Today they follow this with a second introduction to the TV Priest sound in the thunderclap of “Runner Up”. Both the lyrics and vocal take were collaged together from only two takes, keeping an energy and acerbic immediacy to the track. Like “House Of York”, it was produced and engineered by Nic from the band at their own studio space in Hackney Wick.
Front man Charlie Drinkwater has the following to say about the sentiments behind the band’s latest track:
“Runner Up” address feelings and patterns of lived experience as a citizen of a globalised, late capitalist nation.
It’s about white goods, Protestant work ethic, Catholic guilt, game shows, not dancing at the Christmas party, four-car garages, meal deals, spam folders, lotteries, carrots and sticks.
The ‘perpetual motion’ of this economic model feeds a sense of the inadequate in the individual. It seeks to rob us of deeper human connections with people, places, and objects in the drive to generate vast incomes for a small percentage of the population. Despite getting that new shirt, new job, or new car it’s never quite enough, the ‘true’ object of you affection remains just out of reach, with the latest model upgraded before your very eyes.
And yet the model forces us to be complicit and turn hypocrite. As we upload this song we directly, albeit incrementally, help the revenue streams of homogeneous multinational corporations who’ve no real interest in ‘connecting’ people beyond establishing data sets that help in predictive behaviour ‘markets’.
This song was written as a response to that, a patchwork of observations on what it was to live and work in a pre-pandemic Britain. Perhaps a Britain that may no longer exist.”
The band have announced their awaited first headlining show, on the 28th October at The Shacklewell Arms.
Before then, they will also support Egyptian Blue at London’s The Lexington on September 29th
TV Priest are:
Charlie Drinkwater – vocals
Alex Sprogis – guitars
Nic Smith – bass, keys
Ed Kelland – drums
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