It Goes On, the scrappily invigorating full-length debut by the U.K. band Westside Cowboy, opens with one of the year’s most exciting rock songs. A rousing mess of relentlessly chugging guitars and shout-along vocals, “Kick Stones (The Boys)” captures the spirited energy of a pub band that imagines it’s playing Wembley Stadium. As the track builds from jittery, tense strums to a crescendo of noise and beer-soaked euphoria, the prospect of this band commanding a stadium stage feels, quite suddenly, plausible.
A Return to Simplicity
According to singer/guitarist Jimmy Bradbury and drummer Paddy Murphy, that “pub band” ethos was central to their creative process. During a recent conversation, the duo emphasized a desire to craft a sound that is refreshingly straightforward—or, as they jokingly put it, “dumb.” This approach marks a deliberate departure from the complex, theatrical, and proggier forms of rock championed by modern English indie stalwarts like Black Midi and Black Country, New Road.
“We knew we didn’t want it to sound like Only By the Night era Kings of Leon or Foo Fighters,” Murphy explains. “We knew the song wasn’t that, and we were scared that if we weren’t careful, it could fall into that trap.” Instead, they looked to the raw, clanging energy of the Velvet Underground, specifically a live recording from a San Francisco club in the late sixties, to guide their sonic direction.
“That’s what rock and roll feels like to us,” Murphy says. “It’s about having these raggedy things pushed as far as they can go and feeling like the light fixtures in the windows are rattling because of it.”
Defining ‘Britainicana’
Bradbury and Murphy’s musical identity is built on a fascination with both American indie roots and the history of their own country, including the mid-century skiffle movement led by Lonnie Donegan. They have coined the term “Britainicana” to describe this intersection—a genre tag that is as much a joke as it is an accurate reflection of their M.O. While they have gained traction in the U.S. through touring with bands like Geese, they remain deeply rooted in their own cultural landscape.
“We’re hardly the first English band to be influenced by American music,” Murphy admits. “We love and sort of feel indoctrinated to a lot of the media that has come out of the place. But when you become an adult, you hopefully realize what is great about where you’re from.”
A Reaction Against Pretentiousness
The band’s stripped-back aesthetic is a conscious reaction to the prevailing trends in the British scene. By limiting their setup to two guitars, bass, and drums, Westside Cowboy aims to reclaim the joy and freedom of rock music. Bradbury notes that while they respect the technical prowess of their contemporaries, they find the current wave of “pretentious” imitators to be exclusionary.
“We saw a real joy and freedom in trying to dumb everything back down again,” Murphy says. “We didn’t think, ‘This is what needs to happen in music right now. We’ve got to take it back to the roots.’ We just wanted to have fun with our fans.”
