2025 marks the ten-year-anniversary of Manchester Punk Festival. Once again, LOUD WOMEN will be there to cover as many of the amazing women-led bands on the line-up as possible. I’ll also be highlighting some of the must-see bands here in the lead-up to the festival, as it’s never too early to get excited!
Our first featured band is Helle, a self-described “shouty feminist punk band” from Leeds, made-up of Elsie Gaia (vocals), Ellie Kirkwood (bass), Dan Zanelli (guitar), and Ethan Aldwinkle (drums). I caught up with the band as MPF approaches on 18-20 April …
Firstly, how did you all meet and when was Helle formed?
We actually all met in University, we all studied music in the same class. Ethan took a while longer to convince to be our drummer but we won him over eventually and we really found our sound once he had joined (as pretentious as that sounds!). But yes, lots of lectures and embarrassing first year night out memories between us all.
For anyone not familiar with your music, how would you describe your sound?
Girl punk! If rock and grunge had a punk baby that likes to dress up as a goth! I could do these all day. But in all seriousness I think that it varies slightly song to song, we class ourselves as a feminist punk band as that’s why we were formed, we wanted to make music about things we were passionate about after being inspired by the punk movement, but we have songs that are more grunge, some that channel rock and metal, and some that are straight up in your face punk.
If you had to recommend one of your songs to a new listener, which one would you choose?
‘Scarlett Fever’. It was our first ever single and a song we play almost every time we perform because we love it so much, I think it sums up all of our strengths as a band, it’s heavy and melodic, with strong lyrics and a killer riff, if I do say so myself.
What can we expect from your set at MPF?
Energy, silliness, sexiness, lots of rage, and hopefully a set that’s enjoyably unpredictable. We really like to showcase as much of our repertoire as we can so don’t be surprised if we go from making you cry with a grungy heartbreak ballad to shouting at you about BDSM and cannibalism in the same breath!
Are there any other bands on the line-up you’re particularly looking forward to seeing?
Yes! So many. Bleach Brain, Skint Knees and Deadwax in particular. We’ve been lucky enough to play with all three of these bands before and you definitely need to go see them, they won’t disappoint.
What else are you up to this year?
Our latest single ‘Hyper Bitch’ was released January 31st and it’s a really fun upbeat song, we also have lots more music coming throughout the year we promise. It’s our first time playing at Rebellion this year too so that’s really exciting, and we always plan something big for the end of the year but my lips are sealed for the time being, sorry to be a tease! It’s all really exciting though, we’re loving 2025 already.
And finally, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Just thank you so much for having us! We’re long time admirers of Loud Women so this has been great for us to be able to get involved, and hopefully we can see some of you reading this at MPF. If any of you have the time to find our socials or stream any of our music we are endlessly grateful, thank you.
Thank you so much to Helle for answering these questions. Manchester Punk Festival takes place 18-20 April 2025 – full details and tickets here
You can find Helle on Instagram // Facebook // Bandcamp
