Tucked into a shaded corner backstage at 2000Trees, Lake Malice are rising serenely above the chaos. “We only just got here like an hour ago or so, so we haven't had a chance to kind of look around much, we haven't had a chance to get a cocktail!” laughs vocalist Alice Guala, her priorities absolutely clear and a glint in her eye. “We were here in 2023 as well, weren't we?” Asks her bandmate, Blake Cornwall, “So like we kind of know we're familiar with it all and I'm glad they haven't changed too much because it was amazing last year!”

Festivals seem to be the duo’s natural environment as Lake Malice have been spreading their hyper-pop-meets-metal-blend across the fields of the UK and Europe all summer. “Yeah. I’m kind of sick of myself,” the vocalist jokes. “Do you ever get sick of yourself? Why am I everywhere?” What’s their top festival though? “I mean, for me, it’s probably Slam Dunk,” explains Cornwall, “because it was such a like bucket list festival and we were so excited for it when we knew we were going to be playing. It was like so much even better than I expected because, at first, we were like….playing Slam Dunk!” His expression changes to look a bit like Kevin from Home Alone, amazed at his success,  “but we were playing at like 11.30 in the morning… why is there no one there? And it was like total opposite of that, it was so many people. It was mind blowing and the experience will forever be such a one that I’ll never forget, you know, it was just incredible. It was the first performance we did with some dancers on stage as well, doing some choreography and that was just like really made the show feel really special.”

The dancers are a new addition to Lake Malice’s show, as Guala shares with us. ”We have a massive pop culture behind our project, it’s always been like that since the beginning but what happened is that a couple years ago, they made a video of one of their choreographies so that’s how we discovered Chaos Creatives and since then like we have been in touch but we never really kind of thought we could make it happen especially being a small artist and low budget and everything. So this year they reached out and they were really nice, meeting half way to make it happen and we did it and I couldn’t be happier.  I was just very skeptical at first, thinking ‘this is impossible, we can’t do that’ but it’s just that ‘Britney Bitch’ dream, like we’ve got to make it happen.”

Sass is their watchword, especially since they’ve just come off tour with bimbocore heroine Scene Queen, and Guala’s a huge fan. “I love it, I love it. I’m totally hypnotised by what she does. It’s just so inspiring and also just breaks the kind of boredom of the usual heavy metal band, dress in black and it’s all blokes and all that.” This reclaiming of gender expression in heavy music inspired their latest fifties-shattering single ‘Scatterbrain’. “Most of the new stuff, together with ‘Scatterbrain’ has got a bit of a sassier tone to it and, yeah I think the writing style could be like in a way similar to Scene Queen. It’s just very very literal, very very in your face and just unapologetic It has this side to it that had to come out sooner or later.” The video carries on this energy, sending up the mid-century housewife stereotype. “We were watching like some series or set in the fifties, I can’t quite remember what it was, but we were thinking about ‘Mad Men’ and all those shows that we loved that were set in that area and we were so inspired by the visual style of it. Thinking back to those times where like women obviously had a lot less rights than now, we thought, ‘let’s just start this additional layer to it, to a song that is society’s expectations on where you should be in life at a certain point and have your stuff to get together and be very highly organised and be married and have children and all of that stuff’. I wanted that to appear as a just like an extra layer of gender issues on the other side so we thought to organise something that was a bit more on those lines even though we do tend to have a bit of a futuristic vision for the stuff that we do.”

In spite of all her talk of extra layers and attitude, Guala is a deeply personal vocalist, channelling her own struggles into her music. “I think the artist needs to be authentic first and then the rest comes after. I think if you make it your mission to talk about mental health because you yourself dealt with mental health [issues], then it’s a positive thing, because I don’t think anybody that has not been through it personally should. It’s always good to raise awareness but I think it is better when it comes from a place of honesty and authenticity, and I’ve dealt with very specific mental health issues that might not reflect other people’s experience. When I talk about playing stopwatch being about anxiety and fighting that anxiety off, it’s about generalised anxiety disorder. I don’t know if other people have experienced something else but I usually try to speak from a point of what I live so there is a responsibility, but also like everybody’s got their own battle to fight and it’s got to stay true to that.”

The talk of Trees is obviously Kneecap’s headlining set, and many artists over the weekend would come out in support of the controversial Irish hip-hoppers.  “I think it’s great that Trees kept them on,” says Guala enthusiastically. “I’ve written [that] it’s really a good positive thing. It was really sad that Bob Vylan was standing up for the course as well and unfortunately that led to [him] being removed from the festival that we played recently, Radar. That was really really sad to see and we want the industry to unite, not to feel divided. I think there’s a lot of misinformation going around about what’s happening in the scene with regard to that. I think it’s really happy that we got that Kneecap to come on stage tonight and headline this great festival and spread such positive cause. I’m really behind it.” Cornwall agrees, “I think the media tend to divide people and that’s something that really serves other people’s purposes and people in power do enjoy that on days so the message is pretty clear. If something’s going on,  I think it’s worth talking about and I think good shout to everybody who does that.” 

Aside from experiencing Kneecap for ourselves, surely one of the other most hyped events of Trees is the infamous Lake Malice Chicken Pit.”’I’m so glad you asked,” grins Guala, “it’s all born from a different type of pit that usually comes from a gig where people are not used to being in a pit. It was the Rory tour, the first tour that came to us personally. She was like, ‘you got to be aware people really are not used to it. They don’t know what a mosh pit is.’ So there we started doing the conga pit and then the next shows we tested the Chicken Pit.” It’s a very literal term; rather than slamming into each other, you show Lake Malice your best possible chicken impression. “We just try to give a different connotation to what usually something frightening is. It’s a bit scary. People that go to show for the first time and they see people pushing each other and all of that. To be fair, I’m not even a huge fan of being in the middle of violence so if I can get anything to make it a bit like funny…” “I just think it’s hilarious seeing what people would do,” Cornwall jumps in. ”I think we’re just doing social experiments every show. We’re just like right, will they all be chickens for us?” “What’s the city that’s going to be the most chickeny?” “We’re going to develop it. We’re going to go through every farmyard  animal. Cow pit? Cow pit would be nice. That could be funny. It’s moving. It’s moving around.” How do they rate the chicken potential at Trees? “I think it’s a high chicken potential,” says Cornwall optimistically. “I give it an 8 out of 10 on the chicken potential scale. Yeah, love that. High scale. Or it would be like Radar where we just open the pit up and then they always start doing the conga.” “That’s also fine,” Guala reassures, “You can do that if you want. You’re more than welcome to come to the conga pit during our shows. We will not stop you.” “If you come to a show, make sure you’re ready to be a chicken. Yeah, just be a chicken!” 

If you’re ready to embrace your inner poultry self while enjoying smart, honest, hyper-real pop-metal, you know where to find it. 

KATE ALLVEY

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‘Scatterbrain’ is out now on SO Recordings / Silva Screen Records