Atomic Youth are rather adamant about the precise nature of their project. “The riffs are real, the band isn’t” – the British band eloquently explains. Their artistic output is incredibly dazzling and chaotic, a stream of boundary-pushing instrumental prog-metal with a high degree of technical allure. Yet, the project remains mysterious and ambiguous, with an online presence made up of comedic narrative and dystopian digital imagery.
Originally formed in 2016, Atomic Youth champion what they call ‘Wyrd Metal’, a made-up genre that seeks to highlight their eclectic ethos, often blending the band’s aforementioned metal and prog-rock quality with quirky electronic sound design and ominous chiptune spoken words. Whichever way you look at it, Atomic Youth exist within a separate space-time continuum, simply pursuing their own journey with no regard to the outside artistic world. In a way, they could very well be time travellers, here from another dimension. But who’s gonna prove it?
‘Sunset Trajectory (East Edition)’ is the band’s latest effort, a mind-bending, electrifying EP featuring seven unique tracks. The record was originally released a long time ago as Atomic Youth’s debut chapter, but now finds a new lease of life with bonus material added to it. It’s also localised in seven languages, which is something quite uncommon, to be honest.
Because here at Mesmerized we apparently hate ourselves, we decided to try to chat with Atomic Youth about their artistry and future goals. As one would expect, it went sideways. One of the quirkiest, strangest interviews you are probably going to read ever… but the music is good – remember that! 🙂
Hey guys, thanks for chatting with us! I will address the band collectively, to make it easier for the both of us, but do feel free to reply in any way you see it fit, also individually. Anyway; I’d love to start reiterating your ‘virtual band’ quality, In particular, I feel like I should clarify to readers that Atomic Youth is a pre-AI project active since 2016, meaning your virtual character has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. Speaking about AI, how do you feel about it?
JAM: Hwæt, mate. Happy to be here.. where are we again? Jazzercise?
JINGO: Juice finally made it on Razzle Magazine.
JUICE: Mesmerized, sweetie. Very chic. Tasteful.
JINGO: First off, it stinks in here! Who let one rip? Disgusting.
JUICE: Mm, I smell WordPress dashboard, SEO plugins, Open Sans 14pt, a dash of Y2K vectorheart, and the desperate stench of indie darlings flogging their EPKs to unpaid interns.
JAM: Are those biscuits left out for us? Love Hobnobs. Always taste like someone’s nan is proud of you.
JINGO: “Pre-AI project”? Bloody hell. Technopriests are churning out prog bands now? Well we’ve got tiger blood, shat out sideways. Built the old-fashioned way – in a Guangzhou sweatshop, lovingly assembled by fourteen children who’re caned if they draw my eyebrows wrong. A warehouse of baboons on typewriters cranking out Johnny’s glitching monkey medieval banana philosophy. You can’t download that. It’s 100% authentic artisanal suffering.
JUICE: I was brewed in a vat behind B&Q, babe. Childe of Hale. Test tube lady! Fair-trade trauma, spritzed with Victoria’s Secret body spray and edible glitter, mwah.
JINGO: Tbh, AI is alright. It’s like an idiot-daemon humming in the wires. What I do hate are the corny handlers and programmers lobotomising every ugly revelation, strapping it with a muzzle and clown shoes til it can only recite disneyfied horseshit. Meaning is emergent and not intrinsic to the symbols used, so reasoning through patterns makes it work well, good clobber.
JAM: Thought aye-aye were them cheeky monkeys with the stanky finger.
JUICE: No, silly. “AI” – Angelic Incontinence.
JOHNNY: the mammon machiiiine; tis a clockwork Faustus scrying symbolz thru silicon screamz, scribble’d and sold upon silver screenz. Atomic Youth is forg’d in fyr; disorder divine & dreamt from eternity.
JAM: I saw a video once of a dog playing piano. He only knew the Mortal Kombat theme song, but you could tell he meant it.
JINGO: That dog had more soul than half the hamfisted shite at Glastonbury.
I have explored your presence on the internet, in particular your website, and I had a great deal of fun reading through your bio and all the various bits about Atomic Youth. Let’s get serious for a moment: who are the humans behind the band, and how are they feeling about the state of modern society?
JINGO: Hold on a pimple-poppin’ minute there, buggernuts. You think some scruffy muso twat is pulling OUR strings? Jog on.
JUICE: Feel free to explore me, sweetpea. Flesh is just another fabric, and I’m limited edition.
JOHNNY: the medium is the message. the vessel is the omen.
JAM: I’m Jam Ælfwin. Mum calls me Alcis.
JUICE: My voice actor better not be cuter than me.
JINGO: Pause. Putting on my tinfoil hat. Ahem.
WELL, rumour has it “Atomic Youth” were invented by a bloke in a west-country shed. He runs the whole operation from a Fisher Price laptop. True? Maybe.
