GLASGOW’S SOAPBOX ‘LOCK IN’ AHEAD OF BRAND NEW EP RELEASE
INTERVIEW | SOAPBOX – TOM ROWAN by Anne Kelly
Like a wet fish skelped across the face, Glasgow’s Soapbox simply takes you by the collar and slaps, leaving you begging for another salty hit.
Juggernauts of their local live scene, the four piece – Tom (Vocals), Angus (guitar), Aidan (bass) and Jenna (drums) – have risen from Glasgow’s immersive DIY grassroots movement and over the past 12 months and are thriving. Taking inspiration from bands like Soft Play, The Damned and Amyl and The Sniffers, Soapbox have gone from pissing off Glasgow City Council with posters about BDSM and punching Nazi’s plastered across the city’s billboards to touring with the likes of Snayx, Dead Pony and Kid Kapichi. Yet, the band probably gained their biggest endorsement from the most unlikely of crowds when they caught the attention of America’s far-right, neo fascist ‘Proud Boys’. An absurd experience which couldn’t be further from their own anti fascist politics, the band are looking forward to putting those days behind them with the release of their brand new EP Lock In, set for release this Friday (25th April 2025).
“We’re just so excited to put a record again. It’s been a while and we have so much to show folks. This past year’s been flying by. Honestly, it’s been a very different 12 months compared to 12 months up to the first one,” shares frontman Tom Rowan, who joins us for a chat over a zoom call ahead of the release.
“With ‘Haud That’ it was a compilation really of what we’d been writing over the course of the past 2 years. So this was the first time we’d gone in to the studio looking to write a record, and it was a very different process in terms of deciding what we wanted on it and what we didn’t want. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s no concept album or anything, they’re all distinct tunes, but it was quite cool having that that knowledge when you’re going in and writing songs that you’re gonna get to make something at the end of it.“
“It’s heavier though” continues Tom. “We’ve toured with a few really quite amazing bands in the last in the last sort of 9 months, which has definitely influenced us a lot. I think that the songs are different and there’s a lot of heavier inspiration the in the music, but the lyricism’s are a lot different as well. We wanted to mix things up and not have it all just the classic ‘oi punk’ stuff that maybe we’re known for.”
Featuring their latest single ‘DO AS UR TOLD’ alongside three brand new, mostly unheard tracks, LOCK IN demonstrates a maturing, more polished version of the band. Having seen Soapbox smash the stage live on numerous occasions, whatever this foursome brings us, it will always be engulfed in ironic rage, passion and ravenous energy.
“We we kind of take a lot of feedback from how the songs kind of go down on stage, because first and foremost we’re a live band. So we need to get that kind of reaction out of a crowd so we know what what people want to see from us, you know. Which is no different to the last time around, as with the last record we put tracks on there that were like, ‘fan favourites’ already, if you will.
We’ve played these new songs in other parts of the country, where people don’t know us so well but we’ve not played any of the new stuff in Glasgow. So it’ll be the first time in front of the home crowd [on Friday 25th April]. So Yeah, I think we’re on at 9pm, so the guys will have like 21 hours to learn the lyrics.”
Soapbox appeal spreads far beyond the realms of Glasgow. Thanks to the many supporting slots and festival appearances over the past 12 months, alongside the universal language of punk music, the colloquial heavy band seem to be translatable across borders, and even into Europe.
“I mean, validation is the wrong word, but it’s just that I just can’t believe folk are coming back for it” says Tom. “You know it’s super fulfilling just to get that connection with a group of people. I mean Glasgow is super special to us, but also like going down to like the South Coast England and you have people saying that they really get your get your music and enjoy it, which is interesting, because I think a lot of the Scottish vernacular is quite inaccessible. We went abroad for the first time in Italy and were talking to these Italian folk who were saying that they love the ‘Yer Da’, which just they didn’t compute to me.
But you definitely need to be devoted. We’re a hard working group, and we’ll we’ll turn up anywhere and we’ll make sure to show everyone that comes to see us that they get the full experience. I mean, we were in Middlesbrough last weekend, and it was like a 6 o’clock in the afternoon new crowd, but by end of the show there was blood pouring at my mouth, and we were all dripping with sweat. I ruined a good t-shirt for that” smiles Tom.
If you have ever had the privilege to experience Soapbox in a live setting, you won’t find the above statement shocking. But as I chat to Tom over a zoom call on a wet Wednesday morning, you would struggle to comprehend his role as a ferocious punk frontman, who many presume must be “a pretty scary guy”. Apart from the freshly shaved skin head, he doesn’t strike stereotypically ‘punk’. Tom is an articulate, charming and genuinely lovely young man, which only leaves me even more curious about who the ‘real’ Tom is.
