Brighton date for punk band Grade 2 on back of new album

Grade 2 is the self-titled album from Grade 2, their third album in the ten years they've been together.

Based in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, the band are promoting the album on the road with dates including March 8 at Joiners, Southampton and March 11 at Latest Music Bar, Brighton.

“I grew up with punk,” Sid says. “That was my dad’s era and when I was growing up, it was all around me. Me and the drummer have known each other since we were playing football as kids and it was not until we got to high school that we met Jack on guitar.”

Their promoters describe them as having punk coursing through their veins. What does that mean?

“If you read about punk you get the idea that it is all about sticking up two fingers to the establishment and that's definitely part of it still. It can be about not being particularly happy with the way things are run, but I think the really great thing about it is that the whole punk scene is just like one big happy family. It's a real lifestyle thing and your whole life can become absorbed in it. Everybody seems to help everybody else in the punk community, not just musically but if you need anything personally. It's like a real support network. When we were starting out when we were really young we really felt that support around us.”

Obviously there's still a fair degree of looking up to the Sex Pistols: “We were talking about covering one of their songs. You still get a certain feeling when you hear those songs. They are so simple but there's still a stroke of pure genius in them. How they create something with three chords max that is still being heard today and listened to today is incredible, and lyrically they were very relevant then are and still relevant today – whether that's a good thing or a bad thing or not!

“We've been together about ten years now. We started when we were 14 and we are coming up to 24 or 25 now. We just never expected this project to last so long. We were just going through the school system which was three tier at the time on the Isle of Wight and when we went into high school it changed to two tier and it was just a total shambles back then. Teachers were leaving and some were striking and we just needed a pastime. Everybody had all sorts of problems going on and we just started playing music to get us through. And it was incredible. One week we were doing a cover of The Specials and then just a bit later we had a song released through a German record label while we were still at high school. It really escalated pretty quickly from there. Looking back it was all quite crazy.”

As for the album, without the pandemic they would probably been onto the next album by now: “But that’s a good thing in a way. The pandemic gave us a reason to sit back and think about what we were doing and whether it was up to the standard that we want to put out. For the new album there are about four versions of each song that we actually put on there because we were doing multiple demos. We had a chance to sit back and think, and I think it's a much better album because of it. It is the sound that we've always wanted to achieve and now we have achieved it. It's the classic punk sound that you would know if you're a fan of The Clash and through into the 80s. You'll find something that will resonate with you there. But if you come to it all much more recently, you'll still find something too, just capturing that British charm. It was great to sit back and make it a much better album.”