more geopolitics… and that all grew out of those jam sessions. We very much all got on board when the sentiment and topics of the songs become more important. We released our first EP in 2023, even before we’d had a gig! In Newcastle it is difficult to get a gig when you are just starting out, there’s not as many open mic nights or stuff like that. Whilst we were begging promoters for our first opportunity to get on stage, we wrote and recorded a 5-song EP- ‘Rwanda’- which was a reference to the Rwanda scheme that the Conservative government were pursuing of sending people to Rwanda even though they had never been there and the absolute scandal of that policy”.
The band have tackled some weighty topics in their songs- think of a major news story of the last 3 years and it is likely HMRC have a song that addresses it in some way: the Ukraine/Russia war (‘Boots on the Ground‘) , poverty (‘Port Clarence‘) and general social malaise and societal decay (‘Flat Circle‘). At the time Lloyd and I chatted, the US/Israeli offensive against Iran was dominating headlines so naturally it came up in conversation. For Lloyd, the reaction to (and coverage of) the event reinforces his view that we are being separated from our humanity by the systems we live in- where wars and carnage are spoken about in economic concerns rather than the loss of human life:
“With what is happening with the Iran War and everyone talking about oil prices and the impact on the economy… you get even left wing politicians talking about the global economy and I end up shouting at the TV that there’s children in Iran, in Gaza and in Yemen living through all this! Yemen has been massacred for the last 20 years but it has no economic impact and so it has been allowed to happen. In our track ‘Boots on the Ground’, our first line is ‘boots on the ground/and you just stood and stared’ and it is amazing how that was about the Ukraine war but yet it’s full circle again when applied to what’s happening in Iran or anywhere else. No one is looking for the humanity of it. It is amazing these days you have to look for humanity in things yourself as it is not given to you by the news or people in power.”
For bands that strive to be so topical and for whom the politics is intrinsically linked to the whole project, I’m always curious about the reaction of those in the crowd when political commentary is coming at them thick and fast and delivered alongside heavy riffs and menacing basslines. Do people heading to a DIY punk show on a Saturday night in Newcastle or Sunderland want to ruminate on the existential impact of war or the exploitative nature of rampant hyper capitalism? Who are making up the crowd at an HMRC gig?
“I would say it splits people down the middle. People come to show after show, and we try and say if you are not into politics you can still enjoy a show but the people who come and speak to us after are always wanting to talk about the stuff I have spoken about during the set. I like to think the majority of things I say are connected, and writing this new album- ‘Cost of Living’- I carefully talk about the cost of living crisis, then a track like ‘Hostile Architecture’ where I speak from the perspective of a homeless person and then we move onto Israel and Charlie Kirk… It is very much designed to take things from the impact on a British family, through to wider geopolitical events. It is specifically written in that order to try and grab people from song one so they think ‘hey I can relate to this’ and allowing them to see that they are not the only ones struggling, everyone is.”
Whilst HMRC’s music sits firmly under a punk umbrella, getting more granular when describing their sound or categorising their subgenre is difficult. The band certainly have the urban industrial atmosphere and foreboding vibe of dark post punk, but there’s elements of shoegaze and math rock that add to the complexity of their sound. The songs are heavy and so are the subject matters but they are able to tackle some of them in a more tongue in cheek or satirical way. Following their debut EP in 2023, they then followed up with 2025’s ‘Femmer State’– 4 songs of defiant dissatisfaction and distilled disdain, resolutely scathing and confidently combative. And with a brand-new full-length album on the way- ‘Cost of Living’– and the world going to hell in a handbasket, it seems like 2026 is the year we all need what HMRC are providing. And there’s not long to wait until we get their new offering and they can hopefully take their brand of punk on the road:
“I am very proud of the album, it is multi genre, it’s got some shoegaze in there. We cover the Thatcher ‘right to buy’ scheme, the Glastonbury controversy, poverty, Isreal…all sorts. The whole album should be ready back end of this year but we will be drip feeding singles when I have the money to pay to get them done!
We are also looking to organise a tour around England where we can, I am seeing what we can get. I am waiting for the new album to come out and then promote that so we can get a good tour going. Next gig is Roulette Festival in Sunderland on 2nd May and we already have some other May and June dates”.
If you are interested in punk that is authentic, compassionate, creative and urgently relevant then HMRC are writing songs for you. But they also have an eye on the legacy of the band- a legacy that says they saw what was going on around them and they refused to stay silent about it:
“Anyone who understands things and has a passion for solidarity and what is right and for a fair working country should speak out. It is not about people who are struggling and people who are not, it is about people who care and people who don’t. End goal of this band for me is to have as many people as possible to hear the message and understand it so the band itself can have something they are proud of not just musically. In 20 years time, we can say ‘this is what we stood for’.
You can stream/purchase HMRC’s releases via their Bandcamp HERE. Follow on social media HERE to keep up to date with their new releases and band news!
