Rising London punks Chubby and the Gang have announced the release date for their much-anticipated second album.
The Mutt’s Nuts – the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed debut Speed Kills – is due out on Partisan Records on August 27.
As a taster of the new record they today shared the video for its first single, Coming Up Tough.
It’s part snapshot of modern London, part punk rager about government failure and the school-to-prison pipeline.
It comes from frontman Charlie Manning Walker (aka Chubby Charles)’s own experience with one of his family members.
He explains: “Coming Up Tough is about a family member of mine who ended up going to prison at a very young age for over 20 years.
“He went in as a kid and spent most of his life in the system. Where’s the justice in that?
“You come out and have to prove yourself to a world that shut you away – what chance do you have?
Forgotten about
“There’s no attempt at actual rehabilitation, no empathy, just a cage to be forgotten about.
“I wanted the song to feel like a snowball effect. The character gets thrown out of his house at first, and it feels almost juvenile.
“But then as it progresses you realise the real trouble he’s in. And too often once you’re in trouble you can’t get out.”
Jonah Falco of Fucked Up produced The Mutt’s Nuts, which features Charlie backed by Tom ‘Razor’ Hardwick, Meg Brooks Mills, Ethan Stahl, and Joe McMahon (aka the Gang).
Charlie has lived in west London all his life and works full-time as an electrician. Most of the band work trade or artisan jobs, resulting in their songs being inherently political.
Lyrics are about workers’ rights, inequality, police brutality, government failure and gentrification, and love and loss.
A double-A-side 7in featuring two tracks from the album, Lightning Don’t Strike Twice and Life’s Lemons, came out in the spring.
The Mutt’s Nuts follows Chubby and the Gang’s surprise 2020 hit, Speed Kills, whose blend of hardcore punk, pub rock, doo wop and blues saw them singled out as leaders of a pack of new British hardcore bands.
