Clobber may be a new name, but they’re already making a big impact with an extremely aggressive, no-frills reassertion of punk’s original spirit.

With a terrifying live presence, frontman Charlie Longman explodes onto the stage spitting beer over the pit whilst the band crank out short, fast, blunt-force anthems. Mixing old-school ‘77 punk attitude with modern hardcore brutality, their genuinely confrontational ethos makes Clobber feel like a blast of fresh air in today’s punk landscape.

Clobber’s new EP God Loves, Man Kills tears through three songs in just 6 minutes, trimming all the fat with sludge-thick riffs and breakneck drums taking aim at war crimes, mental health struggles, and the bleak institutions that justify mass violence in the name of faith. Clobber are here to leave you bruised, breathless, and gagging for more.

We caught up with the band to ask about the driving influences behind Clobber:

How did you lads come together, and what was the initial goal of Clobber?

Clobber came together as a result of the last lockdown in the UK. I’d kind of put my musical ambitions to bed after my last band ended. However, Clobber’s original guitarist Joey Brazil and I had always flirted with the idea of starting a band. He sent me some riffs over WhatsApp and I had the spark to write as the world around us gave me so much material.

Tribal Rites was written over WhatsApp voice notes from other sides of the city of London and was basically complete before we even recruited any other members of the band. It felt important writing it. I felt like other people could relate to the things I had to say. The goal beyond that was to put it out and play a few shows. When the band caught traction the goal changed from that to: okay we are all in our thirties. We got this far by just doing our thing. So let’s see how far just doing our thing can really take us.

It may not be “punk” or “true to hardcore” to say it. But I want Clobber to be the biggest band in the fucking world. Clobber are massive is our mantra for a fucking reason. It’s because we genuinely believe it.

Can you unpack the title of your latest EP God Loves, Man Kills?

One way I’ve always made sense of the world and events around me is to look to fiction. My escapism is a way for me to compartmentalise things. So recently I’ve turned to my love of comic books. As far as war stories goes the British series Charley’s War was something I dove back into and at the time my writing partner and guitarist Augo was reading Chris Claremonts classic X-Men run (where the phrase god loves, man kills come from). So we’re both drawing from themes of religious and racist extremism, global war, famine, technological advancement for the use of genocidal governments and death like none before it. Couple that with working class struggles and the work of Alexander Baron, especially his novel From The City To The Plough and you have the feel and energy of the title track of the EP. There’s never been a more vital time for political bands to be talking about the world around them. This is just our take on things.

Be Someone is very personal rather than outwardly political, and it’s extremely empowering and defiant. Can you talk about where the idea for the song came from?

Be Someone is a promise to myself. I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and tendencies quite a lot. 2024 my life as I knew it changed without my consent or control and the structures and systems I put in place that I believed brought me happiness crumbled around me. I felt like Sisyphus watching the boulder roll back down the hill. I wanted to throw myself off a M25 overpass.

Then I met my future wife.

Be Someone is for me to remember that no matter how bleak everything gets it’s always worth waking up to another day. To be the best version of yourself for yourself so that you can also be the best for those around you. There is a passage by Jonathon Hickman I think about a lot “I used to believe in universal contraction. Entropy and the end of all things. Well, I changed my mind. I'm letting go. Because now I believe in expansion. I believe we endure. Don't you see? Everything lives.”

What’s your totally unfettered opinion on our political ‘leaders’?

Fucking hell how long’s your magazine?

Leaders implies that they actually fucking lead. I don’t feel lead by these cretins do you? Fuck, so we finally beheaded all 19000 heads of the Tory Hydra party and what do we replace them with? The genetically engineered offspring of the Tory party and Tony fucking Blair. I’m tired of democracy being utterly fucking raped and kept in a dungeon like the deadities from Evil Dead. There is no democracy only a poor lifeless husk of freedom that we trot out to keep gammons from burning down libraries and refugee hotels. Kier fucking Starmer is SO hellbent on being “center.” (I’m also tired of centrist meaning “defend the right while kick down the left.” You have to defend the right because you know that they will respond like deformed garbage pail kids and try literally murdering people if you tell them that feeding and housing everyone including brown people is just common fucking sense) because somehow anything even slightly near the idea of feeding and paying people fairly is seen as fucking communism.

