London is as close to a music city the fame of an Austin or New Orleans as the UK gets these days. A bustling scene across all genres, artists selling out Wembley Stadium living two stops away from Black Heart darlings and New Cross Inn regulars and an audience primed and ready to give a chance to new comers and old timers alike.
Okay You Win are staples of the heavy London scene. In just over three years, they’ve landed themselves a record deal with Blues Funeral (of Elder fame), a UK tour with Nashville giants Howling Giant and are now ready for the release of their debut album, End of Days, out on June 26th. We sat down for a conversation about their journey to this pivotal moment in their careers on a Friday, the day before another important debut for the band: a prime slot at the Black Heart during Camden’s favourite stoner rock festival, Desertfest. The MJB team wrote all about it here and I got to cover Okay You Win‘s performance (spoiler: it was epic! Read all about it HERE). Here, we talk about their careers, starting with the obvious: how did the name come about?
Dave: It’s a bit unorthodox, almost anti-macho. So many people want to be right online and in the world. They have to be right at the last word. We’re just like “okay, you win” and tap out. We wanted something different and almost every classic name you could conjure is taken since the 70s up to now. So we came up with loads of names, we made a Champions League chart and went one by one all the way down to the final two.
Rod: This is really embarrassing. There was a lot of drug related names, I feel like everyone who’s creating a stoner band name go like “it’s gonna be a colour and a drug” or “a colour and an animal”.
The band’s music sounds like it’s been pounding between the walls of the Dev or the Black Heart since their inception, but it all started just three years ago.
Ryan: Dave and I met years ago at a Soundgarden gig in Hyde Park. We were in a project called Empty Friend that fell apart during Covid and then we were in the musical desert for a while. Then we discovered Rod.
Rod: I went to a Civil War gig (that Dave also organizes), with Stonus headlining. I got there quite early and there was only Dave and maybe two other people in the room, so we started chatting. You know the scene, everyone’s family. I started building up a relationship with Dave and then I met Ryan at the next Civil War gig with Psychlona headlining.
Ryan: And then Antonio, the drummer, we met him afterwards. He’s fantastic. It kind of all came together and it just clicked from the start. We were all on the same page and it’s been an absolute blast. We’ve always wanted to be a band that we would want to see. We’ve been watching bands for God knows how many years, seen thousands of bands, and that’s why we throw ourselves all over the stage. That’s why we have so many bruises and our necks and our backs and our knees hurt the next day. We want to be a band that we would get excited about seeing.
With the chance to play Desertfest, it all started to feel even more real.
Dave: It’s no exaggeration seriously to say that is the best festival in London for the heavy scene. And for the music we make, this is the place to play. We’ve been coming just as fans for quite a long time and we would be here anyway, we bought our tickets before we knew we were playing. To actually be part of a band that’s playing, it is special and it’s something we’ve certainly dreamed of for quite a long time.We’re really happy. We’re lucky enough to get a chance to be a foot higher for half an hour on the little pedestal there.
Rod: There’s so many people that we met through Desertfest. We met Ian and Carolyn who put us up for some gigs in Kent. We met Ian Thompson who did one of our videos. We met so many people at Desertfest that helped us get to where we are right now. I don’t want to say it’s come full circle because I don’t want this to be the end of it.
Dave: We’ve played the Black Heart three, four times easily, maybe more, and we’re comfortable there, we’re happy there, and we always have a good time. It’s definitely going to be different tomorrow when we play it. I know in my heart it’s going to be a special show and there is something about Desertfest. It’s the community and the numbers and the energy that everyone brings.
Ryan: We know what it’s like to wander into a random venue and not have any clue who’s playing. You just want to see a band that blows you away and tomorrow at 4pm at the Black Heart, I want us to be that band that people wander into the room and be like “who the hell are these people, they were amazing” and then they have to look up our name afterwards. As much as you’ve got the headliners, there’s amazing bands in every venue all throughout the day and everyone’s almost trying to, in a friendly way, outdo each other. Everyone wants to raise the bar a bit higher so the next band has to really lay it down. So that’s what I hope we do tomorrow. That’s all we ever want to do. And afterwards we can get back in the crowd and go and see all the other amazing bands.
Their debut album comes out June 26th from Blues Funeral. That was a journey in and of itself.
Rod: This album has taken a long time to come out. We’ve had the songs written and recorded from when we were in the studio, I think end of 2024, and we were thinking that there’s so many great labels that we look up to. One of them was Blues Funeral and we were lucky enough that the guys from Psychlona got us in touch with Jadd Shickler and we were lucky enough that he liked the album. We’ve been working together since then.
Dave: Some of the songs on our album were very considered and took a long time, from maybe the early days when it was more me and Ryan, when we laboured over them and tweaked. And they’re beautiful in their own way, but in complete contrast to that, some of the ones we’ve written as a band in the rehearsal room come out in half an hour or an hour (like ‘Red Flag’), they just kind of spilled out into the room.
