Panic Shack on the middle-classification of music

With a name like Megan Fretwell, it should have been a giveaway that she might make a perfect punk guitarist. Despite racking up slots at Primavera and Glastonbury this summer though, Fretwell and her punk peers that make up Welsh DIY fem group Panic Shack only began playing together a few years ago. She dials into our call with a brew alongside fellow bandmates Romi Lawrence and Em Smith (the latter is considered the group’s 'real' musician having played bass in bands since she was 18). The trio are lined up on Smith’s leather couch like the opening credits of Friends.

Completed by Sarah Harvey on vocals and David Bassey on drums, the band deserves a bit of a sit down after a whirlwind ride since forming at the tail end of 2018. The last few years have seen them appear on the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds, supporting Northern lot Yard Act and earlier this year they sold out their own string of headline dates across the UK. But it was Worthy Farm that made the biggest impression so far. “We felt lucky to be able to go to Glastonbury and then the fact that people turned up!” jokes Fretwell. “We weren't mentally prepared. We went on for soundcheck and they were like, 'Okay, just start!'” jokes Lawrence, clearly flummoxed.

It was in a different verdant setting that the catalyst for the group sparked after years of feeling frustrated watching their male peers perform. “It was the first time that the four of us had gone to Green Man Festival together,” explains Smith. “When we got back, we had a buzz going on [our] group chat. We were like 'Shall we do it?'” Like the 70s spirit of punk, Panic Shack channel that do-it-yourself resourcefulness in spades. Even if Lawrence was tentative about fully embracing the role. “I used to get shy and nervous, especially about playing guitar. But then I thought, 'There's no way I can watch my best friends be in a band and not be in it!'”

Panic Shack. Credit: Ren Faulkner.

Getting to grips with bar chords, the foursome quickly began songwriting together. Early single Jiu Jits You was a BBC 6Music mainstay with its Kill Bill cool wandering basslines and scrappy guitars. Alongside their kung fu capers, Panic Shack’s Baby Shack EP sketches relatable stories of young adults scrimping and saving, even if it’s dressed up with a hefty dose of satire. Who’s Got My Lighter? conjures up balmy evenings passing the Amber Leaf pouch around the pub garden. While the touring band service station staple gets a nod in Meal Deal, as Harvey exclaims: 'I’m going out for a meal deal because my flat is fucking freezing / I can’t stand it any longer / Can just about afford my heating'. 

Even with the band’s obvious hard graft and modest incomes, their working-class credentials have been criticised in the past. “We had this thing on TikTok, where people were saying that we were private school girlies [and] that we were cosplaying the working class,” says Smith. “You can call me an ugly slag and I'll be fine. Yeah, whatever. If you call me posh, I'm like ‘No.’” The Britpop era of the 90s boomed with working-class heroes like the Gallagher brothers and Madchester kingpins Happy Mondays. In the noughties though, certain pop artists (looking at you, Jamie T and Lily Allen) were called out for their hammed-up cockney characters only to confess they’d both attended private schools. So where are we with the middle-classification of music in 2023? 

“Now more than ever, the playing field is off balance. Everyone gets a leg up,” believes Smith. But the tension is being magnified as rising artists are facing a whole new level of background checks, not unlike the towering touring policies for bands in a post-Brexit EU. “The discourse has changed now where people have to prove that they're not posh. Like with the whole nepotism discussions, it's starting to become a little bit nasty.” (See the recent comments on Picture Parlour’s NME cover or the now-notorious 'industry plants', The Last Dinner Party). 

There’s nothing more telling of the band’s current situation though than their output so far. There’s a reason why they’ve spent close to the last 52 weeks on the road. “Class is a much harder barrier to get into music,” reflects Lawrence. “It's why we've still not released an album yet,” interjects Fretwell. “Everyone's like, 'Where's the album?' Do you know how much it costs to put an album out? We've got rent to pay!” So much so that when Panic Shack packed down the rigs from their heroic set in the Shangri-La fields this summer, they headed home to Wales the next day and back to work. “You need a lot of money to be able to do this and we don't have anything we can fall back on,” says Fretwell. “We've got to work our arses off to do this [but] we're at this tipping point where we can't stop now. And I don’t want to.”

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Panic Shack play Connect Festival, Royal Highland Showgrounds, Edinburgh, 27 Aug