Panic Pocket - Interview

by John Clarkson

published: 26 / 5 / 2023

London-based indiepop act Panic Pocket talk to John Clarkson about their irreverent but melodic debut album, 'Mad Half Hour'.

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Panic Pocket is a London-based indiepop act, centred around its songwriters Natalie Healey (vocals/guitars) and Sophie Peacock (vocals/guitars/keyboards). For live and studio purposes, it also features Healey Becks (bass/backing vocals) and Laura Ankles (drums/guitars/backing vocals). Panic Pocket is shortly about to release its debut album, ‘Mad Half Hour’, on Skep Wax, the label of Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (Tallulah Gosh, Heavenly, Tender Trap, The Catenary Wires, Swansea Sound). It is a set of two and three minute pop anthems, which combines razorsharp melodies and soaring harmonies with an irreverent wit. It opens with ‘Get Me’ which rails against being forced to conform or settle down (“I like my life/It is going fine”). The Spice Girls get a mauling for their shallowness on the title track (“When I came out of the womb you had to scream girl power”), but it is men who get the brunt of Panic Pocket’s scorn and wrath, the soon-to-be ex who is incapable of ever apologising on ‘Say You’re Sorry’ (“I want to see you with your head in your hands”), the one night stand on ‘Out of the Woodwork’ who emerges after a long absence by sending a text with a frog emoji (“We only had one day/It wasn’t that great”) and the new boyfriend on ‘Bpyfriend’ who gets in the way of a long-established female friendship (“They say that three’s a crowd”) ‘Mr Big’ references ‘Sex and the City’ (“Do you ever worry that you might be Carrie/You lost your Mr Big and you will never ever marry”), and, a testament to female unity, provides one of the album’s spikiest lines (“A vibrator won’t phone you up and wish you happy birthday”). Natalie Healey and Sophie Peacock elected to talk to Pennyblack jointly and by email. PB: You originally formed to play a one-off gig at the First Timers Fest. What was that festival and why did you decide to form a band at that point? PANIC POCKET: First Timers is a London festival where every band on the bill plays their first-ever gig. It’s all about encouraging more diversity in the music scene, so they particularly champion female, LGBTQ+, and disabled artists. It’s where Big Joanie started out (Fun fact: Nat bought her first electric guitar from Steph from Big Joanie). Loads of other amazing bands like Charmpit, Whitelands and Breakup Haircut also formed for First Timers. We’ve been friends since we were 11, but it wasn’t until we moved into a houseshare together in our mid-twenties that we decided to start a band. We had lots of feelings we wanted to put into song. Nat wanted to learn how to play the guitar she’d just got. And we lived just down the road from DIY Space For London (RIP) where First Timers was held, so we didn’t have to travel very far to play our first gig! PB: You have been friends since childhood. At what point did you start writing music together? PANIC POCKET: Technically we’ve been writing songs together since childhood, but only in the confines of a music lesson at school where we were just mucking around. Our Christmas song ‘Mrs Santa’ is actually from our 13-year-old brains and still holds up today. But it wasn’t until First Timers 2017 that we picked it up again. PB: You can hear elements of 60’s girls groups, Kirsty MacColl, Joan Jetf, Le Tigre and Sleater Kinney in your sound. Way is the sort of thing that can be found in your record collections? PANIC POCKET: All those artists you mention are definitely there, as well as people like Tori Amos, Lana Del Rey, Dar Williams, Joan Armatrading, Liz Phair, The Chicks, and Dolly Parton. We tend to listen more to female artists because they generally write better music. PB: What comes first with you, lyrics or music? Do you have defined roles about what you each write? PANIC POCKET: First comes a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, next we pull up Rhymezone.com, and then it’s anyone’s guess. One of our album tracks ‘Don’t Get Me Started’ began by Sophie asking Nat "how do you feel’" and she said ‘"I feel mad", so that’s what we wrote. Sometimes we’ll write songs from scratch together, like 'Mad Half Hour' or 'Don’t Get Me Started'. Sometimes one of us will have the song’s basic skeleton already formed before we come together to work on it. PB: You have releeased an EP and a single peviously on Reckless Yes. How did you become involved with Rob and Amelia and Skep Wax? PANIC POCKET: Rob emailed us back in late 2019 to ask if we wanted to play a small festival in Kent, UK, the following year. Of course, 2020 being 2020 meant that the IRL gig was postponed for two years, so instead, we sent over a video of us covering Steely Dan’s ‘Dirty Work’ for the online version of the festival. Rob and Amelia said they did a lot of listening to Panic Pocket during their lockdown, and then at the end of 2021 they asked if we would be interested in releasing a full-length album on their new label, Skep Wax. We’re big fans of Heavenly, so of course we said yes. PB: Very few of your songs last beyond three minutes. Why is that? Is your aim to say what you have to say as concisely as possible and stop? Could you ever conceive yourselves writing a longer song? PANIC POCKET: There’s nothing worse than a song that drags, and we wanted the album to fit into a literal ‘Mad Half Hour’. However, since you asked, we’re now writing a six-hour concept album called 'What Men Want'. PB: You take a fairly cynical view of the opposite sex on the album. They are liars and get in the way of female friendships. Is that a fair assessment? PANC POCKET: Yes. PB: The title track pokes tongue-in-cheek fun at the Spice Girls. Is ‘girl power’ to be taken seriously or manufactured sloganeering? PANIC POCKET: The only thing we take more seriously than girl power is manufactured sloganeering. PB: Where was the album recorded? PANIC POCKET: We were lucky enough to record in a fancy studio at Dean Street Studios in Soho, London. Thanks Keith TOTP [https://thehitsofkeithtotp.bandcamp.com/]/ . PB: What are your plans for the immediate future? Is it to tour as widely as possible? PANIC POCKET: To take over the world, one Grammy at a time. 'Mad Half Hour' is released on Skep Wax on MAy 26th