FEATURE:
Spotlight
PUNCHBAG
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IN terms of dynamics…
when it comes to duos, trios or groups, one of the most fascinating is the sibling combination. There are examples of brothers and sisters working together (including HAIM), but it does seem to be rarer than it used to be. Maybe I am not looking in the right places! However, I have discovered the brilliant PUNCHBAG. Their incredible debut E.P., I’m Not Your Punchbag, came out on 2nd May. I love the cover and lettering. It is very eye-catching and memorable. The four tracks on the E.P. are the work of a duo that everyone should know. In order to recruit more to the wonderful PUNCHBAG, I am dropping in a few recent interviews. I will end with a review for I’m Not Your Punchbag. Before getting to some interviews, here.is some biography a duo that so many people are buzzing about:
“Colliding the raw unfiltered energy of punk, with the overflowing ecstasy of pop, emerges PUNCHBAG. A new electrifying brother-sister duo, from South London. With fierce tempos and ferocious energy, their music is an explosively cathartic release of raw intensity and unapologetic fun.
This is the sound of today’s tough realities, transmuting personal and collective life material into an earthquake of alternative-pop. PUNCHBAG propels listeners into a collision of chaos and catharsis, with music that wrestles with change, realisation and recovery.
In 2025, it was announced that Punchbag has signed with Mute Records”.
I am going to start out with an introductory feature from February that When the Whistle Blows published. Undoubtedly one of our freshest and most promising acts, I think that PUNCHBAG will put out tremendous music for many years. Their debut E.P. is fully-formed. No doubt they are a very special talent. One that everybody should put their weight behind:
“Swinging between dizzying extremes, where unapologetically sugar-sweet pop hooks clash with radical leftfield production; where emotional overwhelm can be purged in the space of a single throwaway lyric; where lines are blurred and redrawn between aggression and joy, softness and toughness, PUNCHBAG (consisting of Clara and Anders Bach) are a compelling proposition.
Debut single 'Fuck It' introduces the duo with a grand wash of entrancing synths and piercing beats. Vocalist Clara sings of a life buffeted by anxiety and the fear of wasting time, as instrumental momentum builds and builds. Then, just short of escape velocity, everything flips on its head. Guitarist and producer Anders' overdriven punk guitars attack in plunging dives as the vocal suddenly flips in tone; sharp, snippy and unabashed. “We might as well just say go fuck it!” Clara exclaims. “’Cos we’re all gonna die, die, die!”
They took a moment to talk to us about their music.
Hey there PUNCHBAG- how are you? So your track ‘Fuck It’ is out now - can you tell us what it is about?
We’re fab thanks! This song is about right now, it's about 2025 and the feelings we have about the world. It's about the anxiety of wasting time but using that as a catalyst to DO things. “We might as well just say go fuck it” “Cos we’re all gonna die die die” we make a point of these lyrics not being nihilistic, its more like we only have so much time so say the thing you wanna say, kiss the person you wanna kiss. Aggressive but joyful.
Where are you from and what are your favourite things to do there?
We’re from south-east London. We make all our music at home, so that’s usually what we’re doing. Getting really into tracking planes when walking around the park. Riveting stuff south the river!
What are the key influences when it comes to your music?
It's a big mixing soup of eavesdropping people on the tube, being overly self observational, The Pixies and Katy Perry.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never listened to your music before?
Aggressive Hopecore. It's sweaty, noisy pop that you can purge your feelings too. It's brutal reality with a cathartic release which in turn is fun and joyful.
Now the track is out there - what next for you?
There is a new kebab place around the corner we’re about to go out and try. And also loads more music and shows. Woop”.
Before getting to an interview from NME, I want to come to a great one from DORK. Published at the end of March, DORK declared PUNCHBAG are “The sibling duo of Clara and Anders Bach slice through the thick fog of modern irony while maintaining the playful spirit of those who know precisely when to take things seriously – and, more importantly, when not to”. I am really excited by their progress and I realise just how far they can go:
“In PUNCHBAG’s world, the roles are clear but fluid, a creative process that is thoroughly collaborative. “We both write and produce everything together,” they explain. This partnership has yielded more than just music; it’s become a lens through which to examine the peculiarities of the world around them.
Their evolution into PUNCHBAG is almost a reaction to making art in an age of endless scrolling and context collapse. “We like to describe it as ‘Aggressive Hopecore’, which feels relevant to right now. It’s about 2025,” Clara reflects. “We live in an irony epidemic, and everything is meme-able, but alongside that, things in the world are pretty serious, and peoples’ heads are in complex places. We worry about that.”
