#Was plugging his spotify band weird? maybe. But it was an important part of his life so. please understand.

[candycryptids]

This isn't urgent and I know everyone is also struggling, but I wanted to share my friends

[GoFundMe]

and also one of his spotify bands

[Captain Astronaut]

Jarrett passed of Lung Cancer far too fucking soon and we've all been struggling to cope with his passing, but his Wife is having to cope with his passing and having to handle living alone, including all the expenses that come with that, so this is a fundraiser to help ease the burden. Thanks for reading, tell your loved ones you love them and stay safe.

[sftswigan]

Manchester gutter punks, The Battery Farm, talk to us about horrific crime inspiring a song and how they just had to form this band...

We’ve got frontman/guitarist Ben from the band.

Alright Ben, can you tell us about the band. Who plays what and how the band got together?

Hallo! We are The Battery Farm, four gutter bastards from Manchester playing gnarly, seething punk rock music.

Ben Corry on Vocals and Guitar, Dominic Corry on Guitar, Paul Worrall on Bass, Sam Parkinson on Drums. Me and Dom formed this band from the ashes of a band we'd previously been in together for 8 years. At the point we formed The Battery Farm we were in a low place, feeling like failures, feeling defeated by this thing that we'd built for years just imploding, feeling angry and scared and hopeless at the utter state of the world. We basically decided to do this in the pub one night when we felt like we had absolutely nothing to lose. It was formed as a desperate reaction to two lives and minds spiralling out of control in a hostile, hateful world.

That must have been tough but, seems like it’s worked out well and the band from what I can tell is going from strength to strength. How soon did you find the remaining members, Paul and Sam? What have they brought to the band?

It has actually. Helpfully, it was a fertile environment from which to create. The first wave of songs - stuff like I Am a Man - are the purest distillation of that sense of lashing out, that sense of desperation we were feeling at the time.

We found Paul pretty much straight away. I'd known him for years through Manchester's Fringe theatre scene, having been in a couple of plays with him. He'd come to see me in a play, I knew he was a musician as well as an actor (although I don't think I'd grasped just how good he is), so I asked if he fancied playing bass for our new band. Sam we actually didn't know before the band, and it took a little longer to get him in. He works for the same company i do and I'd heard he was a drummer, so I got his contact details, asked him if he fancied coming for a rehearsal with us. It all clicked, and the rest is history.

Paul and Sam bring a massive amount to the band. They lift the songs me and Dom write and add a very particular combination of power and melody which you'll be hard pressed to come by very often. They're fucking ace and they know what is good for the song. No ego, no fucking about. They know what's important.

Sounds like you needed that new band to form quickly and to find drummer and bassist when you did you was very fortunate. I watched an interview of you and Dom recently and you talked about inspiration for songwriting and I was interested in where 97/91 came from. When it comes to writing where do you first look to for ideas?

Yeah we did, finding a drummer was comparitively difficult and I think if we'd have really struggled then we honestly would have just given up on it. 97/91 came about after I read an article about the murder of Suzanne Capper in Moston, north Manchester, which is where me and Dom grew up. I'm not going to go into details but if you look it up you'll see that it's the most horrific thing you've ever read. It stuck with me for weeks afterwards, and part of that was because I knew the streets where it had taken place and the community in which it had taken place. The houses it happened in - numbers 97 and 91 - are still there to this day. I got to thinking about why I reacted so viscerally to that story in particular; atrocities happen every day and we don't bat an eyelid, not really. It had such an impact because I was so familiar with the setting, so familiar with the type of person involved. It was too real. 97/91 explores the idea that we make a trade-off in our lives, one which enables cognitive dissonance that shields us from the impact the mass, relentless violence of the world. It also means that when something evil happens in a familiar setting the impact is much greater.

How can it only be real when you can see it? 97/91 isn't necessarily about the Capper murder itself, but the murder is a jumping off point to explore the faustian pact at the heart of the human condition, the one that keeps us sane but also ebbs away at our souls.

Our ideas just literally come from trying to explain our perspective on the world, we don't necessarily make a conscious effort to look in one place for ideas. We just write about whatever moves us. That can be mental illness, corrupt political systems, or the fact that I've never been to Gorton, which is literally the title of one of our new songs.

I find reading about crime stories really interesting, it’s madness what goes on in this world! This is one I’m not aware of but this must have been difficult to write about with it being so close to home? I love the anger and aggression in your music and lyrics.

