Standing Over By The Record Machine: Don’t believe Bad Nerves’ hype – believe the music!

Is the East London punk five-piece rock ‘n’ roll’s new saviors? Probably not. But second LP Still Nervous is a damned good record.

You should probably be automatically suspicious of any band receiving as many hosannas-in-the-highest as Bad Nerves.

The East London quintet seemingly appeared out of the ether fully-formed, feted by everyone from Billie Joe Armstrong to Mick Jagger as the new punk rock/rock ‘n’ roll saviors. Information regarding the personnel is scarce, even in credits listed at their Discogs page, with the exception of bassist Jon Poulten. A piece in New Jersey’s venerable The Aquarian published October 17th of last year prised the door open a little bit, revealing the singer’s name to be Bobby Nerves, and the non-Jon-and-Bobby personnel to be Will Power, Sam Thompson, and George Berry — no instruments attributed. Power, however, appears to be one of the band’s two guitarists, going by his flashing his identifying knuckle tattoos then appearing scrubbing a Telecaster in 2019’s “Wasted Days” video.

If a Nov. 10 interview posted at the Vinyl Woman website is to be believed, this is the way the band likes it:

Bobby: In the world of social media these days and social media is great, it's like everybody puts everything up.

Jon: And none of it is true.

Bobby: It’s a charade. But yeah what we want them to know is just the music. It's what's gonna be remaining. That we give a shit, killing ourselves on stage.

So why is it, despite enjoying the band’s music — including their second LP, Still Nervous, released last Friday on Suburban Records — and liking them enough in theory, all this feels as much a charade as the dynamic these two Bad Nerves decry above?

Perhaps it’s because hype instantly triggers the bullshit detector nowadays. Literally every single piece written about Bad Nerves contains the phrase  “the bastard child of a Ramones/Strokes one night stand,” cribbed straight from every press release written about them. The articles and press releases alike also all never fail to hyperventilate about the attention showered upon them by everyone from Armstrong and Jagger to Justin Hawkins of The Darkness, another performer and band who seemed lesser than the actual music they made. Or makes statements like, “Still Nervous is poised to be the ‘greatest follow-up record in the entire recorded history of recording follow-up records’.” Sorry, but shit like this is gonna make the Spidey Sense tingle.

Which is why it pays, with a band like this, to tune out the hype and tune in the tunes.

Bad Nerves is certainly one of the most notable of modern punk bands, alongside rising heavies such as Black Adidas, The Stolen Moans and Dylan Disaster and The Revelry, among others. They already have a thick discography, mostly stuffed with some short sharp shocks of destructo-pop singles, despite this being their second LP. The general thrust of Bad Nerves music is Buzzcocks-ian pop perfection shot through with a dose of Stones/Dolls swagger. You can smell the booze and Marlboros through the grooves, and see the punk icon t-shirts and tourniquet-tight trousers in which they drape their emaciated frames. Plus they released a limited edition live album last year, Alive In London,  from a 2022 performance so shithot, you can hear the recording equipment fry out eight songs in! Yes, they left that on the record!

As witnessed by Still Nervous’ 12 tracks, Bad Nerves’ specialty is speed bursts of washboard guitars, averaging 1:00 to 2:30 in length, filled with soaring melodies worthy of a bargain basement Noel Gallagher. Going by haikus like “USA”  — “Good morning, America!/The United States of America//Two million prisoners/Rock ‘n’ roll is bad for their business/USA/USA/USA/USA” — and “Antidote” — “Antidote/Pass the antidote/Gimme that antidote/Antidote/Where is my antidote” — Bobby Nerve is hardly Bobby Dylan. But maybe he doesn’t have to be? Wasn’t that the point of punk rock? That anybody can do it?

Bobby Nerve is going for attitude more than profundity here. He has something to say, and he’s expressing it in his own fashion. It may be slightly incomprehensible, but his songs are clearly speaking to someone. That someone is likely younger than you or me. This is their noise, even if we can enjoy it by relating it to the noise of our youth, more than we may be able to relate to modern hip hop or other generational signifiers. Think back to the first time you heard, say, the Sex Pistols. I know, for the first two years I owned Never Mind The Bollocks, I couldn’t understand a fucking word Johnny Rotten was singing! His accent was completely impenetrable! Yet I knew perfectly well what he was singing. His attitudes were my attitudes. He was singing about the war inside my head.

From what I can tell, Bobby Nerve is singing about the war inside modern kids’ heads. Someone needs to. And if he’s reaching them, that’s all that counts. And going by Still Nervous’ 3:45 closing anthem “The Kids Will Never Have Their Say” — four chords and nearly four minutesm t-t-talkin’ ‘bout their generation — Bad Nerves are already maturing and growing, gaining in articulacy. 

Ultimately, it’s about the rock ‘n’ roll and not the marketing. You have to turn the volume knob way down on the hype with Bad Nerves, and crank up the music. Are they punk’s new messiahs? Fuck if I know, or care! I just know that Still Nervous grows on me with every listen, and reduces the buzz to a whisper with every spin. Whether we’ll still be thrilled by this in five years, or even a year from now? Who knows? Who cares? It feels good right now. And that’s what counts.

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