Rod: We had an old EP, a live recording, and some of those songs will still be on the new album, but in a much more produced way. So if you’ve listened to them before, you’ll find them familiar, but you’ll definitely see some new components out there.
Ryan: It took us ages to record, up with Andy Hawkins up in Leeds. We had a phenomenal experience recording it. And then it’s taken so long because we wanted to get the right label to put it out and we absolutely struck gold with Blues Funeral. Jadd and the team, they’ve been amazing. If you look at the roster of bands that are on there, we’ve seen so many at Desertfest. We’ve watched Elder. We’re playing with Howling Giant in a week. You’ve got Elephant Tree, Hashtronaut. We are beyond stoked to be on this label, it’s incredible. We’ve been playing these songs for so many years but people have never heard them. We can’t wait to get it out because we’re really, really proud of it. Proper labor of love for us.
Dave: Obviously you can’t speak for how it is for other bands, but like I can say, you know, without word of a lie that we put everything in this album. A lot of thought went into that going up to the Nave (Recording Studios) in Leeds. The songs were either carefully sculpted or came out really naturally and we waited for the right songs, we didn’t rush, there’s no filler at all on the album. If it’s the last thing we did and we all died in two weeks time, it’s the first time I can say I think that it’s something I’ll be really proud of, I’ve got no regrets. I’m really proud of it, so the fact that we’re getting some interest and we’re getting some support, it’s really nice. We can’t wait to get on the stage after all this preparation, all these gigs on the road, to play to a home crowd, see smiling faces and just really lay into it and have a great time. We’re buzzing.
Our conversation took a much more introspective direction when we started discussing the contrast between the “day self” and the “stage self”, who we are at work versus who we become in concert venues and musical spaces.
Dave: It’s a bit of a mystery that I can’t quite explain. We all have our very different jobs that we take seriously and we put ourselves into of course in a normal way, but when we get on stage, I would contest that we become who we actually are. The suit and tie feel like a disguise and when we get on stage and let loose, I think for me that’s the real me. And I love it. I’m from a musical family and grew up with music and song in the house. My parents played in a band, I remember carrying mic stands and doing sound checks, I know it inside out from young, so in a way, I was always going to do something musical. When I was a teenager, I was thinking about going to a performing arts school and my parents were like “no, you should go to university, get a real degree and a real job“. It came from a place of love, but I always wonder looking back what would have happened if I’d done this sooner.
But equally when I was 21, I had nothing to say. Now I’m bit older, I’ve had some knocks, I’ve seen some life, I know people and what they’re like (and I mean that in a beautiful way) I’ve got more to say now than I did then. Anything I would have made back then would not have been as impactful or as real. And what we’re doing now is like the realest thing you come across. Some of those songs, I cried after doing the vocals, it really is real to us.
Rod: When I was a teenager, we had a cover band that we played at parties in our old village and I thought that‘s probably it. When I moved to London, I saw that’s there’s so much more to it than that. Prior to moving to London, actually had a bit of a moment where I went to a festival. I was camping there and my phone ran out of battery. I went to the nearest cafe and borrowed a charger from a guy and we started chatting. And I figured out, this absolutely normal person that I’m speaking to in a coffee shop was headlining one of the stages last night with Keep Razors Sharp. It was one of the moments where I realised you don’t have to be just a musical person or make your whole life about music. We can be regular Joes who play music as well. You can have both sides of it. And when I moved to London, it was great to see that there’s so many people involved in the underground scene. Promoters, musicians, fans, everyone. It’s such a nice community. Even if I wasn’t playing music, but I was still part of the community, I would still be happy. That’s what I take out of it.
Ryan: There’s no one in my family immediately who plays music, but my cousins both play guitar. They always played in bands, I really looked up to them, I always wanted to do that. And same as Dave, I had to get through uni, I had to get a job at the end of it, I couldn’t do music, I was in bands at university and bands at college, bands everywhere, but all the way along, it always felt like a bit of a pastime until this band. This band is the first band I think I’ve ever felt like this. Now going back to work, to the day job feels like a real struggle because it feels like your brain is splitting in two and you’ve got these two selves that you’re trying to reconcile. Your band self is becoming more true by the day and then your work self feels more out of place every day, like this really isn’t me at all. I think we all hit this tipping point. If you’re lucky enough to be 21 and have this tipping point, wicked, have a great life, do it. But many of us find it way later in life and it’s a real struggle with your left brain and your right brain kind of tearing themselves apart. So that’s why we’re so stoked to be playing Desertfest tomorrow. That’s why we’re so stoked that we’ve got an album out. It’s not just a part of the thing, it’s a culmination. Every band we’ve had before has driven us here and we can’t wait to play tomorrow, then get back in the crowd and watch everyone else.
Massive thanks to Dave, Rod and Ryan (and Antonio in spirit), they’re the strongest supporters of the London scene you’ll ever meet and absolute chaos agents on stage. End of Days is out June 26th from Blues Funeral.