Formed in late 2022, Be N!ce have spent the past few years building a cult following at some of the UK’s biggest and best punk festivals, pairing biting social commentary with an absurd sense of humour.

Pol Mills (vocals), Emily Harris (bass), Alex McIntosh (drums) and Brett Lee (guitar) released their debut EP WHERE AM I? in January 2025, exploring themes of social injustice and personal struggles with a wildly funny streak. ThePunkSite gave the EP five stars, and the band went overseas to perform in Germany and Belgium, honing into a tight and explosive live unit. They played Loud Women Festival and Attitude Festival in 2025, and opened the main stage at Manchester Punk Festival in April 2026 before going on to perform at Rebellion Festival, Bearded Theory and Utrecht’s Beware The Banshees.

With their new EP IT’S GETTING HARDER out this week and a headline tour on the horizon, we caught up with the band to find out more:

You started the band in 2022, soon after lockdown. Coincidence or consequence?

Brett: A bit of both I suppose. I think most of us had been in bands before lockdown but it definitely gave me a chance to play more guitar and also made me not want to waste any time. I remember meeting a few people for the first time that I’d found online to jam with in a pub in Hammersmith just as the second lockdown ended and it being barren and odd. 

Emily: I think this was mostly coincidence. After seeing what the Leicester scene had to offer I kinda wanted to try my luck in a new town so started looking for bands to join like 2 months after moving to London. I think I would have been doing the same even if we were still in lockdown even if it was just to make friends with people in a new city.

Pol: Coincidence, I’ve always wanted to be in a band since I was young and I was already doing a college course in music when the first lockdown began.

You’ve described yourselves as ‘chaos punk’. Where does the chaos come from? Is it just wide musical influences or are you all chaotic people in real life?

Brett: To be honest, we’ve struggled knowing how to describe ourselves. The idea behind calling ourselves ‘chaos punk’ was to get across that though punk at heart, our songs all sound a bit different because of the range of influences we all have.

Alex: We've changed it to freak punk recently. The chaos is still on display at the shows but people were pointing out artists like GG Allin as examples of chaos punk. Some weirdos online called us freaks so we adopted it.

Emily: I think we are just a bit chaotic in our own lives. I like to go on lil Emily side adventures and just do fun things. Sometimes the things are 'chaotic' and sometimes they are just fun. What is important is having fun and being happy. And if being chaotic is that then lock me up officer!

Pol: Both musical influences and personality for me I think. I listen to a broad range of music and a lot of different things inspire me which I think goes for most of the group, but also I’m a lil odd.

Sherwood proudly champions inclusivity in the grass-roots music scene. You have a strong LGBTQ+ following. How intentional and important is that?

Emily: I mean we are all gay (except for Brett, for now) and a lot of our friends who love and support us are also queer and I think that is where a lot of our queer base comes from. We did have a conversation fairly early on where we said we don't want to be a gay band, we want to be a band that happens to be gay. I think a lot of cis-het people see queer people as kind of a novelty but that novelty doesn't really exist within the community cos it is our normal every day. 

Alex: We aren't afraid to show our queerness and to give people a space to be themselves at the shows. We show our queerness and people relate. But we aren't a queer band, we are a band that is queer. Trans rights forever.

Pol: It’s somewhat intentional, like when we wrote WITCH HUNT we knew it would likely go down better among queer audiences and we try to make our shows a safe space for people to be themselves. Also I’m still gunning for a majority non-binary audience, but that’s just me haha

You’re called ‘Be N!ce’, but you do take aim at quite a few targets in many of your songs. Is it fair to say some people are just impossible to be nice to? 

Brett: There was always meant to be some irony and passive aggressiveness around the name. It’s kinda cutesy but we write some pretty intense songs about horrible people. When we were thinking about a name, we were talking a lot about how draining the divisiveness in society was (and unfortunately still is) and it came about in a sort of ‘Why can’t people just be nice?’ kind of way.

Emily: Emily: BE N!CE is a threat. Not nice people / evil people should have no place in society and can fuck off. Free Palestine, trans rights, fuck capitalism.

Alex: It's a threat and those people who aren't gonna be nice can get to fuck. It's more so exasperation with people not being nice.

Pol: Yeah, if someone’s actions or beliefs are inherently unkind or immoral that’s where my “niceness” checks out, I think. You can’t expect niceness if you aren’t nice.

