Catching Up With Yard Act at Outside Lands

During Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, ANCHR caught up with Yard Act. Hailing all the way from Leeds, England, the group was in the midst of a brief North American tour following the release of their third album You’re Gonna Need A Little Music.

Photo by James Winstanley. Yard Act is Jay Russell, James Smith, Sam Shipstone and Ryan Needham.

When I chatted with James Smith (lead vocals), Sam Shipstone (guitar) and Jay Russell (drums/percussion) at the festival, it had been just shy of a month from the album’s mid-July release date, meaning it was still fresh, but listeners like myself had some time to digest it and sit with the new material. On the record, Yard Act casts a wide net of sonic range, nodding to influences and callbacks across the board. There’s elements of more modern peers like Dry Cleaning and Fontaines D.C., but there’s also echoes of more established icons. Think both of Damon Albarn’s projects, Gorillaz and Blur, and bands like Arctic Monkeys.

The record is somehow both cohesive yet vast and diverse; almost like it’s a collection of related vignettes. There’s a story being told, but in different acts. “Empty Pledges” opens the album with the ambient sound of traffic, followed by an eerie tinkering of instruments and heavy breathing. Then Smith comes in with a throaty and moody singing that doesn’t yet reveal the impressive extent of his vocal delivery. Smith often delivers his lyrics in a poetic, spoken word style, but he also demonstrates speed at times that rivals rappers. In the fourth track, “Fiction,” we hear a layered dictation that’s reminiscent of Talking Heads, followed by a theatrical howl from Smith. The next track, the album’s title track, starts off with a plucky melody led by the keys and goes into a sweeping chorus that makes you want to sway along. The track “New Beginnings” also has a peppy swagger to it that makes you want to groove along, particularly when the horns section creeps in on the crescendo—more on the horns players in a moment.

This third album was Yard Act’s first time recording together as a live band, and the group recorded between their hometown of Leeds and Los Angeles, California alongside Nine Inch Nails bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who worked as a producer. When I spoke with Yard Act at Outside Lands (sans their bassist Ryan Needham), I asked them their favorite memory from the recording process. Russell says working with the horn section was definitely a cool experience, and his bandmates concurred. “Beck's horn section came and played on the record,” Smith shared, recalling how David Ralicke, Jordan Katz, and Vikram Devasthali were seasoned professionals able to come into the studio and go from goofing around, having fun to locking in to get the work done in a snap. “Moments like that don't happen very often in modern music, where you don't have the money or the resources, or the players to play those parts on those instruments anymore. We were very lucky that we had the budget and the connections to do that. And then when you witness people that are that masterful at what they do, it’s like they're not even trying.  It was like two takes, and we were done. It was wicked. They just play naturally like that and we all got to witness it. That was a special moment,” Smith added.

Aside from the actual recording, Russell shared that the guys really enjoyed just spending time together during the process. “I love the house that we had! We basically moved into an Airbnb in Burbank for a month to finish the album. We were just all living together for a month and it was great. It was a really nice house and we were making breakfast together every morning,” he said.

The title “You’re Gonna Need A Little Music” makes me envision a doctor prescribing a patient a little bit of music to solve their problems. And personally, music has been so healing to me, but I asked Yard Act what else has been healing for them lately besides music. “Exercise! I'm quite newer to it than the rest of the guys.  You've all been running for quite a while [pointing to his bandmates], I'm a new runner, I've only just started. That's been helping me, personally, loads recently. I see why you've been doing it for so long,” Russell said, indicating again to his bandmates.

Smith added, “Yeah, getting up early is a big thing. Like most people I spent my 20s up until 3 or 4 AM every night and missing out on sunlight. Now I’m like a 6 AM riser and I get out and sort out the day, taking time to reflect and sort of process and soak up the day.” He also shared that he’s had mixed feelings about touring in the past, but now he’s flipped that perspective and found that to be a bit healing as well. “Sometimes I’d find it quite stressful being away from home, but then I learned how to be present on tour. I found that soaking up the city I’m in for the morning is a way to create memories and remind myself that I'm in quite a unique position and very lucky to do what I do. Aside from the shows themselves, which have always been fulfilling. You've got to seize the chance to see where you are in the world. It's a free holiday.”

Shipstone shared that a lack of doomscrolling has been helping him recently. “That’s now our generation's smoking, isn't it? That needs to come with a health warning,” he said. Smith agreed with that sentiment, adding, “I think for a long time that was seen as ‘stop being a Luddite.’ This is the future. Like, we're just on our phones now. It can be great for things, but I think i'm actually at the point now where the sooner we get rid of social media, the better we will be.” Off the back of that, Shipstone pondered about being in San Francisco, the home of all things tech and AI. “It's funny to think this city might be the ground zero of the fucking end of the world.” I brought up the Disney Channel Original Movie, Smart House, which tried to warn us about AI long ago, being way ahead of its time. Unfortunately the 1999 gem of a film didn’t make its way across the pond, so the band members hadn’t seen it, but they did relate it to other relevant media. Smith brought up an episode of The Simpsons where Marge had robots doing all of the housework, and Shipstone brought up the epic poem Odyssey by Homer that was just recently retold in film version by Christopher Nolan. “Even in The Odyssey, the Lotus-eaters. Just too much of a good thing,” Shipstone said. Spoiler alert, but even with living in blissful Lotus-driven oblivion, Odysseus still wanted to return home, so you can definitely have too much of a good thing.