This tension between digital absurdity and genuine human emotion runs through everything PUNCHBAG create. “We think those two things can be connected, that contrast, and it sonically sounds like that too, the softness and also the toughness,” Clara continues. “This music isn’t about chasing the news, we are chasing what people’s thoughts and emotions are because of what is going on and being able to do that also with joy and catharsis.”
The resulting EP emerged from sessions split between Berlin, Whitstable and their London home base, working alongside collaborators Michelle Leonard and Dee Adam. “We recorded everything at home together, just sitting in front of a laptop for weeks, going a tad mad until it was finished,” they reveal. “The main challenges are just trying to get the mic stands to fit in Clara’s wardrobe where we record all the vocals.”
That DIY spirit pervades the four-track collection, which they describe as “a nice big soup of subjects spanning from the tumultuous relationship you have with your phone to someone making a snide comment to you at the dinner table.” Each song captures a specific moment in PUNCHBAG’s evolution: “‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’ was the song that helped us work out our name. ‘You Used To Be So Sexy’ was the first ever session we did. ‘Pretty Youth’ was one of the first songs we made that felt like this is PUNCHBAG.”
The tracklisting was assembled with characteristic directness. “We wanted to be straight to the point, like BANG, here ya go, here is a lil crash course into PUNCHBAG,” they explain. “We want each song to feel like they could stand alone strongly and they are all intense in different ways. It was very important that each song you could move or jump to, obviously.”
This emphasis on physical release through movement feels particularly vital in our increasingly screen-mediated world. As Clara notes, “Joy is important and jumping up and down in a sweaty room is important but I think you can do that in a non-escapist way too, without the floweriness, the petals. Although we do wear a lot of pink on stage.”
Their approach to personal development mirrors their musical evolution – equal parts determination and playful absurdity. Currently, they’re “working on our mind, body and soul,” with Clara quite specifically “working on being able to do the splits again.” This physical preparation accompanies their ongoing musical development, having “just came back from Berlin and wrote a bunch of new songs, keeping it exciting, keeping pushing our music and most importantly getting our live set to be spectacular, pyros pending.”
Looking ahead, PUNCHBAG’s ambitions range from the practical to the playfully absurd. When asked where they’d like the EP to take them, they respond with deadpan humour: “To the darts championship.” More immediately, their 2025 calendar is filling up with promise: “Ooooof, a lot of fun things including some festivals, our first ever headline, and just more music for people to jump to or laugh to or cry to?”
Perhaps that’s the greatest promise in PUNCHBAG’s wardrobe-recorded missives: turning the everyday tumult of the present moment into something raw, urgent, and oddly uplifting. And if they can keep doing it with no rules, so much the better”.
One of the most recent interviews with the duo, NME spoke with PUNCHBAG at the end of last month. With so much momentum behind them already, you wouldn’t bet against them touring around the world soon enough. If you can catch them at Bermondsey Social Club on 29th May – and there are still tickets available – then you I would advise that. A stunning duo who are also a brilliant live force:
“They channel such physicality both in the studio and on stage. “Often when we’re writing, we’ll be standing up and it’s like ‘go, go, go!’” Clara explains. They’ll spend months perfecting a verse, and hours on finding the right kick drum. “It’s so guttural and honest and raw and fun to make.” Their frenetic, infectious performances have gone down a treat on the London live circuit – and beyond, thanks to YouTube videos – and started building word-of-mouth hype even before they released any music.
“For us, the live element is the most important thing, and it always will be,” Clara declares. Anders agrees: “you can’t argue with a live show – it’s raw and there’s literally nothing that can compare.” They value the “honest feedback” that comes from playing in front of people too; some formative sets (one of which saw Norwegian pop artist Sigrid in the crowd) inspired the duo to tweak some demos afterwards. “We learned so much,” Clara adds. “Even if you can’t see a single person’s face, you feel uncomfortable if something doesn’t work,” Anders says.
“With everything we write, we’re always trying to push it and be uncomfortable” – Anders Bach
While they always hoped their songs would connect with people, something felt distinctly different when they started performing as Punchbag. “We’re always making sure that we’re having as much fun as possible on stage,” Anders says. “It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but anywhere we play, it’s about finding the people in the audience that get it.”
For anyone yet to experience a Punchbag gig, prepare to get sweaty. “I scream at people until they’re jumping at the end,” Clara says, describing their energetic performance as “really heavy and, hopefully, joyful. We want people to feel able to laugh and cry at the same time. There can be anger in catharsis, but being truthful and brutally honest about things is important.” Anders continues: “It’s like we’re saying to the audience ‘this room is your emotional punching bag’ – it’s a place where people can get things out of their systems”.