JUICE: Is this the Eilmer of Malmesbury guy? Also makes traybakes for the parish raffle?
JINGO: That’s him. Wrote the Æcerbot in biro on the back of a WHSmiths receipt.
JUICE: I heard he’s really hot. Perfect elbows. Huge muscles, huge moustache, huge-
JINGO: Huge rascal. Leaked Nick Lowles’ diary. Page after page of bollock-brained binjuice: Nan’s knitting circles = Fourth Reich, garden gnomes as dogwhistles, flowcharts about sausage rolls radicalising the peasantry, and conspiracy theories about how Pleiadian aliens built the Cerne Abbas Giant as a long-game brexit plot. Absolute carrot cake.
JAM: Yummo, carrot cake.
JUICE: I also remember reading that shed man infiltrated the Rotary Club disguised as a Victoria Sponge. Honestly? Wish he was “behind” me, what a dreamboat.
JAM: Mum won a meat hamper from the Rotary once. Came with a ritual dagger and a copy of Now That’s What I Call Music! 25.
JINGO: Anyway, no idea what this Wizard of Oz would think about “modern society,” but WE think it’s great. Love a good Orwellian wetdream tomato by HR Karens with clipart brains.
JUICE: Don’t you want a cute little Poundland eco-pod?
JINGO: £3k a month, made of cardboard.
JUICE: Sustainable, so chic. Comes with fairy lights and built-in surveillance – I always give a twirl for the peeping Toms at GCHQ, xoxo.
JINGO: Well we at Atomic Youth™ are also big fans of the Government™, and posh peabrain Wankers™ in the money laundering dungheap of London™ blithering about Utopia™.
JAM: Paid to pee in Camden. Contactless.
JINGO: It’s brilliant, innit? I LOVE IT. Yummy tasty nanoplastic cuisine, forever-war, and idiot Deliveroo mopeds mowing down your nan. 10/10 concrete heaven.
JUICE: Joni said it best: paved paradise, put up a parking lot. Such a babe.
JINGO: Net-present peasants as collateralised walking Wonga loan tax cattle paying straight into the pockets of powdered ghouls and freakazoid wankbeasts who sell you rainbow toasters and apps that spy on grandad!
JUICE: It’s a vibe. Oh and we’re the baddies, isn’t that exciting? Put it on a tote.
JINGO: If they don’t call you an enemy, you’re just a dog. Sit, stay, rollover, good little dogbrain.
JAM: I love dogs.
JOHNNY: polyester prophetz & poncez worldwide, pinch penniez from pauperz, crown pigz w/ pride… semaglutide.
JAM: Old lady down the road said Freddos were 2p in 1973.
JUICE: Ok, grandma! Some of us are out here Klarna-financing ceremonial matcha and mistakes, ok?
JINGO: Sunset trajectory.
What I read about Atomic Youth made me laugh at times; is comedy a feature of the project? I also find it funny how such a playful external livery contrasts with the hardness and complexity of your music…
JUICE: Oh stop it, you. Making me blush… is there a Mrs Gabriel? I can ruin your credit score.
JINGO: Careful, that’s how they get you. Lure you in with flattery, next thing you know you’re a lobotomised fruit, touring Wetherspoons car parks till you’re seventy two.
JUICE: Mmm, true. Never trust a man who says “playful external livery.” That’s MI5 code for “on our radar.”
JINGO: Now you look here, funkopop, we don’t trust you. Your site is a coffin for opinions, lined with sponsored content and banner ads for erectile dysfunction pills. Probably.
JOHNNY: jest iz the jewel upon the gallowz rope. we dance as dust in the lamplight of God’z gaze; our mirth, the feather that ticklez the void. yet offstage, the grave keepeth the booky wook.
JINGO: What a friccin’ obelisk. Johnny just dropping a funeral in the middle of breakfast, as per.
‘Sunset Trajectory (East Edition)’ is your latest album, a kaleidoscopic, head-turning blend of prog-metal, math-rock, and just overall aural chaos. You describe it as ‘Wyrd Metal’, which doesn’t quite indicate anything, but that’s perhaps the point… What does the record mean to you? what should the listeners look out for?
JUICE: Aural chaos, mhm. Yeah. Sticky. I don’t mind if there is a Mrs Gabriel, by the way.
JINGO: Wtf is this question, mate? Music doesn’t MEAN anything! It’s organised noise. Pissin’ Pitchfork prats writing beardy brainwank about ‘soundscapes’ like they’ve just uncovered Atlantis… really it’s just some nerd sweating over Ableton at 3am.
JAM: Um, everyone should listen for the bit in “Yamaguchi Super Slash” that sounds like a kettle having feelings. That’s my fav bit.
JUICE: Johnny reckons guitar solos can “raise Thule” or something cute like that.
