We caught up with the South London group to chat about their new single and delve a little bit deeper into Pushpin’s world.

Known for their refreshing lack of airs or graces in a live setting, as well as an abundance of fun on-stage props (read: handmade cardboard animals of various shapes and sizes), Pushpin have emerged as stalwarts of the London grassroots scene since their formation back in 2020. Self described as ‘London’s finest purveyors of infectious wonky pop noise,’ their sound is anchored by a driving and dynamic approach to rhythm, balancing robust, colourful vocal harmonies in and around the crevices of each bounding cadence. Much like the lulling sway of a hypnotist’s seesawing pocket watch, their new single and second release in two years ‘Walk In, Walk Out’ entices us to amble within the enchanted walls of its diverging percussive rhythms and throaty bass twangs.

Catching up with Pushpin ahead of their Glastonbury festival debut and headline show at MOTH Club this autumn, the band fill us in with some more details about the new single, as well as divulging their dream ping-pong opponents.

Tell us more about your new single ‘Walk In Walk Out’.

Ed: The core of this song came from a few jams between Arthur and I when we lived together during Covid. I quite like to mess around with different styles of bass playing for our songs and at the time was listening to an album called ‘Work’ by the Taiwanese band Elephant Gym. Their bassist does some really cool stuff with tapping so I was doing a lot of that, and ended up with what is the riff for ‘Walk In, Walk Out’. At first the riff was really fast and a lot more mathy feeling, so it was quite a process to turn it into that more groovy vibe we have now.

Arthur: The bass line and beat felt like a long journey to me, so for me it was about finding lyrics and a structure that brought that out. It ended up being about someone confronting themselves and hopefully getting better for it.

The artwork for the single depicts a solitary man lifting a weight – is there any significance behind this?

Adam: We’ve adopted a sort of faux medieval art style for the artwork, but you don’t really imagine medieval weightlifters, so I thought it might be fun to bring out given the line in the song, “Every night he lifts his weights.” The guy is pushing against the wind, I guess trying to “walk out” from the gaze of the ghostly people watching from the windows behind him.

Arthur: It made sense to bring the weightlifting man out as the core of the song, because it symbolises the little daily steps we have to take to work on ourselves.

Do you feel like the music that you’re making now has shifted away from what you were making when you first got together in the pandemic?

Laurence: Definitely. The first [EP] was a product of its time. We’d never played live together as a band and we had to keep things simple because it was COVID, and we produced it all ourselves.

These recordings are us going crazy with all the delights that playing together in person gave us, which is why we’ve got strings, brass, choirs, synths, percussion and hurdy gurdy. We worked with the wonderful Joe Futak over a summer to record lots of things in lots of places, then slimmed it down in the production stage.

We were so excited to just try everything, and Joe really helped us channel it into something that wasn’t a complete chaotic mess.

Who makes all the cardboard cutouts for your shows, and why?

Adam: That’s me! It started because in the song ‘Dog,’ Ed, Arthur and Laurence do this amazing a-cappella performance, but I don’t really sing in Pushpin, so I would sort of squat awkwardly behind the synths, or stand at the side of the stage and nod approvingly. I wanted to do something better than this, so we asked the legendary Vanity Fairy what she thought, and she had this amazing idea that we incorporate puppetry. I made a little cardboard dog which I wave behind the guys while they’re doing their thing. This has solved the problem of me not having anything to do, however it has created another problem of me tripping over wires and knocking things over, which I’m working on…

Sounds like you’ve got an exciting month ahead of you with 4 sets scheduled at Glastonbury. Do you have anything special planned?

Laurence: BTS still haven’t replied to our request for a guest appearance. So if that falls through then we’ll do some new songs and play our song ‘So Long’ live for the first time. We normally play sweaty rooms, so to go from that to a big open field is fun, definitely a different vibe we’ll try and lean into. Plus fireworks.

If you could play a game of ping pong with any famous musician, dead or alive, who would it be? (I will need an answer from every member of the band here)

Arthur: I think Joanna Newsom. In the hope I can ask her about any new music. She’s probably also unreasonably good at ping pong given how talented she is with everything else.

Ed: I’m really bad at ping pong but I reckon Thundercat (my hero) would be good vibes for a game.

Adam: I’m really bad too, so I’d need to find someone even worse that I could beat. I adore Nick Drake but I get the vibe that he’d be really bad at ping pong so I’ll go with him.

Laurence: I reckon Alice Cooper would be pretty deadly on the table

If you had to compare this single to an animal, which one would you choose?

Laurence: We did that with our first EP and each single had an animal. Maybe this would be an elephant because they like walking and they’re quite groovy

Ed: Agreed. It’s got a bit of a plod to it.

Adam: Why are elephants groovy?

Finally, what can we expect from Pushpin for the rest of 2024?

Laurence: Your exclusive is that another single is coming in a couple of months. But there are a couple of bigger bits we’re keeping quiet for now. Put the 16th November in your diaries though x