“We wanted to be more in your face!”

Rising stars of the UK’s thriving post-punk scene, their latest album a top ten hit, Shame specialise in punchy three-minute songs. So why do they need three guitarists in the band? As they explain, it’s all about interplay...

- Jonny Scaramanga

Shame exploded out of the same south London gig circuit that brought you black midi and Black Country, New Road. They share those bands’ love of post-punk and indie aesthetics, but where black midi offer sprawling odd-time epics, Shame specialise in three-minute gut-punches. That ear for a hook made their 2018 debut Songs Of Praise an unexpected Top 40 success. The follow-up, Drunk Tank Pink, was released in January, landing at #8 on the UK album chart.

What’s unusual about Shame is that they have three guitarists - the correct number, in our opinion. Originally, Eddie Green played rhythm and Sean Coyle-Smith played lead, but over time these roles have become blurred, with Josh Finerty, nominally the band’s bassist, also contributing guitar parts. Despite this, Drunk Tank Pink is a tight album with plenty of space.

“With the first record, we hashed it all out playing in a room together,” Josh says. “But on this one we set up mics in my room and started DIY recording. We’d come up with an idea without being able to play together. We’d layer a bunch of stuff on and cut certain things out.” Eddie explains: “Having a moment to step back from the song, to add things and take them away as you’re going, assisted it not sounding like three guitars mushed. It was easier to isolate different parts.”

This considered approach sees the band layering parts cleverly; Sean and Eddie rarely play the same thing. As Josh recalls: “When we started the band, it was like, ‘Eddie’s rhythm guitar and Sean’s lead guitar’. Sean would just solo in every song, basically. As it went on we tried to do more interplay, cutting it down a lot, doing a lot more single notes and trying to harmonise each other in that way.”