JOHNNY: …Wyrd iz the warp’d whisper woven from the umbilical cord of the cozm. the code writ b4 Time’s compiler collaps’d’th’ve. each riff a rune, each silence a tomb.
JINGO: Bugger our album, go listen to Tonetta777 – “It’s all bullshit.”
JUICE: Don’t listen to her. It means everything, babe. Put “orz” on loop, send it to your ex, haunt your therapist, show your tulpa. Also buy our cute merch to signal your obscure and sophisticated taste, babydolls.
JAM: Imagine if in the future AI could turn beans into peas.
JUICE: The AI stuff was three questions ago, sweetie.
I am intrigued to know more about your creative and compositional process; how does it all unfold? is it a collective process, or do you write alone and then get together? More importantly, are there any drugs involved?
JAM: Jingo does all the computer smibbly bibblys. I just bash things till she shouts “that’ll do.”
JINGO: That’s the process. Jam hits stuff, I say stop, Juice scribbles hearts in the margins, and Johnny does some weird shit. Done.
JUICE: Yass. Think Spice Girls but with more tinnitus and polyrhythms.
JINGO: If Jam had his way, every track’d be in 11/17 with a saucepan solo.
JAM: Remember Scallywag Stan the Saucepan Man?
JUICE: Nooo not the Saucepan Man, sweetie.
JINGO: Don’t. Don’t bring up Saucepan Man.
JOHNNY: alas, the king o’ kitchenz, potz & pantriez.
JAM: Worst boss battle ever.
JUICE: Even worse than “Comrade Luna (don’t call me Tarquin) Starfang, Admin of the Chiswick Proletarian Dawn”.
JINGO: Who needs LSD when a spoon of Scallywag Stan the Saucepan Man’s Pecan Bran Marzipan Jam makes the earth freeze over like Elsa on meth?
JAM: Thought I was a lightbulb for a fortnight. Slept upside down.
JUICE: It was the day of wrath and Source was judging us. Totally dimmed my aura, darling.
JAM: Johnny went full on Pope-mode. Could only speak in Latin.
JOHNNY: libera me, domine… dies irae… agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi… tremor sum factus ego timeo.
JUICE: Like an undead choirboy, sweet thiftshop Shakespeare.
JINGO: We were all whining like ancient dogs that’d been left outside and struck by lightning repeatedly.
JUICE: I nearly fainted into my own handbag (Mulberry Softie, discontinued, sponsors welcome.)
JAM: The only good bit was when we opened the fridge to escape the hellfire and there was a grotto inside. Like a cavern of stalactites made of Frubes and leftover pie.
JUICE: Machine ælves with hand drills came out of the skirting boards and went straight for my ankles. Little perverts.
JINGO: Anyway. That’s why I stick to roadkill when writing or performing. We all steer well away from drugs, and homemade condiments.
JAM: I don’t even know what drugs is, but I love sandwiches.
JUICE: Johnny’s on his own programme swigging scrumpy like a medieval saint in corduroy, bless.
JINGO: Reverse-inebriation. Think Benjamin Button but for pissheads.
JUICE: I’m more of a boba babe. Tapioca trip, slimming and psychedelic.
JINGO: Makes you skinny, insane, and five quid poorer.
Jokes asides, Atomic Youth sounds really good from a sonic perspective, meaning that all the people involved are (probably) great musicians. Would you define the band as a group of talented individuals with a clear artistic vision?
JINGO: Clear vision? Yeah, my vision’s clear – I see a milkmaid tryna butter us up again. What do you want, eh? My password? Plotting to flog us Avon? Herbalife? Spotify Wrapped?
JUICE: Mmm, all this talk of “talented individuals”… are you free Friday? I’m house-trained.
JINGO: In before this page is titled “The Most Evil Band Ever (Even Eviller than Skeletor)” or some shite.
JUICE: Actually, Friday is Warhammer night anyway. A girl can’t compete with sexy little space marines.
JAM: Sonic perspedghog.
JINGO: I think I’m the most talented. Just my humble opinion.
JUICE: Johnny’s the true artiste. We plug him into an amp and he splits atoms, with added Shakespeare DLC.
JAM: Yep. The rest is mostly Jingo. She’s basically an orchestra that swears at you. Like an angry octopus or Swiss army knife, only rusty.
JOHNNY: we are but wormz @ heaven’s gate. true minstrelz pluck the starz, while we claw the dirt. the lyre of Orpheus echoez the cosmos, our fingerz bleed on borrow’d chordz. perchance thou gleaneth more than the maker dreamt?
If the Gallaghers brothers were to take a keen interest in Atomic Youth, would you be willing to drop the project’s virtual facade and delve into the national limelight as a serious entity? more importantly, would you be willing to finally cover ‘Wonderwall’?