You mentioned being an actor earlier, do you think this has an influence on your performance as a front man?

Yeah I went through a short phase of listening to true crime podcasts earlier this year but i had to stop bec it was all too grim. It was difficult to explore the ideas that particular incident led me onto but the endgame wasn't to just write about the murder itself, so I suppose keeping that in mind kept my head clear and made things easier.

Honestly, i try to keep any ideas of acting and theatre separate from the band. The actor thing can be frustrating at times because people conflate that with what I do in the band and think that everything must be a performance of some kind, which it isn't. The whole idea of putting The Battery Farm together was that it could give us an outlet to express ourselves honestly, and to me the stuff I do as a frontman is just an honest reaction to what I'm singing and what it makes me feel. I try not to overthink that aspect of it because I feel like to do so would water it down. It needs to be raw, it needs to be stark, it needs to be reality. If it's an actor's performance I'm not really getting anything out of it.

It’s amazing how reading/listening to one can lead on to another one. But yeah hard to shake off once you’ve learned about them.

You’re performance on stage seems very honest and I love to see in a frontman.

Moving on to the music scene...Manchester in particular is buzzing at the minute. Did the band find it easy to slot in? What’s been your favourite gig up to now?

We did actually. We knew a couple of people anyway from being in previous bands but until now I'd always found the Manchester scene a little unfriendly. It's totally different now. Not only is it overflowing with incredible, original, exciting new bands but it's also full of amazing people, and in the year we've been gigging we've made some wonderful friends. There's a proper sense of inclusivity and community, a lack of ego and aloofness that wasn't there before.

My favourite, and I think the others would agree with me, is our first headline set which was at The Peer Hat last November. It was an Abattoir Blues night and they're always amazing. The venue was packed to capacity and the atmosphere was electric. It was the kind of big, simmering sweatbox that seems impossible to imagine in the current climate. I want every gig we play to be like that one.

Yeah it’s great to see bands appreciating each other’s music and plugging their stuff on social media etc. I love going to Manchester for a gig. It’s a great time for guitar music in the UK at the minute with bands like Idles, Fontaines DC and Sports Team doing really well. And also The Blinders bringing album 2 out very soon!

That gig sounds like a great night!

When all this is over and we get some normality back...what are the bands plans?

Well, we're heading into the studio later this summer to begin work on... something. Beyond that it's hard to say because like everyone else we can't really make plans at the moment. Like everyone else we're pretty much having to make it up as we go along. We do have gigs booked for November and December but whether they'll happen or not remains up to fate. Everything going to plan, we may be in for an exciting end to the year. Maybe.

Gonna be very exciting for all bands and music once gigs/recording etc can happen again isn’t it.

Got so many new bands I want to see. Have you discovered any new bands during lockdown? If not, what have you been listening to?

Lockdown's actually been really fruitful in terms of new bands releasing amazing stuff. I've been listening to a lot of Tinfoils recently, they're a delight! Also been loving new stuff from Cold Water Swimmers, The Red Stains, Richard Carlson Band, The Maitlands, loads of stuff. I've also recently discovered John Shuttleworth, a comedy singer from Sheffield who does weird Phoenix Club-type songs about stuff like margerine and vans. I love stuff like that, real end of the pier nonsense.

I love Tinfoils and down to have them on here in Wigan but then lockdown came. The other bands I’m aware of too but not the solo artists you’ve mentioned.

Yeah Tinfoils are great. John Shuttleworth has been around for years i think. I can imagine he won't be to everyone's taste. Richard Carlson Band are actually named after the actor Richard Carlson, who was in The Creatire From the Black Lagoon. There is no Richard Carlson in that band! They're absolutely ace, they released their debut single a few weeks ago and I've had it on repeat.

I’ll be sure to listen to your recommendations, love finding new music to listen to.

We’re coming to the end of the interview now, I’ve just got a couple of questions. You’ll get two options, you pick one answer...

Winter or summer?

Sex Pistols or The Clash?

Roast dinner or Chinese?

Film or Book?

Winter

The Clash

Roast Dinner

Book

Thanks for having me! Hopefully see you soon

Thanks Ben for taking the time to chat to us. Hopefully we’ll cross paths at a gig soon.

If you want to listen to the band please go and follow them on social media and their music is on Spotify etc.