Start Listening To: The Guest List
Manchester five-piece announce their debut album Something Real: expect big-room guitar music with a restless edge, shaped by ambition and early-twenties uncertainty.
Things have been moving fast for The Guest List, but not in a way that feels accidental. Over the past couple of years, the Manchester band have moved from earlier online traction and small-room chaos to sold-out UK tours and major festival stages, now with a promising debut album on the horizon.
Something Real is out August 28th, with single You Should Care released on 1st May. Recorded in Bergen and written across a period of constant movement, the album moves between the personal and the wider: exploring anxiety, distance, background noise, and everything in between.
Frontman Cai Alty spoke to us about where the band are at right now, and what it feels like when things start moving slightly faster than you can properly take in.
Where are you guys at right now with everything, especially with the debut album on the way?
It’s been quite full-on. We’ve been doing all the album announcement stuff: artwork, visuals, all of that. It’s exciting though, it feels like a big moment for us. Just a lot happening at once, really.
I think it properly hit us after a show in Liverpool. We weren’t sure how the new songs would go down live.
You always assume people just want the ones they already know, but it actually went really well. That made it feel like people are with us on this.
Has that shift from smaller rooms to bigger crowds changed how you see things as a band?
We’re just more used to everything now. The industry side of things, how it all works. At first it feels quite chaotic, but you kind of settle into it and stop overthinking it so much.
We’re enjoying it though. That’s the main thing!
This new single leans more into that emotional side, where did ‘You Should Care’ start for you?
It’s a story, really. It’s about a long-distance relationship, that feeling of being apart and then everything feeling heightened when you’re together again.
I tend to write more like that, stories rather than straight autobiography. It’s personal in places, but not directly about my life.
When you’re writing from that place, even if it’s not directly autobiographical, is there ever hesitation about putting it out?
A bit, but I don’t really think of it as exposing something private. Even when it feels personal, it’s usually something other people go through as well. So it doesn’t feel too heavy in that way.
Why did this track feel like the right introduction to the album?
It’s one of our favourites to play live, and it sits nicely between where we’ve been and where we’re going: not too heavy, not too soft. Also the chorus just works. Sometimes that’s enough.
How would you visualise the album as its own world?
Probably open space. Fields, distance, that kind of thing. Nothing too enclosed.
A lot of the album touches on heavier themes, where do those ideas tend to come from?
It depends. Some songs are quite direct, some are more observational or fictional.
‘If Ever Your Devil Is Kind’ came from watching a football crowd and thinking about anger that doesn’t really go anywhere anymore.
Even when things are fine, people can still hold onto it. Others are more political or broader. It shifts a lot.
There’s a lot happening with guitar bands at the moment, does it feel like you’re part of something wider?
Yeah, definitely. There’s loads of bands coming through. It feels more exciting than competitive, everyone’s kind of feeding into the same thing. We try to stay aware of what’s happening in music now, not just the older stuff. That feels important.
You built an audience quite early online. How has that shaped the way you connect with people now?
It’s been strange. We were really young when it started online, so then you have to translate that into real life: gigs, songs, actual fan connection.
At first it’s hard to know who’s really there for it and who isn’t, but it becomes clearer over time.
The album’s called Something Real, what were you trying to get at with that?
It’s about trying to find something real in all the confusion. Everything feels quite overwhelming a lot of the time with social media, the news, and everything happening at once.
So the album is us trying to make sense of that. Even if we don’t fully manage it!
What do you hope people take from it?
Just that it means something to them. We’ve had people come up after shows and say certain songs really affected them. That’s the best thing, really.
If it connects with someone, that’s enough.
UK HEADLINE TOUR DATES November 17th NEWCASTLE, The Grove 19th GLASGOW, St Luke’s 20th BIRMINGHAM, O2 Institute 21st OXFORD, O2 Academy 22nd SOUTHAMPTON, Papillion 24th LONDON, Scala 25th LEEDS, Project House 26th BRISTOL, Fleece FESTIVAL APPEARANCES May 24th NBHD WEEKENDER, Warrington, Victoria Park June 19th ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL, Newport, Seaclose Park July 25th TRAMLINES, Sheffield, Hillsborough Park 26th LATITUDE, Suffolk, Henham Park August 8th BOARDMASTERS, Newquay, Watergate Bay 28th READING, Reading Festival 29th LEEDS, Leeds Festival