“I’m definitely a performer rather than a singer, cause I can’t sing” laughs Tom. “But yeah, it’s definitely me. Like I don’t think it’s like an alter ego or anything, it’s all Tom. I talk to a lot of people after shows and they’re like, ‘you’re way calmer than I thought you would be’. But, it’s because I get to do that up there and yeah, I can be quite full on in the day, but after a show I’ve just done that, so I’ve come back down. Growing up I played a lot of contact sports and I got a lot from the sort of violent, aggressive side of that. At the end of it [the show] you’re exhausted, so afterwards it’s it’s quite zen to be honest, like I I find it super cathartic.”
Looking at the new EP, I can’t help but recognise the title of Irvine Welsh inspired closing track ‘Granton Star Cause’. Part of the Trainspotting authors’ Acid House story collection, Granton Star Cause may be best known from it’s 1998 screen adaptation by Channel 4. The plot? Well, the protagonist who thought he’s got it all going for him has an unfortunate twist of fate, losing everything that matters before encountering ‘God’ in a pub who transforms him into a fly.
“Myself and Aidan are both big into Irvine Welsh. I just think he’s like got such an amazing way of telling tales; ranging from the greatest subject matters you can possibly imagine, really grounded stuff, to the likes of ‘Granton Star Cause’, which is a story about Gods, transformations and fucking mystics. And I think it’s just incredible.
Aidan had the idea of turning that into a bit of music. It’s just very different to what we’ve done before, but we were afforded more freedom and it’s a bit more developed I think. It’s over 3 minutes long, which is a Soapbox first I think, so it was super fun to record. It needed a weird one on it, every Soapbox record has one.“
Steering back to the EP, we discuss the remaining two currently unreleased tracks that made the cut.
“‘Good guys’ I’m really enjoying. Again, it’s just a wee bit longer, a wee bit more developed, but writing it was a very cathartic”
Tom continues, “‘Mess’ is a song I wrote about going through phases of suffering from panic attacks and anxiety attacks. We write about external factors so much but we hadn’t really written a song about what’s happening internally with us. I thought it was quite important to write about and because of the subject matter the track has a real nervous energy to it, and I think that people that can relate to it.”
Drawing from the same dark, raw, often surrealist Scottish vernacular found in the works of Irvine Welsh, Soapbox could well be the musical equivalent of that cultural movement today.
Turning the conversation to the more controversial nature of Soapbox brush with the American far right extremist group ‘Proud Boys’, I ask Tom about how the whole thing even came to be.
“It was him [Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes ] I’m pretty sure who played us on his show, or something like that. It was a bit exhausting at the time though, to be honest. Thankfully, it’s kind of died down now. There’s a few folk that still comment and stuff, but we were just flavour of the week for them.”
At the time, the extremist group were dominating Soapbox social media comment feeds, spreading their fascist rhetoric and even threatening to travel across the Atlantic to gatecrash their shows.
“It was kind of a blow and it was a bit of a stress at the time. It’s kind of the antithesis of what we are. We were lucky that we already had a song literally in the post that was about those sort of people with ‘Fascist Bob’. We’ll turn down any fan that’s a fucking fascist, because they’re not there for the right reasons. And honestly, if they actually bother to listen to our songs properly, then they wouldn’t be a fan. I don’t care if you buy a ticket or buy the merch – if you have views like that in the world then you’re not welcome at a Soapbox show.”
In hope of turning the conversation into something more positive, we end up chatting about how Glasgow is arguably the best place to be for new music right now.
“Our our pals, Lacuna, have been doing absolutely, amazingly recently. They put out what I think is probably my favourite song of the year ‘Shelley’. Sister Maads who are good friends of ours too, they’ve been doing really well as well. They’re gonna have a big future ahead of them. PVC as well, they put out some new music recently, too. They’re massively on the up. I mean, they’ve only been in the Glasgow scene for like less than a year, and they’re already selling headlines out.”
Earlier this month, Glasgow hosted another successful run of House Guest Festival, which takes place primarily across grassroots venues in the city’s Sauchiehall Street region.
“I’m lucky to count all the folks that are organising that event as friends. Between Crowded Flat and Scottish Music Collective it’s just a bunch of young folk that are doing it for the passion and putting on some of the best gigs in the country who have gone on to build what is one of the best city-based festivals. Like the lineup was just unbelievable and every venue was packed. The whole day was surrounded by like minded people that are into grassroots music.”
Having headlined the festival back in 2024, Tom shares that he enjoyed taking a step back this year and enjoying it as a spectator.
“I was there at 9am helping set up and I never got home until 5am the next day! It was just nice to sit back and enjoy it but I’m still shattered now! San Jose closed off the festival this year with the best gig I’ve ever seen in Nice n Sleazy’s.”
Continuing to rise to the heights of Scotland’s new DIY punk movement, Soapbox riotous energy can only keep spreading far and wide. From their biggest hometown headline show in Glasgow this week, the Glasgow band are set to head down to Brighton’s The Great Escape in May before moving into Europe performing in the Netherlands, Germany and notably Supersonic in Paris, France. If you made it this far then make sure if you spot Soapbox on a line up near you soon, get down for their set – you won’t regret checking them out!
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