All this comes to a boil in their razor-sharp debut EP ‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’, whose lyrics satirise social media obsession (‘Pretty Youth’) and fight back against toxic relationships (‘You Used To Be So Sexy’). “It’s a very quick crash course into Punchbag, no pun intended,” Clara laughs, adding that the four-tracker is just a taste of what’s to come. “We’ve got tons of music, we’re overcooking,” Anders teases. Adds Clara: “We want to keep people on their toes”.
I am finishing with a review of I’m Not Your Punchbag from God Is in the TV Zine. Such a phenomenal E.P. from the sibling duo, for anyone who has not discovered them, do make sure that you check them out. Even if these are the early days for PUNCHBAG, you know that they are going to be huge very soon. Their music so original and instantly engaging. Nobody with their mix of sounds and sensations:
“Siblings Clara and Anders Bach, who make music as PUNCHBAG, describe their music as Aggressive Hopecore. Citing influences such as LCD Soundsystem and Björk provide further clues as to the origins of their creativity, the fruits of which can be heard on their debut EP I’m Not Your Punchbag, released on 2 May via Mute Records. Anders explains further:
“We want to be the most pop thing we can in a left-field context, and be the most left-field in a pop context. We’re constantly playing with the idea of how far we can take each direction”.
Opening track ‘Fuck it’ unequivocally throws down a statement of intent. The electronic opening gives way to Clara’s vocal which is strong and on point. Thematically she sings of a life buffeted by anxiety and the fear of wasting time“as I try to figure who I am”. The intro gives way to an explosion of energy, a burst of dynamic positivity as she exclaims:“We might as well just say go fuck it!”. This sentiment is followed by a shot of perspective, don’t sweat the small stuff: “’Cos we’re all gonna die, die, die!” . Clara expands on the lyrical content: “it’s not nihilistic. It’s more like, we only have so much time, so do the thing you want to do. Kiss the person you want to kiss, say that thing you want to say.” This is patently obvious in the utter bouncing joy of the track, and there’s no doubt there is a catharsis in yelling “We might as well just say go fuck it” at the top of your voice.
Title track ‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’ grew from a remark made to Clara at a dinner table. Indeed it also goes some way to explain the band name and ethos. The quality of Clara’s vocal cannot be over stated, and this message of defiance is emphatic due to her delivery. Words can be hurtful and cut deep. There is a need to hold firm when confronted with such behaviour. The pulsating beat replicates the theme and as Clara shares: “From this small seed, if you like, the song grew into a kind of anthem for fighting back – a refusal to let people dump their shit on you.” It was after writing this song they realised that PUNCHBAG was obvious as the band name.
‘Pretty Youth’ then lifts the pace, a wild combination of manic synths and guitars, and punctuated with Clara’s chants: “Scammer! Con-er! thief thief thief!” . This rapid fire assault on the senses is an anti-coming-of-age anthem. Clara explains: “We’re sold that this is the most romantic time of your life, but really a lot of it is spent in the dark suffering.” . The twitchy exuberance of youth, especially as young adulthood is looming, gives way to this realisation that the idyllic notion of youth is not realistic, but that’s ok. The all-consuming liberation in ‘Pretty Youth’ is its fire and self-belief. “I won’t stop living if nothing is happening.”
Final track ‘You Used To Be So Sexy’ reframes phone addiction through the lens of a toxic relationship. Whip smart lyrics combine with bouncing club beats end the EP on a high. It is sprinkled with beeps, bleeps, distorted vocals and a thumping undercurrent but the outro is a euphoric finish, which is entirely fitting. Overall PUNCHBAG recognise and acknowledge the challenges of reality and in their words: “we’re making music that is about people’s reactions to what’s going on. Their feelings, emotions and thoughts,” It’s an effervescent response, so beware as it will have the listener bouncing, wherever they may be!
PUNCHBAG’s first ever show was at the Brixton Windmill less than a year ago. From the off they had an infectious energy which saw the iconic venue invite the band to Rotterdam’s Left of the Dial festival, before any music releases.“We take it seriously,” says Clara. “We’ve thought about it a lot, and it was important that from the first time we performed it was fully formed. We’re Virgos. We’re perfectionists.”
There will be plenty of opportunity to see the band live over the coming months with a support slot for Zimmer90 taking them to London, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham. There are also festival dates including Brighton’s The Great Escape and Paris’s Supersonic Block Party, and a headline show at the end of May at London’s Bermondsey Social Club”.
PUNCHBAG are definitely here for the long-run. Their debut E.P. is astonishing. Even if I am quite new to their work, I can appreciate why they are so hyped and popular. We are going to be talking about them for a very long time. For anyone fresh to Clara and Anders Bach, go and follow the mighty PUNCHBAG. A duo that…
ARE on fire right now.
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