Band: Class Tourists
From: Wakefield, UK
Their formation story:
(Tate, guitar/vocals): "We got together around late 2022. I proposed the idea to my partner Lu (bass) of forming a punk band with me, they said yes. We both hate our government, especially the Tory party. So the idea of the band was to make music where we questioned authority and the system we live in. Like so many punk bands before us, I guess.
"I had the idea of calling us Idle Rich or Jondis ('jaundice' spelt like a shop we have in the UK called Londis) but we settled on the name Class Tourists. The definition of class tourism according to Wikipedia is 'The practice by members of the middle class of visiting working class areas or slums out of curiosity or for entertainment.'
"We don't have a drummer because we couldn't find a long term member, so we use MIDI drums for live shows. We've had criticism for that, purely because of the lack of visual stimulation onstage. I think that's dumb as fuck. If there's a beat, you can move to it. We're not the first band to use drum programming, are we?"
Their sound in their own words:
"We're influenced by a lot of the early '80s hardcore scene in America, such as Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, MDC, etc. We're also very much influenced by Crass, who I'd say were a more important punk band than Sex Pistols. For them, it seemed like the message they had in their lyrics and attitude was more important than the music, which is a sentiment we share for our band.
"Every now and again, we draw in a ska influence, thanks to influences like The Specials and Operation Ivy."
Latest release info:
"So, the song is called 'Your Grandad Fought the Nazis (And Now You've Turned Into One).' It's about these white nationalists we have over here. I guess in America, they're called rednecks or Trump supporters. Over here, they're called 'gammon' or 'flagshaggers' or 'Tories.'
"These people are so proud of this country's history of conquest and colonialism, and take being on the winning side of two world wars very seriously. However, they believe in keeping Britain white and British, and they feel threatened by change. They use marginalised groups like immigrants and trans people as a punching bag, to take out their frustrations at how fucked the country is. I don't know about you, but I think that sounds like they're sharing similar views of those Nazis that their grandparents fought in the '40s.
"People like that perpetuate hate, and i hate that they exist. The thing that inspired me to write the song was when I saw a clip of a Patriotic Alternative demo in my hometown of Castleford. They're a neo-nazi group, similar to EDL or Britain First. I just think they're sad bellends, so I wrote a song about how sad they are. Nazis fuck off."
Future plans:
"We've got a gig coming at The Underground in Bradford on 12th April, supporting Cowtown. If you're in the area, you can pick up tickets on our Linktree. Apart from that, we're just working on new music and picking up any gig we can."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"To be fair, the UK hardcore scene is awesome, and people should check it out because there's so many bands out here. Healer of Bastards from Birmingham are killer. We opened for them last year and they were one of the tightest bands I've ever seen. I'll also shout out Good Cop from down south (I can't remember where exactly they're from). They're an queer anarchist hardcore band. and they've just released a new EP. It's fucking brutal, check that shit out.
"I wanna shout out two international bands as well: Slutbomb from Ohio, US and Azijnpisser from Eindhoven, NL."
Hit the Class Tourists Linktree to find all of their social media pages.
Tagged: class tourists
