A CONVERSATION WITH... MOUTH CULTURE
Missed Reading and Leeds 2025? We got your back with our 13 artists to watch. Next up is Mouth Culture. Love them, hate them, lose your phone for them. Going strong with a busy year, the band shares some secrets about their upcoming music and what the band is really like.
Mason:This is Jack, the singer from Mouth Culture. Who am I, Jack?
Jack: Here we go. Here's the lankiest guitarist in the whole of the United Kingdom, Mr Mason Clifford of Mouth Culture! That's how you do it.
Mason: This is Jack Voss, the glorious, wondrous, angelic voice singer from Mouth Culture.
Jack: You get what you get, I'm afraid. The member who’s searching for his phone is big bass boy Todd. We'll take this moment to talk to Todd. Mate, we actually want to have a word with you about this. It’s becoming a constant thing that you always lose keys. We will finish rehearsing, we'll all go to leave home, head downstairs, and then it’s ‘oh shit’ followed by all of us looking for them for 10 minutes. And that's exactly what's happening now. Todd, you're actually out there currently looking for your phone.
Todd: I mean, I can't find it, so I might as well join in.
Now that you’re all here, what do you want Mouth Culture's music to say?
Jack: I think it's just a matter of letting people lose their minds for that time. Whenever we play a set, it's our opportunity just to switch off from regular normal life and rock out. I like seeing more and more people rock out. I also see that Todd currently got his full arm in a sofa.
Mason: It's an escape from normality. We want to have a good time. We have songs that you can cry to as well. We just wanted to be an escape for people at the end of the day.
Todd: 100% yeah. You want to cry like I'm going to in about an hour if I don’’t find my phone, come to our show.
Jack: We'd be serenading him with a live performance of ‘Everyday’, since he can’t play any music on his phone.
Speaking of songs, ready to do ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ with your own songs?
Todd: Kill ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’
Jack: We'd then reverse back over it. Do it twice. It’s not really us in a song, it’s an experiment.
Mason: It's a fan favourite as well, which makes it more annoying because we have other songs. We have better songs.
Jack: I would marry ‘Everyday’ and I'd fuck 'Regret 101’. It really just gets you into the mood. How good it is is unwritable. Is that a word?
Mason: That's a new word Mouth Culture just made.
Jack: Maybe that's just all this interview should say. Just a blank page, right in the middle ‘unwritable’ with a photo of Todd fisting the couch. Great advertising for our new song.
(Writer’s Note: It’s at this time Todd’s phone was found and delivered to the interview spot.)
Jack: It’s perfect timing isn’t it? You can’t write this stuff, it’s absolutely unwritable. Now we can all be calm. Even though, still kill ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ We might actually delete it off Spotify.
We won't, but I’m just trying to make people angry.
So, for something that you do like, what's been a favourite lyric that you guys have written?
Todd: Mine is ‘Hold a dog over water and watch it swim.’ That's my favourite lyric you've ever wrote, actually. The metaphor was great. It's not a common way to say something, and the whole point of it is being almost stuck. If you hold a dog while he's running, he's not going anywhere.
Mason: I'd say mine and Jack’s are the same potentially, especially because you have it tattooed on you.
Jack: Well, I'm not going to say it at the same time as you, so you might as well say it.
Mason: ‘If you follow the noise, then you'll find the sound.’
Jack: It is, because I have that one tattooed on my back.
Mason: That is exactly what I just said. That lyric is my favourite though.
Jack: I won’t say it’s my absolute favourite, but I will say that ‘15 Missed Calls’ was the first song we wrote together as Mouth Culture. I've listened back to it recently for the first time in years, and I'm kind of shocked. It just really holds up. I feel like some days I can’t write anything as good as that now. So shout out ‘15 Missed Calls’.
Todd: Shout out my phone as well.
Round of applause for them both. What's the question that you wish you got asked in interviews but haven’t yet?
Todd: I think my question would be ‘if you were to compare your sound to a household instrument or household utensil, what would it be?’
Jack: Electric whisk, for sure. Mason would be a hairdryer. But as a group-
Mason: I’d say we’re a hob, because you can control the gas. You can let it rip or you can tame it, you know?
Todd": Yeah, you can also blow a house up by accident.
Jack: Do you know what? I'd say we'd be a loft hatch because we're the doorway to the unknown.
Todd: There’s a lot of versatility with that question, you can take it.
Jack: Or maybe we’re the manky little floorboard underneath the kitchen that broke years ago that never got fixed. Maybe it has something hidden underneath it, like a lost phone.
We've gone full circle now. So an artist left a question for you all, which was asking, ‘How was your sound today? How was everything on the tech side?’
Mason: Well, we had our boy Perry on sound. So per usual, it was shit hot.
Jack: Do you know what? Shout out the whole crew here as well. We didn’t have a single problem. Probably first festival that’s happened, so thanks to them.
We'll end with a sweet question. What’s a moment of joy for you all that you want to share?
Todd: Mine’s at the Manchester Apollo after the You Me At Six show. We went on the stage with Max. He sat us down, grounded us a little bit, and told us to look out. Like look what we've done, we’ve smashed it at this iconic venue.
Jack: It was a real nice boost at the time. We were on the biggest tour we'd ever been on, and it was nice to remember that moment and hold onto it.
Mason: One of those life-affirming moments, even though I wasn’t there for that. I was there in spirit.
Todd: Max did mention that he was sorry Mason wasn’t there for that.
Jack: And we’ve told him so many times, I’m sure he feels like he was there.
When there's two of you, there’s three of you. Is there anything else you guys would like to share?
Jack: We're going on tour in October, get your tickets while you can cause it's selling now. New music coming very soon, so keep an eye out for that.
Todd: Life’s for living, not for saving.
Jack: And put your phone on loud, so you don’t lose it. Mouth Culture, out!