The Tuts are three women from West London who batter their instruments, crowdsurf, and write punk pop tunes that demand dancing. They’re a breath of fresh air in the male-dominated punk and garage scene, fusing brash guitar with joyous vocal harmonies.

The Tuts are the politically-engaged, angry, totally fan-funded girl band of the future, addressing everything from industry sexism and the Tory government to bad boyfriends and creepy ex-friends. They’re Nadia Javed, Harriet Doveton and Beverley Ishmael, and they’re releasing their debut album ‘Update Your Brain’ this month.

Your debut, ‘Update Your Brain’, is going to be released on 8th September. Are you excited? How long has the album been in the making?

Nadia Javed: I am so excited that it’s almost tipping me over the edge and my mental health is actually a bit all over the place – I’m so excited, anxious & worried about the whole thing. I feel like it’s an exam I’m revising for and I could do with another week of revision. When the album comes out it’s literally gonna be the pinnacle of careers.
We’ve funded the album via our Pledge campaign. It works as a crowd funder and we hit our target in 5 days. Currently, 709 people have pre-ordered the album, which is pretty good considering we’re a DIY band with no major label or anything. I’ve loved tracking our progress on pledge and looking at the graphs doing data analysis, I’m a geek like that.

Harriet Doveton: It’s been a long time in the making in terms of the songs. Some date back to when Nadia and Bev were teenagers, some are pretty new! We could’ve started working on recording the album ages ago…but I’m confident that NOW is the time and I’m so glad we didn’t do it any earlier. We’ve been prepping and working so hard day and night this year for Update Your Brain, so now I’m excited to just get it out there and let it also do it’s own thing as well as watch all our hard work pay off. I think people are gonna love it. 100% bangers, in my opinion!

Describe your sound to us in five words.

Nadia Javed: cacophony of bubblegum pussy punk pop

Harriet Doveton: Yummy, sincere, melodic, girl gang EXPLOSION!

Beverley Ishmael: FUZZY BUBBLE GUM POP PUNK

The video for ‘Let Go of the Past’ is so cool and kitschy! How did you come up with it?
Nadia Javed: The video idea came from the director Jennifer Doveton. She wanted it to look like Jackie magazine and we loved the idea cos it meant we could dress up all 60s/70s and go all out with the hair and makeup. We love any opportunity to get dressed up. The video mocks some of the old fashioned views that were around of the 60s 70s. For example, there’s a scene where Bev’s at uni but back in the 70s there were hardly any black people at uni. Teen Vogue were supposed to premiere the video and literally the night before emailed us saying that there wasn’t enough of a ‘peg’ for them. We all got into a panic, had a cry cos it was our first release off the album and we wanted it to go out with as much hype as possible. We got over the let down quickly – at the end of the day, we started DIY and we’ll continue DIY.

Harriet Doveton: When we ask my sister Jen to make us a new music video all she has to do is listen to the song ONCE and she’s buzzing with all these detailed adventurous yet totally doable ideas. She’s a creative genius. And she pretty much goes with her first idea every time, like it’s meant to be. So as soon as she heard Let Go of the Past she knew she wanted it to be based around ‘Jackie’ the magazine from the 1970s. Which gave us SO much beautiful aesthetic and ideas to work with. But its also pretty tongue in cheek and pokes fun at how backwards magazines were in previous eras (and still can be now!) Of course it was hard work, just us, Jen and a few friends helping out. But all you need is a small team of reliable people to make something happen.
The Tuts have no manager or promoter. Talk to us about why you’ve decided on the DIY approach.

Nadia Javed: We’ve decided to go down the DIY route for a few reasons. These days you don’t get major labels signing you up unless your parents are famous or you are lucky and have some sort of connection. The smaller record labels can’t offer us enough, we can basically do what they can without having to give away a cut of our fees (they usually want 15-20%). And lastly, we haven’t found anyone who is good enough and can do a better job of it than us. We write our own songs, book our own gigs, do our own social media, have full control over our creative inputs, contribute ideas about our merch, pretty much taught ourselves how to play our instruments. Last year we signed a deal with this cowboy manager, he had no contacts, told us we were shit and crap and basically put us down. We are 100% DIY – at times though it can get too much and you wish you could focus on the songwriting instead of chasing up press or packaging your CDs up to send off to radio stations.

Harriet Doveton: We didn’t exactly decide on the DIY approach. It was natural for us at the beginning of course to just be doing everything ourselves because who else would do it for us? Now we’ve toyed with the idea of working with others but we are proper control freak business women, so its hard to hand over basically our LIFE and passion to someone else. We worked with a manager for a short period of time and it actually delayed a lot of our plans and everything was a mess. Wouldn’t rule it out all together- maybe we’ll find our soul mate manager one day, are you out there? Call me.

But in the mean time, we are breaking our backs as a busy full time DIY band, but reaping the rewards too. Also, a lot of industry types don’t instinctively want to work with a group of women, they won’t always see us as an investment, perhaps just a passing fad. Of course, this is misogynistic, but we’re gonna just ride that misogyny wave to success. Why let it drag you under?

