Adventures in the UK Underground: Our Mutual Friend

A DIY night built on instinct, friendship and discovery, where small-room beginnings quickly turn into something much bigger.

It’s the night before Our Mutual Friend’s fourth show. It’s also the night after Geese’s headline show at the Hammersmith Apollo. In a moment of serendipity, the opening act for the band, Westside Cowboy, had sent over a demo for Jack’s first radio show after seeing them with Charlie back in January 2024, to a room of no more than 15 people. Two years later and the band have played at Glastonbury, have a forthcoming opening slot for indie legends The Macabees at Alexandra Park, and have long said goodbye to small crowds. The band played at the last Our Mutual Friend show to a sold out audience, the full circle moment rounding itself out.

With the concept of the stage as the seed, Our Mutual Friend is a night for musicians coming of age, artists who can hopefully look back in retrospect at their beginnings, formed within the hallowed walls of The Dublin Castle. Opting for the historic Camden venue reinforces this idea of starting something fresh outside of the more polished and widely celebrated spaces within London’s gig circuit.

“I think that’s one of the benefits of doing it somewhere like The Dublin Castle, it’s a great place and a bastion of music throughout history, but it’s not necessarily a ‘cool’ venue,” Jack explains.

The team is something of a perfect alchemy: a radio host in Jack Young, a musician in Charlie Wayne, and a promoter in Pepper Coxon, all music lovers and friends first and foremost.

“And because we are all different, we have different skills we bring to the process. It’s along the lines of, well, you do this, you do that, let’s try and make a plan to make it work.”

Working within the team offers the luxury of multiple sounding boards for ideas, with decision-making becoming a shared process rather than a burden carried individually.

“Pepper is very organised and driven, as well as having a background in promotion. Charlie has so much experience being in bands with fundamental roles. We worked out what each of us could offer,” Charlie adds, before joking: “Essentially, Pepper does everything.”

A wealth of knowledge drawn from her day job means much of the logistical detail comes naturally to Pepper.

“I’m doing very similar tasks at work to what I have to do for this, so for me it’s already second nature. But I think those are things I can try to share and teach, so we’re all on the same page,” she says.

Wanting to do something outside of work that centred on the music she loved, conversations between the three naturally evolved into putting on an event series together.

Line-ups are typically announced the day after each show, giving audiences around a month’s notice before the next event. This allows listeners time to explore the artists - or, in keeping with the night’s ethos, turn up and embrace the unknown.

“You do your research and read magazines, naturally. We’re in the music world, so a lot of it is word of mouth.”

The trio’s network extends well beyond London, opening the door to scenes across the UK. A tip-off from a Leeds-based promoter proved successful, resulting in a band being booked for the fourth edition. It’s this spontaneity that often produces the most exciting results - especially when trying to avoid overly London-centric line-ups.

“We live in London, we know bands in London, so that’s always going to be a part of it. But I think it’s definitely just as interesting and exciting for me to look for bands and find out that they’re from out of town. Any night that’s too London-centric is destined to fail. We’re so lucky to be so close to so many amazing scenes around the country - we should count ourselves lucky to have them come to London to play away from home,” Charlie says.

A growing sentiment among audiences is the desire for organic discovery - something that exists outside of algorithm-driven listening habits. Jack references a long-standing industry mindset, where bands once had to take financial risks just to break into the capital.

“Maybe in the 80s that could be the case. But now, with inflation and everything else going on, you don’t want that to be the mindset,” he says.

Despite sharing its name with the Charles Dickens novel, Our Mutual Friend doesn’t lean heavily on literary meaning. The name emerged almost accidentally during early conversations.

“It has meaning, but it also doesn’t - and I quite like that. It reflects what a night can be. It’s open-ended, and in a way, it becomes whatever the people there make it,” explains Pepper.

There’s a clear sense of shared responsibility between the trio. But balancing full-time careers alongside running a gig night means navigating the more technical aspects of live events.

“There are also practical considerations - like whether a band is playing other shows around the same time. Sometimes they’ve got something the next day. But that’s just part of it. Ultimately, you want to create a space where anyone can come and make it work,” Pepper explains.

While it might be tempting to book the most in-demand acts to guarantee ticket sales, the trio are focused on striking a balance between platforming emerging talent and curating line-ups they genuinely believe in.

“That’s what’s hard about it, you could go for the hottest band that everyone’s talking about, which might sell tickets. But we don’t want the audience to just be people from the industry.”

In that sense, Our Mutual Friend acts as a partial antidote to scenes that risk becoming repetitive. While venues like The Windmill in Brixton continue to champion boundary-pushing acts, waves of imitation can often follow early success.

“But then as we all got older, that scene seemed to kind of fade, and the next wave started to replicate the same sounds and ideas,” Jack explains.

What OMF offers instead is intimacy, the chance to witness something at its beginning.

“There’s always a moment during a show when we lean over to our friends and say, ‘This is incredible, these guys are great.’ That happens every single time, more than once,” says Charlie.

As the nights have grown, so too has the audience. What began as a gathering of friends has evolved into something broader - a community forming in real time.

“It’s always really fun, but also nerve-wracking at the start. Then it gets going and you feel excited. We always have DJs after the performances - that’s definitely something I want to build on more,” Pepper reflects.

Looking ahead, the future of Our Mutual Friend is already expanding beyond Camden. Their growing network in Leeds has helped shape plans for a larger-scale event.

“It’s because we formed a network there and saw a lot of bands. In an ideal world, we’d have that in Birmingham and Manchester too - and we’re starting to. But for whatever reason, we’ve built a strong connection with Leeds, so we’re really focusing on that at the moment,” says Jack.

That expansion takes shape with OurMutualFriendxRegtown, an all-day event in Leeds on 20th June, marking a significant step forward for the collective. Upcoming London dates are also locked in for April 30th and May 21st.

“We’re doing this all-day event in Leeds, and then one in London. I guess I’m being a bit ambitious with the things I want to do - especially when bands are around for festivals and things like that,” Pepper says.

At its core, the project is a genuine investment in artists - offering paid opportunities and fostering a space people want to return to. It pushes against the echo chamber that many gig nights fall into, instead welcoming anyone through the doors.

“I want people in the room who just happen to like the music - even if they don’t already have a big group to come with,” Jack says.

Still early in its lifespan, Our Mutual Friend continues to evolve with each edition.

“We’re still learning some of the nooks and crannies of it,” Jack admits. “But that’s part of the fun.”

You can book tickets for the Our Mutual Friend x Regtown all dayer here.

You can also book tickets for the next Our Mutual Friend night here.