Billingham, Teesside-based based lo-fi garage queer-punk duo Mouses have revealed their new single ‘Huckleberry’, released 30th June 2024.
The single is the latest track to be taken from their long-awaited second album bwywtb, set for release on 21st June 2024 via Butterfly Effect, and coincides with the band landing the cover feature on North East music bible NARC. Magazine’s June 2024 issue.

A song that delves into our collective past surrounding race, slavery, and emancipation, ‘Huckleberry’ examines how a number of very conscious decisions by powerful white men throughout history have created a culture of bigotry and racist rhetoric that paved the way for systemic racism to have such a stranglehold on society today, it’s a powerful and reflective new offering from the pair.

Commenting on the track, vocalist/guitarist Steven Bardgett says: “‘Huckleberry’ is a song I wrote about bigotry, white privilege, and really trying to understand and pick apart how we’ve got to where we are as a society and civilisation that still values racist and nationalist bullsh*t, whilst trying to be aware of my own privilege as a white person in Britain today. Am I doing everything I can?”

“Centuries of whitewashing, especially post-emancipation, have erased the importance and certainly the impact that non-white culture has had in Britain and created a backlash of horrific right wing nationalism and vile pseudo-patriotism. I think the point I was trying to make was that it’s not an accident. If you trace things back, to Windrush, to the emancipation of slaves, to tensions throughout slavery; Britain’s stance varied immensely, and there was a definitive pattern of ‘take what we want from them and then throw them by the wayside’. Jim Crow propaganda permeated its way onto our shores and still remains today, it’s just so propped up by the traditions of everyday life that it’s too easy for some people to forget, or simply not make the link—but obviously that in itself is a huge f*cking privilege.”

bwywtb is the pair’s first new material in 7 years after the release of sensational 2016 debut The Mouses Album, during which time the pair have raised families, forged careers, and explored identities. The band recently revealed AA side single ‘Illusion’/‘Nostalgia’ as an introduction to the record, and followed up with latest single ‘Fiends’, both warmly received with open arms from fans and press alike.

Comprising guitarist and vocalist Steven Bardgett (he/they) and drummer Nathan Duff (he/him), Mouses are a lo-fi garage queer-punk duo from the North East of England renowned for their raw, energetic, and often chaotic live perfor­mances, and their willingness to tackle societal orthodoxies and injustices head on.

They have previously played Reading and Leeds Festival, after being hand-picked by BBC DJ and Introducing champion Huw Stephens, and built a fierce reputation off the back of two DIY EPs and their 2016 debut The Mouses Album, with support from the likes of DIY, Clash, Louder Than War, BBC R1, BBC6 Music and more.

Following the release of their critically-acclaimed debut, the band busied themselves creating their own festival showcasing marginalised talent, and became a huge part of launching the Rebel Rouser stage at Greenbelt Festival, before family and work commitments saw the band take a back seat.

Now re-energised, ready, and raring to go with their first new material in 7 years and further live plans TBA, the pair are once more bringing their lyrically-uncompromising, sunshine-filled, psychedelic fuzz to the world.

Mouses’ second album bwywtb is released 21st June 2024

Tour Dates
20/07 – NEWCASTLE – The Cumberland Arms
27/07 – MIDDLESBROUGH – Play Brew Co.
25/08 – GREENBELT FESTIVAL