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When The 1975 released their self-titled debut album in 2012, it was at a time where post-punk was all the rage. Matty Healy believes a lot of people "hated" his band during their come up because they were trying to do something "new."
The singer discussed his theory during a recent visit to the Doomscroll podcast. “Every band that got signed over us was a band that was essentially doing an impression of the Arctic Monkeys," he pointed out.
“So what they were saying is, a band has to be from an economically deprived place in order to have authenticity. It needs to be kind of gritty. It needs to reference, at the time, the kind of the aesthetics of post punk,” Healy explained. “So like, you know, all of your Joy Division, industrialization, Thatcherism, brutalism, all those kinds of things. And we just didn’t adhere to any of that…”
He expanded the thought by declaring that The 1975 was "hated for essentially being a band that was the opposite of heavy.”
"Unless you’re Glassjaw, Converge, Refused, or further than that, heavy is f***ing lame," Healy proclaimed. "So the reason we’re not heavy – and we can do heavy all day long – but we’re not because it wasn’t new. We wanted to be something quite new.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the musician seemingly took a jab at his ex Taylor Swift when discussing musical inspiration, noting his disinterest in making albums about "casual romantic liaisons."
Watch the full podcast episode below.