This year you opened up the main stage at Manchester Punk Fest. How special was that moment?

Alex: It was beautiful. I came. It was really reaffirming to be given the opportunity and to have a great time seeing all the wicked bands. Shoutout to Tree for putting us on. Big up Jesus for being there. He was in all of us that day. My dad also saw it and he came too.

Emily: I will be so real, I had a technical error in every song and the Nun's hood I was wearing kept falling over my face so I was in the trenches a bit. I had a lovely time tho and the crowd was amazing. It was also the first festival that my girlfriend and I went to, so it was very special for us :)

Pol: It was a really big moment for us. It was the biggest room we’d ever played to and it felt kinda silly because I was dressed up as Jesus. We’d wanted to be on MPF’s line-up for years so it was great to finally get there.

Let’s talk mental health. ‘Cambridge’ is a pretty dark track. It feels like a howl of frustration. Is making music the thing that is keeping you sane in a problematic world? 

Brett: Music is responsible for keeping me sane for a very long time lol. Also antidepressants. But it’s definitely cathartic to play and write the songs we make given the state of things.

Alex: No it's probably the drugs. But it can be helpful to know other people are going through what you're going through and know you aren’t alone.

Emily: I wrote Cambridge between meetings and train rides to and from the town when I was working there. It was lame and soul crushing and venting my thoughts in this way was cathartic and kind of empowering. I don't really see it that way anymore, I am now more of the mind that if you don't like something to the point where you want to kill yourself you should make changes. It doesn't have to be an overnight thing but just make a plan for how to get out of it and if you can't plan then do research on other things you can do to help yourself. Also go outside, make friends and be in a community. A lot of people have felt this way and there are better things in the world to look forward to.

Pol: Bold of you to assume that I’m sane.

There is a very strong streak of humour in a lot of your songs - ‘Bedtime’ and ‘Buddy’ spring to mid. Is having a bit of a giggle part of your DNA?

Alex: Yeah bro the doctors can't help it, I’m too goofy. But fr haha I like being silly and finding the humour in dark times. Laughter is a good way to cope with absurdity of the world.

Emily: We are silly people. We like to have fun and have a laugh cos the world is so bleak that we just want to try to be happy in the face of it. Bedtime was us kind of venting about being tired in the middle of winter and not wanting to do stuff, and Buddy is a mixture of several of my friends :)

Pol: I’ve not had the tests done but I believe so. I just like having a silly time.

With your unique combination of satire, fury and dark humour do you feel you and music can be a force for good and genuine social change?

Brett: Music definitely can. Whether ours can is a different question lol. There are plenty of people out there who would probably argue our music has made the world a worse place.

Alex: Yeah man for sure. I just wanna let people know it's ok to feel angry and have a giggle and know that there's other people out there who are going through something similar and so can relate.

Pol: I mean hopefully. If we bring one person some sort of joy, that’s a win. As is pissing off the right person.

You’ve played with many Sherwood favourites including Split Dogs. Are there any other grass roots bands you want to shout out for any reason whatsoever?

There are many: Shooting Daggers, Mae-v, Misgendered, Leibniz, Thwack, Pityspeed, Sunday Best, Cowboy Hunters, That Band Called Susan, Cheap Dirty Horse, Nervous Pills, Peer Pleasure, BLDSGR!, Pussyliquor, Skint Knees, Tarmak Abra and almost certainly many more that we’re forgetting.

As well as MPF in April, this summer you will have also played Rebellion, Bearded Theory and Burn It Down. This feels like only the beginning. Where do you hope to find yourselves in 5 years time?

Alex: Glasto babay. Gimme boomtown, Coachella, Chelsea's flower show, Butlins. Hahah but fr Sherwood magazine, it would be nice to do bigger shows, bigger projects, meet more people, play some weird places. As long as the vibes are right and the people are cool, I'll play where they'll have me.

Emily: I hope to be living life with my beautiful girlfriend, having adventures. I think having an album out would be really cool as well.

Brett: Honestly it’s crazy that we’re where we are right now. The last 4 years have been a lot of fun but also a lot of grind and to see that paying off is mad. If we could do this and get paid whilst still sticking to our guns, making music we like, playing cool shows with cool bands, that would be the dream.

Pol: On The Muppet Show, ideally. But also still doing what we’re doing, having a lovely old time playing to people who like us.