ANYWAY where was I? Oh yeah Sir Keir I-look-like-a-Thwomp-from-Mario Starmer.

So concerned with being centre he forgets one vital thing about the right. The right hate him. Nigel I’m-a-toad-faced-cretin-that-will-be-celebrated-on-the-day-I-fucking-choke-out-my-last-utterance-of-life Farage is a salesman and sells right wing thugs what they want. All he needs to do is sit in a pub, order a Guinness, smoke a fag and say he misses page 3 and hates the Woke Star Wars films and he will win the next election. Keir wouldn’t even make it to the pub. He’d crumble getting his ID out his pocket while the bouncer chats up his misses. So he’s hated by the right and the Left want him dead on the basis that he can’t even stop spending my tax paying pound coins on murdering Palestinian children. CUNT. Shit cunt, grass, snide, flannel face shaped wanker. You’ll be remembered for being the PM that banned porn and censored our access to information and handed England over to Reform so it can be finally crushed under the weight of a generation of Tommy Robinson idolising, peadophiles and rapists who want to defend our statues. It’s an embarrassing and sad end to a country I love more than anything.

I wish I could have faith in a world where it’s given to a government that will defend and do for its people what we can’t do for ourselves. A government who won’t rule and dictate but will love and guide its people to be an example for other countries and put away our foolish notions of an empire that we no longer need or have (there’s a reason every country celebrates its independence from us). But sadly since 2016 I’ve had very little faith in that. But oh well, at least woke possibly vegan bands like the big bad Bob Vylan and Kneecap will stop making John Lyndon and the good citizens who pay tv licences sad. Can’t have that, eh?

Your live shows are known for being extremely chaotic. What’s running through your mind whilst you’re playing?

Most of the time it’s me outrunning the crushing fear of my imposter syndrome being a reality. Most of the time it’s hoping that people will get the jokes and know that this a place they are welcome in. Most of the time I’m thinking, I hope everyone here is enjoying themselves as much as I am. And if they came here with any bullshit notion of Clobber being an “apolitical” band or anything right wing just because I’m a skinhead, that they leave disappointed or with a perception of themselves changed.

Who are some of the bands or artists that are most influential to your style? Are there any key albums, time periods, or scenes that particularly inspire you guys?

I think about this question a lot. I’m confronted by it all the time. The obvious ones for me personally are Rancid, The Clash, Chas & Dave. But I also want to shout out my brothers old band GIANTS. They sound nothing like Clobber at all. But I toured with them as a merch man. I watched my brother run that band and write songs and plan video shoots all my formative years and I definitely wouldn’t be here without growing up with his presence in my life.

I’ve given all the cool answers that people love “I HEARD COCK SPARRER AND KNEW I HAD TO START A BAND!” but deep down, my brother Jack Longman started a band and I felt inspired to do the same. I love him and the fact that he records everything we do and George Chitty from Giants is now in Clobber on bass feels like a perfect full circle moment for me. If you use Spotify I urge you to listen to that band.

What does the word ‘punk’ mean to you?

“We learned more from a three minute record baby than we ever learned in school.” - Bruce Springsteen - No Surrender

I have that tattooed on my arm. I’m not gonna entertain any corny mother fucker who will cry about me loving Bruce. His lyrics and insight into the struggle of the Working Class and its marriage to Rock n Roll is better than your shit crust band so fuck all the way off.

Who are some of the most punk public figures you can think of outside of music?

Jack King Kirby, for a Jewish man to co create a symbol of his country and religious aspirations and have its debut appearance be socking Adolf Hitler in the fucking face long before the states decided to enter the war. A lot of American Nazi sympathisers threatened to come by the offices of Timely Comics and hang him. Jack responded to everyone by waiting outside his office for them only to never have a single one ever turn up. When America finally entered the war he racked up an actual Nazi body count. Punk. As. Fuck.

Are there any well-known bands or artists who you would consider the absolute antithesis of what you stand for?

That bald fuck from the Disturbed, Morrisey, Thomas Yorke and I’d say Kid Rock but Don’t Tell Me How To Live is so unironically stupid and catchy that I just can’t take him or his anti woke views seriously.

What is the ultimate goal of Clobber?

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