Meet Man/Woman/Chainsaw, the London art-punks who love jamming with their dads and chasing the perfect BPM
For a while there, it seemed like solo stars were keeping the music industry afloat. Think Taylor Swift’s Eras tour or Beyoncé’s Renaissance. But if this summer’s festivals are anything to go by, then guitar bands are back — in a big way. Take the post-pandemic pop of Isle of Wight wonders Wet Leg, who amped up their two-piece into a full-blown fivesome. Or Fat Dog, dubbed “the wildest band in Britain,” pushing punk with skronking sax and onstage hi-jinks.
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Now from the same South London scene comes Man/Woman/Chainsaw, a six-person art ensemble fusing virtuoso violin lines with the furious tempo of a Black Midi backline. For guitarist Billy Doyle, the shift towards these sizable setups was inevitable. “It’s turning away from that 2000s-2010s indie sound of four-piece, all-male bands. Like, how fucking wacky can we get? In five years, people will say, ‘What the fuck was going on in the 2020s with all the six-piece bands?’” “With saxophone and timpani,” quips frontman/guitarist Billy Ward.
Despite the band’s eclectic output, bandleaders Ward and bassist Vera Leppänen bonded at school over the classic riff catalogue. “My first riff was Smoke on the Water,” laughs Leppänen. “My dad made me learn a lot of KISS songs. We jam a lot together, and still do that whenever I see him.” Meanwhile, Ward was picking up Nirvana before stumbling upon their more angular counterparts. “When we started the band, it was a lot more chaotic. Sonic Youth was a big touch point for tunings,” he recalls. You can hear those nods in last year’s Ode To Clio single, which alternates four and five-bar phrasing as the track builds to a frenzied crescendo. But it’s how these cleverly mastered moments land with the crowd that spurs the sextet on.
“There are moments when we’re writing things,” explains Ward, “and we think, ‘Okay, that’s where the drama is, and then we do it live, and the audience responds to a totally different bit!” Doyle noticed the impact on stage, too. “When you see people responding to a song, it’s a big adrenaline kick. Trying to remain composed with your playing is tricky when you’re excited by watching people move around.” Leppänen insists there could be more of that, though. “At Boomtown, I tried to figure out the BPM that made people move — around 120. But people don’t wiggle enough at our shows.”
Stacked Up
Last year’s Eazy Peazy possesses a few possible crowd-swellers. Recorded in Eastbourne’s Echo Zoo Studio with Gilla Band’s Dan Fox, the five-track EP found the group digging into the playbox, feeding violinist Clio Harwood’s strings straight through full guitar stacks and a sub bass and cranking up the vintage Selmer amplifiers, despite the lack of master volume. “If you turn them up, they sound better!” admits Ward. “But the most fun thing was the Watkins Copicat tape echo. There’s a lot of that to drive the guitar and the violin by cranking the preamp.”
Ward’s obsession with bending sound extends to his instruments too. “My first proper guitar was a Fender Player Jaguar. I still think a Jaguar is the coolest-looking guitar, especially with the plates.” Not content with the off-the-rack model, though, Ward began experimenting. “I’m such a perfectionist that I very quickly started to mod that guitar. I stripped the finish off it, painted it white, changed all the pickups, and the trem.”
The Frankenstein fettling didn’t go unnoticed in their South London setting, however. “Some asshole stole it from The Windmill about a year and a half into us doing shows!” he exclaims. “They just grabbed the case! But that’s fine. I hope they can never get the action right. I hope they’re making shit music with it, and may your riffs always suck.”
For all the sonic explorations, it’s easy to forget that Man/Woman/Chainsaw are still just a bunch of pals having a good time. Too much in some cases when I quiz Leppänen about her memories of the studio. “I had to leave for talking when we were doing overdubs,” she admits bashfully. “Because there are six people, right? Six teenagers, and then one person in there doing takes, and five people on the outside, talking shit, backseat producing, having a little wine. Then Dan’s like, ‘Guys, I actually can’t work. You need to leave!’”
Image: Sophie Barloc
Shifting Perceptions
If Eazy Peazy saw the group capturing their lairy live energy, then this year’s double A-side ManDog/Adam&Steve sees the collective sharpening those chaotic compositions and leaning on a more traditional rock and roll bedrock. A notable shift from his early Thurston Moore-inspired soundscapes, as Ward explains. “I quickly realised that alternate tunings come with a big bag of problems, and you could just get a big swamp of notes. Now I always stay in standard, and it’s more classic guitar stuff like The Rolling Stones.”
That’s true of the players’ latest instrument choices, too. Ward’s handling a fresh-looking tomato red Stratocaster on our call while Doyle remains loyal to his Telecaster, inspired by players like King Krule and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Leppänen began on a Wunjo Bass-bought Tanglewood, but after a few early Chainsaw shows, the then-sixteen-year-old musician needed an upgrade. “I said to my dad, ‘Look, I’m in this band. We should probably get me an instrument!’ We got the ESP LTD Surveyor in pearly white.”
Since then, and thanks to the band’s inclusion in this year’s Fender Next Class of 2025 series, she’s added a new number to her live set-up. No awkward pitching necessary. “I’ve always wanted a P-bass,” she beams. So, as studious members of the latest class, what would the Chainsaw string section say is their greatest learning from life on the road so far? Ward’s learnings come straight from the heart. “Don’t overcomplicate shit. You don’t need 10 million things to make your guitar sound clean or dirty. Your performance will be better if you simplify”.
While Doyle, the quieter of the trio, is more reflective. “Treat performances with a bad vibe like an actor would. Leave a shit day behind while you’re on stage.” And proving that Gen Z continues to transform the very premise of self-care, Leppänen adds deadpan. “It’s just self-care shit, and I don’t mean doing a face mask!”
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