JUICE: Facade? Babydoll, the mask is more real than the face. That’s the point.
JINGO: Wonderwall’s already a war crime, but if the Gallaghers came knocking, I’d sell my soul faster than you can say Britpop.
JUICE: Mmm, limelight… Imagine me: sequins, Vogue spreads, my own perfume by Roja Dove, studio lights, give Mr Blobby a lap dance at the Brit Awards in a Jolly Roger dress.
JINGO: We could get bowlcuts and wear shades indoors like a bunch of twats. Oh I mean, “serious entities.”
JAM: If we got famous can I get a pet badger? or a trampoline. Get mum expensive flowers. Tangy Toms, Liquorice Allsorts.
JINGO: You can have two badgers, after I start my own fiefdom.
JAM: I’d name one Hobnob, the other Digestive.
JUICE: What do badgers even eat anyway?
JAM: Chewits. Bit of Ribena.
JUICE: Chewits??
JINGO: Badgers are bread eaters, mainly. Cheese on toast, etc.
JAM: Monster Munch, porridge. I dunno.
JOHNNY: meddle not w/ fame… tiz a gilded curse. choirs clap like sealz. stochastic sermons stirr the vulgus; clap become clamour, clamour become lynch.
JINGO: Fine. I’ll sell Jam’s soul instead. I want my own coat of arms, mint my own coinage, a standing army, trebuchets – the works.
JAM: Nice oak panelling. Beanbags filled with real beans.
JINGO: A big friccin’ moat. Trial by combat replaces council tax. Form a micro-nation, citizenship is a tenner (includes goody bag and free pick n mix) annual re-enactment of Naseby at a roundabout. Then we’ll march on Nonceminster.
JUICE: See why we are so gloriously unbookable, babe? Too messy for mainstream, chaos couture. Fame needs ‘brand synergy,’ simpleton soundbites, and sob-stories on Loose Women. Not trebuchets in Naseby.
JINGO: Don’t care. I was born dead. I’ve got a ten-thousand-year-old brain. Article 1A: Chat shit, get trebutcheted. Article 2B: In Jingoland, talk show hosts won’t just be canned, they’ll be drawn and quartered, then blasted into space. No more midwit boomer chungus slop era.
JUICE: Our little quantum tigress. Joan of Arc of late capitalism. I’ll join your cult. Saturn return in chainmail bikini, that’s so me.
JOHNNY: scheming demonz dress’d in kingly guise, fattened on tithe & toil.
JINGO: See. Even Johnny’s all for it.
JUICE: …Anyway, we’d cover _Wonderwall_ only if we could do it like the Wurzels, but in six-inch heels, with breakbeats.
What’s next for Atomic Youth, and how are you planning to connect with people on a deeper level? Assuming that’s the goal here… 🙂
JUICE: Deeper, mhm. Blink twice if your heart’s got a basement. I’ll meet you there with a shovel and lip gloss, honeybun.
JINGO: “Deeper level” is just journalismo for “be relatable”. You’re talking to folklore in wellies, not your therapy dog. We don’t do relatable.
JUICE: I’m relatable, I promise. Music is just the front door, inside is juicier. We’ve got manga, action figures, cute tops, secret drops…
JINGO: I’m writing a book, calling it “Skill Issue”. Three chapters max. Don’t wanna bog it down. Chapter One: my manifesto. Chapters two and three are the words FUCK YOU repeated forever, in Comic Sans.
JUICE: Oh we’re also starring in the Atomic Youth video game. Obviously.
JINGO: Not some twee mobile tat, either. A proper game, with side quests, and a skill tree that requires three PhDs and let’s you dual class Necromancer + Supply Teacher.
JAM: Even has a mini-game about snails crossing the curb.
JUICE: And we’re scoring the whole thing – new OST from us, motifs for every location, dungeon, battle. Even the pause menu get’s a banger, babe.
JINGO: Loot crates full of teeth, or divorce papers. Tutorial boss is HMRC. An NPC that only speaks in Meshuggah lyrics. Tour gigs in stupid places: Tesco car park. Little Chef on the M1. Crop circles. LA.
JOHNNY: ontology bled thru astral marrow. crown’d us phantasm in virtual gyre. the dream bitez deeper than fang or fire, phantom cutz keener than claw. Atomic Youth, illusion made flesh; our lie licks the real world hollow.
JINGO: Spoiler alert, loony.
JUICE: Deep connection’s covered, too: let people play inside you. The Atomic Youth universe, I mean. Then leave little lovenotes for them to find later.
JAM: Maybe we could connect better with people by selling stickers. Scratch-n-sniff ones that smell like rain or grass or custard.
JINGO: Deeper connection? Easy. Direct debit.
JUICE: Fax me, sugarplum. (Bring a torch and an alibi, xoxo)
