Nova Twins: ‘You have to make room for new bands, otherwise rock will die’

Nova Twins are only a handful of minutes into their sold-out show at The Echo in Los Angeles when a writhing circle pit opens at the heart of the pogoing crowd. You’d never guess that tonight is the first time the rising stars of British alt-rock have ever played a note in this city. The duo’s neon-hued DIY future-punk aesthetic is reflected back to them in a sea of elaborately dressed fans who know all the words to every song. On stage, bassist Georgia South nods her head beneath an explosion of bright red curls as she unleashes a groove that shakes the sweat from the walls. Beside her, guitarist and vocalist Amy Love is leading a righteous call and response. “It’s my body! It’s my mind!” she howls, and the answer comes straight back from the devoted audience: “Do what I want with it!”

The defiant energy crackling around the packed room isn’t just down to the loud, proud, genre-blending sound the pair have arrived at by fusing together hardcore rock, punk, metal and rap. It’s also a product of the open-hearted community Nova Twins have built around themselves since they first started playing shows together eight years ago. Signs posted around the venue set out exactly what they stand for. “Nova Twins: We Are Pro Love & Respect!” they read. “No Harassment. No Racism. No Homophobia. No Transphobia. No Xenophobia. No Ableism.”

That fervent belief in the power of inclusivity is just one way Love and South are redefining what it means to be a rock star in 2022. When I meet the pair for a deep-fried lunch at rock’n’roll institution The Rainbow Bar and Grill on LA’s Sunset Strip, they explain they have no time for clichéd band posturing. “Sometimes you see people who are a bit too cool for f***ing school,” says Love, an outgoing frontwoman whose brand of cool is as easygoing as it is chic. She offers a sneering impersonation to illustrate her point: “‘We’re f***ing rock stars, and we don’t give a f***’,” she says. “Being a rock star isn’t about putting up some weird façade.” The duo have a knack for finishing each other’s sentences, and South, the quieter of the two, picks up Love’s train of thought. “I feel like that’s not cool anymore,” she says. “Back in the day they’d be in here doing that, but now you just look like a d**k. It’s cooler to be kind.”

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Love and South have been friends since they were teenagers. They met when Love moved from Essex to London, and soon became regulars at rock, metal and punk shows in the capital. The title of their exhilarating 2020 debut album, Who Are The Girls?, was inspired by the constant refrain they’d hear at gigs where they were often the only women of colour in the venue. The diverse crowd who turned out to see their debut show in Los Angeles illustrates that they’re already changing that, but South says they’re just getting started. “Our ethos is: ‘Us isn’t enough’,” she says. “It isn’t enough when we’re the only women of colour on a stage at a festival. That’s been the case so often. We can’t just be the token band that means ‘you’ve done your bit’. We want to leave the door wide open and push things forward.”

It’s a tough time to be a young, forward-thinking rock band. Recent research by music analytics firm MRC Data shows that 70 per cent of the songs being listened to in America are at least 18 months old, with most far older than that. That statistic is reflected in festival line-ups dominated by legacy acts and by the bands who get nominated for major awards. “Look at the Grammys this year!” points out Love. “The nominations in the rock category were AC/DC, Chris Cornell, Foo Fighters… all men, and no-one new.” Cornell, it’s worth pointing out, has also been dead for half a decade. “We get annoyed when the same headliners keep going on and on and on,” she continues. “They should definitely be there, but you have to make room for new bands coming through otherwise rock will die with the people on the stage.”

It’s not all doom and gloom though. The pair namecheck a host of heavy, female-fronted acts like Yonaka, Cassyette, Meet Me At The Altar and Dream Wife as representatives of an emerging underground rock scene, and say they’ve been pleasantly surprised to find themselves making inroads into the mainstream. “We’ve just been playlisted on Radio 1!” says Love excitedly. “That would never have happened a few years ago.” South sees signs of a resurgence in interest in the genre. “I think rock is coming back in the UK,” she says. “You can hear heavy bands on the radio again.”

In the last few months, listeners to BBC Radio 1 and beyond have been treated to a string of Nova Twins singles blowing up the airwaves: “Cleopatra”, “Antagonist”, “KMB.” and “Puzzles”. They’re all taken from the band’s second album Supernova, out 17 June, which they began writing during the early stages of lockdown, after watching everything they’d been working on shudder to an unexpected halt. “The album grew out of a feeling of: ‘What the f*** just happened?’” says Love. “We were like: Our career’s just stopped. Everything’s just stopped. We’ve watched everything on Netflix. Let’s write. That’s when G sent over the foundation of “Cleopatra”.”

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At the time Love and South were physically apart, with Love living in Hastings and South still in London. “I thought it’d be cool if the song connected us,” explains South. “Amy’s half-Iranian and half-Nigerian, I’m half-Jamaican and English, so I wanted to put all of that into the music. The riff of the chorus is quite Middle Eastern, and then you have a hip-hop influence on the verses. I thought it would be cool to blend those cultures.” Lyrically, Love was inspired by her experiences during the Black Lives Matter protests. “It was quite an intense time for us emotionally,” says Love. “Georgia went to the London BLM marches and we both went to the Hastings march. London was really diverse and huge while Hastings was a lot more white, but it was nice to see the unity there. It was nice to see people show up who are not Black. “Cleopatra” became a celebration of that unity, and being proud of where you’re from in an inclusive way.”

While most of the album was written remotely, towering single “Antagonist” didn’t emerge until they were finally able to play together in the same room again. “That was the first time we jammed out after being separated,” recalls South. “The whole solo and instrumental at the end of the song we kept off that first demo. It just captured a vibe, so why try to recreate every little lick?”

That’s a neat encapsulation of the pair’s rough-around-the-edges approach to music, and everything else. “We’re very DIY, and everything we do is an extension of that,” explains South. “We’ll paint our own set designs, we make all our own clothes, and we make all the music, obviously. That’s what we drive all our passion into.” Love picks up the thread. “It came from the fact that we felt like we had to,” she says. “If you haven’t got millions of dollars or someone bankrolling you, you have to be a bit more resourceful. A music video doesn’t have to cost 50 grand. Making something yourself is more unique and personal. You get a kind of individuality in the artistry, which is what we enjoy.”

They’re not the only ones. At a time when so much music seems to be about rearranging the past, Nova Twins are blazing their way towards a brighter future of their own design. “We’re creating a world, d’you know what I mean?” says Love, and it’s a place where even rock stars know it’s cool to be kind.

Supernova is out 17 June