Steering back to the present day, but somehow still on theme of robots and a water-based adventure, I asked the band what they’d gotten to explore during their recent tour dates. “We played in San Diego on the first night. The next morning we’d stayed in Carlsbad, a nearby town, and we went for a run and got in the sea,” Smith said. He also shared that they took their first ride in a driverless car, a Waymo. On the morning they played the festival, they saw the sea lions in San Francisco, as well as a boat of people who had just done the swim to Alcatraz Island. “Times have changed. They swim to Alcatraz now. And get medals for doing it,” Shipstone joked.

I mentioned some of the musical inspirations that I picked up on while listening to Yard Act, but I was also curious to hear what kind of visual art the band was into—particularly because Smith has recently started sharing painting and sketches that he’s created. “I really like Alice Neel as a painter. I think her stuff's really cool. David Hockney I think is amazing. I've always loved Lucian Freud’s stuff,” said Smith, rattling off just a few of his favorites. The band mentioned they’d also visited The Broad the other day in Los Angeles, where they experienced the Yoko Ono exhibit as well as Basquiat's work. Smith also shared how moved he was by Goya’s Black Paintings. “I went to see them in Madrid and I absolutely was moved to tears by it. Most art doesn't move me to tears. I often go ‘I really like that,’ but that made me cry. When it has the power to do that, it’s brilliant.”

Shipstone says he’s a fan of Hieronymus Bosch, and he once experienced an art piece that didn’t move him to tears, but it brought on hallucinations. “I once saw Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed.’ It was pop culture in the 90s, and it was sort of the end of art, because it was like, ‘who the fuck puts their own bed in an art gallery and calls it art?’ But I saw it in Liverpool and didn't expect it, it was just there and it suddenly became really obvious like how it is depression, in an art piece. I felt super strongly—I started hearing my mum's voice shouting. It was like an audio hallucination. Somebody gave me a Wikipedia page where if you're in front of really strong art, sometimes you have audio hallucinations,” he said.

Yard Act at Outside Lands

On a lighter note, I asked the band members a couple of questions about music festivals; both Outside Lands and Riot Fest, which they’ll be performing at in Chicago in September. I inquired which fellow performer on the Outside Lands lineup they’d want to be stuck in a lift (elevator) with, and why. “Ryan’s not here but he would love to meet The Strokes. Ryan’s life was changed by The Strokes. They were like his epiphany moment, they changed his entire course in life and you know, he’s devoted to that band in a way that he will never say,” Smith said, adding that their bandmate was eagerly looking around catering at the fest, hopeful to meet the NYC band. Russell went a different route, saying, “I think PinkPantheress would be it. That'd be quite interesting.” The band members also brought up The xx and Wunderhorse as being contenders for nice people to get stuck in a lift with. “Yeah we’re all British, so we just wouldn't know what to say to each other,” Russell joked.

Yard Act is wrapping up their North American tour dates in Cambridge, MA tonight, but they’ll be back in about a month, returning for their second stint at Riot Fest. When I mentioned to the band that I was from Chicago, they brought up Malort— which was maybe the first time ever someone not from Chicago has voluntarily brought up the controversial shot. Most surprising of all is that Smith said they enjoyed the taste when they tried it, which I’ll chalk up to beginner’s luck.

Riot Fest has also infamously had an obsession with actor John Stamos for years, who finally performed at the festival last year with The Beach Boys, but made appearances at the park all weekend long. This year? The festival is bringing in the icon William Shatner, who the band was pleased to hear will be appearing on the same lineup as them. “He's got this song with Henry Rollins called ‘I Can't Get Behind That.’ It’s amazing,” Smith said. I asked the band which other famous or infamous star they’d love to see at Riot Fest next year, and drum roll, please… they’d give it to their fellow Brit, Robert Pattinson. “I’m kind of really into him at the moment. I saw him in The Odyssey,” Smith said, adding that R. Patt played the villain really well and was also very good in The Drama. And hey, we all might not be able to understand a single word of what Pattinson sings on that one song from the Twilight soundtrack (IYKYK), but it sounds good and that’s all that matters. Since we know the actor has some musical chops as well, I’m on board for a Pattinson takeover at Riot Fest 2027!

As for Riot Fest 2026, Yard Act plays the Roots Stage at 1PM on Saturday, September 19th. They also have an after-show on the Friday night prior at Cobra Lounge, which you can grab tickets for here.