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We catch the South Wales-raised sibling band after their storming set at our Great Escape stage. |
| Photos: Hazel Blacher | Words: Lloyd Bolton |
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Last month at The Great Escape, MORN kicked off proceedings at our stage on the Thursday night with the electric energy which defines their shows. Their music is packed with rhythmic punch and tightly wound guitar licks, over which acerbic lyrics are delivered with prophetic conviction. The South Wales-raised and now London-based four piece, comprised of two sets of siblings, caught our attention last year with the release of debut single ‘Modern Man’ in collaboration with Speedy Wunderground. After a busy 2025 playing shows, they spent the start of this year writing and refining their sound. Their re-emergence with the double single ‘The Standard Model / I Watched You As Your Mind Slipped Far (Away from Me’ and a recent string of live shows a band hungry to produce the best work they possibly can and sell it with conviction night after night on bigger and bigger stages. The morning after their set for us at DUST, we caught Mae (Vocals, Bass), Rob (Vocals, Guitar) and Noah (Drums) for a chat (Ollie (Vocals, Guitar) couldn’t make it). |
First question, what has been going on behind the scenes since the release of ‘Modern Man’ last May? |
Mae: Definitely a lot of writing. But that’s changing now, we’ve got some more shows coming up. |
Rob: ‘Modern Man’ enabled us to go and play more shows. At that point we were quite happy with our show and we took that set played loads, which was a great experience. We did that really for the rest of 2025 and then we were like, alright then, we’ve gotta write some new tunes. And it’s nice to road test them now, we’ve been playing them for the first time over the last month. |
What has changed in the way you have approached making new material? |
Noah: A lot of the songs we’ve written in the last three months have been very different compared to the set that we had last year. Our sets last year were intense and hard-hitting and our plan was to take that vibe and refine it, think about structures of songs and dynamics. I feel like we’ve matured sonically quite a lot… |
Rob: … like not doing too much. I did love those songs, but a lot of the songs we wrote when we were sixteen, seventeen. With all the experience that we’ve had so far, it’s been good to take that and fulfil what we feel we’ve always been trying to sound like, which we’re getting closer to now. |
Who was your favourite artist when you were ten? |
Rob: Loved a bit of Lady Gaga back then. |
Noah: We used to have these little iPod shuffles that had, like, Ed Sheeran’s first album, Mr. Scruff – do you remember Mr. Scruff? That was great stuff. Adele, Led Zeppelin, and also AC/DC ‘Back in Black’. But which one would I go for? Probably Ed Sheeran, first album. |
Mae: I remember enjoying The Rolling Stones. |
Rob: Ooh, The Rolling Stones were a late one for me… |
Noah: Whenever we were in the car we’d only listen to the Scissor Sisters. |
Rob
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Mae
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Long or short – song length and album length. |
Mae: Short and sweet is really nice. |
Noah: I like longform projects, definitely a decent size album. |
Rob: I think I press ‘play’ on albums that are a bit shorter. But definitely album over EP. I remember someone saying, ‘No one has a favourite EP’. |
Is this a reveal that we shouldn’t be expecting a MORN EP then…? |
Rob: We’ll see what happens. Nowadays it always makes sense to do an EP so there’s more people to listen to your album when it comes out. But now we’ve written loads of songs, we’re like, arghhh, this is just an album isn’t it? But we’ll see what happens. |
How does the sibling dynamic work in the band? What is the best and worst thing about it? |
Mae: The best thing about it is that you skip all the layers of friendship you have to go through when you’ve just met someone in a band. If you don’t like something they’re doing you can just tell them straight up. And then maybe the worst thing is… |
Rob: …also that!? I think that’s the main thing. |
I’m not sure if this is a sibling thing, but it felt like we were all so committed from the very beginning. And there was no reason to be, but, like, we just had so much fun, we just knew this is what we wanna do. I’d never been in a band before, Ollie had never been in a band before. May had been in a few bands in college, Noah played some drums in another band at home. But it was like… ‘alright then!’ |
Noah: Yeah we played two shows together and just suddenly became so invested, rehearsing, spamming emails to people to get our first gigs. It’s so fun having that experience with someone that you’ve grown up with your whole life and being equally invested. |
Rob: A better answer: The best and the worst thing is that everything always has to be equal and fair and shared. But then it is good because it’s all really democratic, there’s not, like, a band leader, we’re all really on the same page. |
Noah: But sometimes we do end up going round in circles, like, we’ve got to try everyone’s options. Which I’m glad we do, but sometimes we just go round and round when actually the first thing is the best thing. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. |
And finally, horses or cows? |
Noah: Me and Mae grew up on a farm back in Wales, which is a cattle farm. We do have horses as well but sometimes we get on, sometimes we don’t. Once when I was a kid I got chased by one of the horses through a field and it was terrifying. |
Mae: I’ve got a good relationship with our horses. |
Rob: One of my friends described our music as a horse galloping through fields, with the mane flowing. I quite like that image. |
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