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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with unsigned Newcastle band Abnorm to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the band name?
Hello, we’re Abnorm, an alt-rock quintet based in Newcastle. We consist of Abbie Rose (frontwoman) from Hartlepool, Alex McArthur (drummer) from Sheffield, Jamie Budge (lead guitar) from Gateshead, Matthew Middleton (rhythm guitar) from Sunderland and Krzysztof Furgała (bass) from Lubaczów, Poland.

We all met at gigs. Lots of gigs. All of the gigs. That’s how we all became friends – because we all go to as many gigs as we possibly can, especially local ones.

We came up with the name band name Abnorm because Abbie was working in a pub in Newcastle where there were two barmaids, both named Abbie. When her boss referred to the other girl as “normal Abbie”, Abbie just assumed this made her “abnormal Abbie” and we merged the two words to create Abnorm. We did run through another couple of band names like ‘Abbie and the Norms’ or ‘Abbnormal’ but we thought Abnorm was a great fit for us.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
We all individually have completely different music tastes. Abbie is a big indie-rock fan, Alex loves Radiohead, Jamie has a very niche music taste, Matthew is a massive Swifty (Taylor Swift fan) and Krzysztof is our resident Metalhead. Growing up, we all definitely went through emo phases, which definitely unites us as a rock band. Using the term “phase” very lightly because we don’t think we’ll ever grow out of it.

How would you describe your sound?
Abnorm is an alt-rock band. We do use some psychedelic guitar tones, some grunge elements, and Abbie’s vocals toy with some very modal ideas, but we love rock music, it’s what we play.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
Our latest release was our second single ‘Everything Temporary’ (E.T.). It is essentially about the fall-out of the world, how eventually everything comes to an end. It’s quite a dark song compared to our debut single ‘Citrus’. It echoes apocalyptic ideas – the anticipation of a revolution or an alien invasion. (We watch too many scary movies!)

What’s your local music scene like?
We LOVE our local music scene. Newcastle has some of the BEST independent music venues – check out Little Buildings, The Cluny, The Cumberland Arms and Trillians.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We have just recorded two brand new singles at Blast Recording Studios, Newcastle. We’ll hopefully have them mixed and ready to release in the next few months.

We also have at least 3 new gigs booked in the North East (yet to be announced) – we’re definitely excited for these.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
We’d love to collaborate with My Chemical Romance. (Again probably because we’re all still stuck in our teen emo phases).

If not – Take That, Phil Collins or Stereophonics because our mums would love the free gig tickets.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
We’ve not had the chance to play live together as a band yet (because we formed just before lockdown). Individually, we’ve had our fair share of live performance mishaps. Abbie forgot the words to ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’ on stage when she was a child. Matthew has nearly knocked himself out trying to stage dive in a punk band and Krzysztof’s band have been announced as the completely wrong band name at a gig.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
There aren’t many female-fronted rock bands, especially not local ones. Abbie’s just trying to prove girls can do it as well as the boys because she would have loved to see lots of girl-fronted rock bands growing up and unfortunately there wasn’t that many. We’re just a rock band, doing our thing and we would love for you to come and see us and say hi.

You can find out more about Abnorm or via Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.