‘Update Your Brain’ features several tracks that address sexism in the music industry. How prevalent do you think this is?

Nadia Javed: The music industry is still really sexist. Festival line-ups are really bad, although some festivals are great and have a good representation. Sexism is something we are facing but also undercover racism. As a girl band AND women of colour we’re fighting a double battle with our colour and gender. It annoys me when people think the reason for these skewed line-ups are that there aren’t enough female bands but there are! They just aren’t getting a platform. Women are more accepted in pop, RnB, and as mainstream solo singers (Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift) etc. but not so much if they’re playing their own instruments and in guitar bands. If there’s a girl band on a line-up they’re seen as a token band and there’s only room for one on the bill, quota filled – no more room. The whole punk, rock and indie alternative scene is still male dominated, things need to change. We’re intersectional feminists with pop punk bangers…the world needs us more than ever. That’s why our new album is called ‘update your brain’ cos shit needs to UPDATE.

Harriet Doveton: It’s always been important to us to discuss corruption or inequality in any industry or even situation. Whether it be sexist, racist, homophobic or anything else equally horrible. Speaking out and keeping a critical mind just feels natural and is how we need to be particularly now in the state of this country, and to be able to channel our frustration into songs is even better!

Beverley Ishmael: Well there’s not a day that goes by where a woman isn’t being harassed or sexually assaulted. We feel its very important to sing about things like this. If you ain’t adding value to the music industry, I feel like you need to quit.

The next step for The Tuts is obviously your UK tour. Where are you most looking forward to playing?

Nadia Javed: I think the London show is gonna be the most epic. I think about it everyday. We’re also close to selling out. All our close friends, family, fans will be there. It’s gonna be a special night. Hopefully, I won’t be too high on adrenaline and will be able to control my energy. The last London show was too overwhelming for me to the point where I couldn’t enjoy the show. I think I need to meditate before I go up because I was so hyper it was dangerous.

Harriet Doveton: Yes the tour! Oh my god, everywhere. I love going up North. But its exciting to play some places we haven’t played that many times. Like Southampton and Cardiff. I’m looking forward to seeing all the familiar and new faces at the shows, and that a bunch of the support bands are my mates and their music deserves to be heard! We handpicked the support acts ourselves. Crywank, Personal Best, Joyce Delaney, Milk Crimes, Taco Hell, Happy Accidents! What a list. Some of the stars of the DIY punk scene.

Beverley Ishmael: I really love playing Brighton! I have good memories of playing shows there.

One of the lyrics on your album is ‘I will steal your girl fans’ – how have young women responded to The Tuts? Do you have a broad fanbase?

Nadia Javed: Young women are energised by us, they love it! We get messages from young girls telling us we’ve given them the confidence to stand up against bullies, to pick up instruments and basically empower them to full fill what they lacked confidence in doing. This means the world to us. It’s our duty to empower women and victimised groups. After we toured with Kate Nash we got a lot of young fans but we also have a middle aged man fan base from when we toured with The Selecter. We love our fans but I would love to reach out to a younger audience of bad assss feminists. I feel like the only way of getting to this type of audience is by supporting a young established artist.

Harriet Doveton: Yes, I want to steal ALL the boy bands girl fans!! They deserve to be ours! These girls need to see more women on stage. Imagine what it could do for them and their self esteem. Our fan base is broad, a lot of middle aged punk and ska fans, a collection of punks our age, indie poppers and teen girls!

Beverley Ishmael: Hahaha our fan base is dads and daughters.

Who would The Tuts most like to share a stage with?

Nadia Javed: Currently I would really like to share a stage with Charli XCX she’s half Indian like me, her attitude is great, she’s strong, fierce and has catchy pop anthems with zero fucks given attitude. I LOVE HER.

Harriet Doveton: Paramore or Charli XCX!

Beverley Ishmael: I would love to share the stage with Beyoncé. I don’t know what we would do though. I’d just be on the stage while I watch her do her thing.

How do The Tuts plan on achieving world domination from here onwards?

Nadia Javed: We would like to tour with another major band or artist that has a younger audience with lots of girl fans. We’re gonna carry on doing what we’re doing so keep reaching out to various press etc. to get on as many platforms. But personally I want to develop as a songwriter and really get into working on songs for the second album. We’re gonna carry on being amazing, blowing up stages and steadily reach world domination on our own upward success.

Harriet Doveton: We have BIG plans that we can not yet reveal. But in the mean time, our album is going to lead us to where we need to be. Plus we want to get on loads more festivals next year, even just for the bantz! Tuts do festivals the way festivals should be done. Play an out of control show, get wild at the merch table, find men to take the piss out of, and run around hyped on sugar.

Beverley Ishmael: Not get pregnant!

Update Your Brain is out on 8th September, on Doveton Records.