Exclusive Interview: My Latest Failure talk The Fiddler’s Elbow, Chip Shops and New Material!

Fresh from their headlining set at the Fiddler’s Elbow as part of the Camden Rocks Presents one dayer series, we got chatting to My Latest Failure vocalist and guitarist Chris Underhill about… Well pretty much everything that happened on the night! They had new songs in the set and a collection of blueprints for World Domination being worked on so without further much ado about nothing…

The Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden is a Legendary venue and Camden Rocks Presents events are highly regarded. How does it feel now to have a both the venue and a one dayer under the collective belts? “It feels really good, especially headlining a big event as Camden Rocks. Just being asked to headline it was unreal on its own but to play it was fantastic. As a band we have been very fortunate to play not only The Fiddler’s Elbow and Camden Rocks but other famous venues such as Blondies and the New Cross Inn. I love a challenge, and for me The Underworld is next on the bucket list”

On the night you played not one but two new cuts, can you name names and tell all, ending the gossip column style speculation? Are they both lined up for “Failures Vol 3“, the cunningly titled third installment of your EP series? “What I love about playing new songs live is the reaction it gets, luckily for us it was very positive and the crowd seemed to vibe to them. After we played them I jokily said “Those were new ones, we won’t play them again” and someone in the crowd loudly say, “Oh, I like them” really boosted our confidence with them. Little things like that make me smile. Anyway, the answer to your question is…

Yes, I can confirm that both Vultures and No Hope will be on our EP that will be called… Failures Vol:3!!! We couldn’t call the EP anything else, it will just feel wrong. In terms of EP progress, as it stands we have 3 songs ready and 2 more songs that I have written but haven’t pieced them together with Jamie and Andy. Now that we are getting back in the studio more we can concentrate on working on these songs and hopefully have them ready for recording sometime this year.”

There was also a “special guest” on stage; how did that come about? “That guy, haha. Well we certainly weren’t expecting any guest appearances and no we didn’t unveil a fourth member to the band. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea how it happened. Just looked up and there he was air guitaring in front of me on stage. Best thing was, after Lies (our first song) he said to me, you play guitar and I’ll do the singing for you because I can sing better. Haha. Somehow we played 5 songs while he was giving his best guitar hero stance before he was escorted off stage. Maybe the staff at the Fiddler’s Elbow genuinely through he was part of the band, who knows but yeh, what a legend”

Having turned up early to support the other bands, who were you checking out on the socials and Spotify the day after? Which of those you witnessed do you fancy playing a few shows with? “Standout band for me was Broken Calling, they were fantastic and if they wanted to do a few shows with us it would be a no brainer for me. It was a beast. They were really good guys as well, I had a little chat with them on the day mainly about their bassists bass guitar. Did you see it? 8 strings, it was a monster.

Couple of other bands I really enjoyed were Blue Eyed Giants, Worship The Sacrifice and Octrain. I have a funny story about Octrain but not actually involving Octrain. For those who weren’t there for Octrain’s set, the frontman was wearing a checked shirt and after their set I went over to speak to him and said “I really liked your set”, the guy looked at me confused and said “what are you talking about”, I suddenly realised that this guy isn’t the frontman for Octrain then I jokily said “ahhhh, just take the compliment mate”. I turned around and my wife and nephew were laughing at me as they watched it all happen. Best part was when I saw the Octrain frontman later on and noticed that it was a completely different colour shirt he was wearing to the other guy. Haha.”

The chicken shop across the road from the venue looked questionable. Did you risk it for a biscuit? “Questionable to say the least, how I didn’t end up in A&E I don’t know. I have never been to a chippy that has f***ed up a saveloy sausage until Saturday. Don’t know where they brought their saveloy’s from but it shouldn’t be grey inside. I hated every bite, I nearly threw it at the guy and what made it worse, after eating it I saw they had a hygiene rating of 1. Rough”

You’re not playing any covers in your set at the moment. Do you have any plans to do that to extend your set time or is it all about the originals at the minute? “I do love a cover and we would probably butcher a pop song but at the moment we are concentrating on our new material as we want to start playing them live. For the lead up of our Camden set we worked on the two new songs Vultures and No Hope to a standard that we can actually play them live without any problems as well as brushing up on our overall set list”

Is the open door for the We Punch Tigers split to be mentioned? “The door is wide open, I know I have been teasing this since lockdown but it is definitely happening. We know what WPT songs we will be covering and have totally given it the MLF treatment. I have no idea what songs of ours WPT are covering either, I am super excited for this”

What’s next for My Latest Failure? “We have a couple more shows lined up, firstly we are back in Basildon with This Boys Fire on 18th May. Then we head to Peterborough on 10th June to support Janus Stark alongside Muscle Vest and Muzzle thanks to Socks on Records.

I am also in the process of hosting my own show in August. I have managed to nail down Saturday 19th August at the Queens Head in Brixton. Brilliant venue. In fact, we actually played their on the same weekend last year and had a blast! I’m calling it My Latest Failure and Friends and we’ve got a fantastic line up that includes My Latest Failure (of course), We Punch Tigers, This Boys Fire, Keep This Up and The Freudian Session. It will also be a completely FREE show!!”

Want some My Latest Failure merch? Head on over to bandcamp.