Short attention span punk with no time to waste.

Regal Cheer are a two-piece band from Brighton, comprised of Max Cleworth (guitar/vocals) and Harry Menear (drums/vocals), stripping their sound down to the raw essentials with a DIY ethos and ditching punk’s tired trappings to focus in on pure energy and honesty.

They launched Ugly Twin Records to put out their own music and that of their friends. With two band members instead of four, and 90-second songs instead of epic anthems, Regal Cheer are all about doing more with less. Their vibe is in line with the earnest intensity of classic post-hardcore with sweat and conviction in every shout and tight interplay between the two members. In February 2023 they unleashed Cans, a 10-track album of tightly wound punk, immediately garnering rave reviews, and in May 2025, their boldly titled second album Quite Good dropped, and became one of our standout punk releases of the year, with absolutely no fat to trim. Recorded, mixed, and mastered in a whirlwind three-day session with producer Tom Hill at Bookhouse Studios, Harry and Max sing and shout with anger, disillusionment, dark humour, and resilience, demonstrating that screaming out your worries with your mate can be a truly joyous release.

We caught up with Harry to find out more:

What’s the story behind scribbling two-and-a-half stars on your own album cover? Reverse psychology?

We had the idea for calling it Quite Good since we started writing for it. We are not serious men and thought it was funny and self-deprecating. The artwork came about from an idea when we were somewhat inebriated, I quickly drew the idea on his iPad and we never changed it, so the artwork is exactly as it was on that fateful night. We might try harder for the next one, but no promises.

How did you two meet, and what was the spark that ignited Regal Cheer?

We've known each other for a long time, meeting through mutual friends during university times. Max was in another band at the time that I would go and see quite often, then years later when that band had disbanded we got together to hang out and talk about how good Dogs on Acid are and decided to start this nonsense. It's a match in hell if I say so myself.

How do you decide who sings what?

Max has the uncanny ability to actually write lyrics when we're writing the music, I however am incapable of doing that so I need to go away and listen to the tracks a lot to write to them. In regards to who sings what, it usually comes down to who's playing the easier thing at the time. We don't tend to write parts for each other very often but sometimes it ends up as "I've got an idea for this bit but there's no way I can play and sing that at the same time" so the duties change hands/gobs.

What draws you to writing such short, punchy songs, and have you ever been tempted to break the 3-minute mark?

The mantra has pretty much always been "Who’s time are we wasting" so we like to keep things short and snappy for those who also have a short attention span. The songs will often be longer when we're writing but when reflecting on what we've made we often trim as much fat as possible and get to the point asap. We also listen to a bunch of bands that do a similar thing, Joyce Manor/Touche Amore for example.

Who are your biggest influences when it comes to loud and direct music?

As previously mentioned, Joyce Manor was a big influence on how we wanted to write and sound. No faff, no fuss, just straight to the good stuff. This band began out of a love of Dogs on Acid so that's another big one for us. We also tend to gravitate towards bands that have that 'Point and Shout' type of energy in their songs so bands like The Bronx and Cancer Bats are another big one for me. Max loves The Cribs so that's where a lot of the more indie type references are stemmed from. We just love bangers so we wanna try and add to the pile if we can.

Regal Cheer’s music balances heavy themes like fraying friendships, betrayals and the grind of daily life, but your sound has a chaotic joy to it. Is this tension of opposites a conscious choice?

Absolutely not.

We don't even consciously try to write songs that sound like the bands that we like, whatever we write just tends to end up as an amalgamation of all of it, and the subject matters are whatever's on our mind at the time. The song could be depressing in subject but sound happy in the music and vice Versa. All The Best for example is probably the happiest song I've ever written in terms of subject matter but sounds probably the grumpiest of the lot. Not intentional, just what we thought sounds cool.

In what ways do you feel you guys have evolved your songwriting from Cans to Quite Good?

The aim for us for Quite Good was simply to write more difficult parts for us to play in an effort to force ourselves to get better. Maybe that's made things more concise but also has allowed us to stretch our legs a bit and make things a bit more interesting overall.

Can you talk about being a DIY band in Brighton?

It feels really easy to be a part of such a welcoming scene, there are so many good bands here that are so accommodating and some great promoters that keep things ticking over. For a place that sometimes feels oversaturated the gems often shine through. We've made some great friends from playing in Brighton over the years and it's lovely to be part of a scene that's always moving and changing.

Who are some of your favourite bands, venues, shops and allies locally?

We would be remiss to not shout out some of our good mates, Really Big Really Clever, H_ngm_n and Gaffa Tape Sandy. The Hope and the Prince Albert are some of our faves to play here, Daltons is also fun too. We used to go to the Caxton Arms for fun but they got rid of their bar billiards tables so we don't go there anymore. We’ve got the Laines which is a vibe for shops, Shoutout Resident Records.

What’s on the horizon for the band?

This year has been tricky for touring etc for us, just because of life stuff, so hopefully a lot more shows in the future to help promote the record, seeing as we self-released we really wanna recoup some of those losses. We also can't seem to stay away from writing new shit so album 3 is currently in the works. Expect more short songs and probably terrible artwork.

What is the ultimate goal of Regal Cheer?

We just wanna have a good time. The best thing about doing this band is getting to travel about and meet all sorts of people, make friends and have a good laugh. However we wouldn't kick headlining Wembley and a Christmas Number One out of bed, so go and listen to Quite Good and buy yourself a copy so we can get there faster.