Meet Liverpool band Crawlers who are set for a UK tour and a summer in the States

They’ve spent the last few years gigging at clubs across Liverpool, but now Mersey band Crawlers is about to embark on a sell-out UK tour with the summer set for the States.

And it’s all just about sinking in!

“It’s been crazy,” says bass player Liv Kettle. “It’s just really taken off over the last few months.

“When you have been working towards something for so long and then you’re within arms’ reach of it, it’s a little overwhelming, and a bit daunting.”

“We’re still coming to terms with it really,” adds drummer Harry Breen. “We still feel we’ve yet to prove ourselves as musicians.”

The eclectic rock band was only formed in late 2018.

Guitarist Amy Woodall messaged Liv to suggest starting a new band together – both originally from Warrington, they played when they were at St Gregory’s High School together – and it was around the same time Liv’s LIPA sixth-form friend Holly Minto suggested the same idea.

“I literally had the same message from both of them within 10 minutes of each other,” smiles Liv.

“And it was like, okay, it would be silly to say no.”

Later joined by Harry they began performing across the city: “We were anywhere and everywhere in Liverpool, if we got an opportunity to gig we’d take it, and we also did a lot of gigs in Warrington, but it was mostly Liverpool just because that’s where we go to uni,” adds Liv, 21.

“We have seen a lot of the Jacaranda basement and the original Zanzibar, places like that.”

It wasn’t long before they were building an impressive following – they’ve got more than 650,000 followers on TikTok – and early singles like So Tired, Placebo and Hush got them noticed even more.

The band received praise from Radio 1 DJ Jack Saunders, and their latest single, Come Over (Again) went into the UK singles charts and got more than 15.5 million streams on Spotify.

It saw them getting signed for the Polydor label, and they’re now set for their debut tour, starting with two dates at the Arts Club in Seel Street (March 24-25), where they’ve played before as part of Sound City.

“We are ready for that kind of capacity,” says Harry, 23. “It’s just doing it back-to-back that will be new.

“And of course, this time round every single person in the room will be there for us, which is pretty nuts.”

Their sound can be broadly placed under the umbrella of rock, but each has their own tastes that they bring to the mix: “Every single we have out at the moment, and we are going to bring out, all have different sounds, we all have different influences from metal, to punk and the 70s,” Harry goes on.

“It gives us permission to write however, and whatever, we want really. Creatively, and musically, we just want to be our own thing.”

And whatever style they choose, it’s certain that the band will have something to say: Statues was written amid the global Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and captures the urgency and anger of the time; and Monroe was inspired by the mistreatment of Britney spears.

“We have always been politically driven because of who we are as people,” says Liv. “That’s unavoidable when we are song-writing and it’s not particularly something we want to avoid. Like Harry says, we have that space to write what comes naturally, rather than tying ourselves up in boxes.”

With many fans across the water in America, it seems a sensible progression that they should go over there: “We’ll be starting from scratch and playing the smaller venues again, but that’s really exciting,” admits Harry. “And to make it there has got to be a goal.”

But for now, they’ve got their sights on a new EP and the tour which starts in the city and the Arts Club: “It’s huge, it’s mind-blowing, you have to take a step back every now and again, and think this is happening,” says Liv.

While Harry adds: “But it’s also a really fun way to start the tour. To think we have sold out in a venue we used to go to!”

“As cliched as it is, it is a dream come true,” Liv says. “I was always really fortunate that my parents have been really supportive, we have got quite a musical family, so as I was growing up and taking bass lessons, they just told me to go for it.

“It feels like we are on the way.

“So fingers crossed,” they smile. “I can’t do anything else.”