As a part of Music Is To Blame’s What’s To Blame? interview series, Dave Woolford, guitarist and vocalist of the Bristol-based band, discusses musical influences, the band’s favourite music venues, and what’s on the horizon for them.
Who are Adult Leisure?
Adult Leisure are a four-piece alt-indie band from the beautiful city of Bristol. We’ve got Neil Scott on vocals, Dave Woolford on guitar and vocals, Nathan Searle on Drums, and Luke Denham on Bass.
Talk to us about your band name - who's to blame for its inception?
We were going through loads of ideas for names, I (Dave) was thinking about Bowie's song ‘Teenage Wildlife’, and I thought to myself; why not change the “teenage” to “adult”, and my memory is hazy on where the leisure came from…
But, we liked it as it represented the leisures of adult life in any form, whether that be from hedonism all the way to the mundane.
What would you say is to blame for your music career?
That would be all of us - not just the band but our manager Jade, and our producer/live sound engineer Ollie Searle. We’ve created a really strong team of people who all want the same thing and we all work constantly and tirelessly for it.
Who are the biggest musical inspirations for the sound you've curated?
We all listen to a wide range of artists as I think most people do nowadays. Music doesn’t seem to be as tribal as it used to be and we all have the entire catalogue of recorded music at our fingertips. Saying that, we still have our main influences, we’re all huge fans of The Smiths, The Cure, Prince, David Bowie and more recent stuff like Fontaines D.C., Idles, Wunderhorse and S
Since 2022, you've been steadily releasing singles and EPs - can we expect an album anytime soon?
Currently it's just been about writing and recording new music. We’ve built up a nice stockpile of songs, but you never know what’s round the corner.
How did the socio-economic theme come about in your latest single, 'Kiss Me Like You Miss Her'?
It’s something that has affected and continues to affect all of us within the band, we were talking more and more to each other about our experiences growing up and wanted our music to represent a part of us.
We knew we didn’t want the song to be an on-the-nose protest song, so we blended our experiences into a story that isn’t based on anyone in particular.
People know the world's crap at the minute and the angry post punk anthems have been done. We didn’t want to patronise people especially because there's always someone worse off than you. This is our voice on a subject that affects so many people.
Following your UK tour last year, which venues stood out as your favourites to perform at?
We’re lucky enough to have played some incredible venues and it's a nice problem to have to narrow it down. Some favourites that stick out are Cafe Indie in Scunthorpe, Polar Bear Club In Hull, as well as our sold out shows at the Exchange and Dareshack in Bristol.
After sharing the stage with acts like The Twang and The Family Rain, who would be your dream artists to perform with?
There’s so many! If I had to choose, we’d love to tour with Fontaines D.C. or Wunderhorse. If we had a time machine, probably 94’ era Green Day.
Now signed to Wipe Out Music and with Luke on bass, what are your plans for 2025?
The plan is to keep on writing and recording music, not allowing ourselves to sit still. We make music like we consume music so we always want to put new stuff out all the time. More shows, more tours and going away to other parts of Europe.
Sum up your sound in three words.
Alternative, indie, pop!
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