Focus: Bruiser

Who are you and where are you from?
Hello, we’re Simon and Anna and together we’re called Bruiser. For the sake of simplicity, we say we’re from County Durham which is partially true since I (Simon) have lived here for nearly 25 years, but it’s also because the longer version involves time spent living Argyll, Glasgow, Cumbria, Newcastle and Hexham. So aye, County Durham. And before the rumours start, no, we’re not married, at least not to each other.

What is it you do?
We have day jobs, sensible office-based nine-to-fives which we both really like. But Bruiser has become our creative outlet where we can let go and play a kind of sleazy garage disco-rock that if you didn’t know better, you’d cross the street to avoid. It’s noisy, aggressive, and so full of swagger that you feel deliciously dirty after one of our shows.

How long have you been doing it?
Anna and I met on holiday in a wet campsite in Portree about 10 years ago when our respective kids found some puddles to splash about in together. It turned out she lived not far from me and she mentioned that she played drums, a nugget of information that I filed away thinking it might be useful one day.

I’ve been recording and releasing music intermittently using the name for a few years, but this particular version of Bruiser started life in my spare room during lockdown. I suspected early on that it was going to be a long term thing, so I hit eBay pretty hard and bought a bunch of gear that allowed me to make as much noise as possible with just me playing. And so, the three amp bass pedalboard was born. I wrote a bunch of new songs, playing them as a virtual gig through my headphones a hundred times, and I was convinced that there was something worthwhile in it.

After that, I was nudged by a few friends in the local scene in Newcastle to do some live stuff so when one of my pals booked me for a gig I thought I better figure out how to do this thing live. That’s when I called Anna.

Our first show was at the Two by Two Brewery in Ouseburn in June 2025 and we’ve done a dozen or so shows all around the North East since then, as well as taking our first trip out of the region to play in London in June this year. I think in such a short period of time we’ve done way more than I was expecting.

What inspires you?
This is a big question. The Apollo missions, Gandhi, Vivienne Westwood… People who did things that seemed improbable, unreasonable or occasionally ridiculous at the time until somebody actually went and did them out of sheer bloody mindedness.

Musically, there’s obviously a lot in there too. I love the grit and rawness of garage rock, so The Stooges, MC5 and, more recently, The White Stripes, are clearly inspiring. But I also love dance music too, so playing noisy bass riffs over Anna’s disco beats seemed a natural thing to do. The sound is a portmanteau of punk, disco, garage rock and anything with a groove and a bit of menace to it.

But it’s fair to say we’re probably more inspired by attitude than genre. I learned over the last year that curiosity and tenacity are as important as talent and recognised that you don’t need permission, qualifications or even an especially sensible plan to make something happen. I could reel off a list of people that have been awesome to us in the last year or so, and each of them have had this in spades.

But then sometimes it’s as simple as reminding yourself that growing old disgracefully is an art form in itself. And that’s when a really good bass riff brings it all home.

Tell us about your music.
Our sound is expansive, way more than you’d expect with just two instruments. The attitude is distinctly punk and the power is ferocious. People have said to us after the shows that they had no idea that a bass could make that kind of racket, and that’s exactly what I want to hear. The element of surprise is so important. I often say to Anna that if feels too easy to play the song, then we’re not going hard enough. So we push and push as much as we feasibly can without losing the essence of the songs. Oh and then we throw in the odd banjo interlude for giggles and, weirdly, they’ve become a favourite in our live shows.

So Bruiser is bass, drums and vocals, and not much else. My Coronado goes through enough stuff to make it sound considerably less respectable than Leo Fender intended, Anna hits things very hard, and between us we try to make as much noise as two people reasonably can.

Being a duo puts some useful constraints on what you can do. There’s nowhere to hide and nothing to fill the gaps unless one of us does it, so the songs have to work on rhythm, riffs and attitude. We like them dirty, loud and memorable. If people are dancing by the end, even better.

What have you got coming up in the future?
We spent the last year figuring out what Bruiser actually is, then getting better at being Bruiser, and now we want to send it out into the world a bit more. We recorded an album last year and have been sitting on it while we’ve been doing shows but it’s about ready to go now. The rules of the recording session were simple. We would only record in a single day, record no more than three takes of any song, and whatever we did was what would be on the record, with some minor vocal overdubs allowed later. So it’s an early snapshot of how Bruiser was as a band in its early days, unpolished and raw. And I think that’s important.

We’re expecting to release the first single from that at the end of August with the album following at the end of October. Then it’ll be more gigs, more songs and more places we haven’t played before. The North East has been brilliant to us, but part of the fun now is seeing whether this slightly grubby little two-person noise machine works in other places too. Basically, we’d just want to keep getting better while becoming progressively older and less respectable in equal measure. Oh, and of course we have a bunch of new songs written as the start of album two. It’s always better to be over-prepared.

In November we’re back in London, this time at the Amersham Arms, and we’ve got a couple more dates in the North East being lined up between now and Christmas. We’ve even got things going in the diary for 2027 now too, with a festival booking and a couple of dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh planned. Basically keep an eye on the socials and you’ll see things being announced there.

Where can people find out more about you?
We’re on the usual social media and streaming platforms – search for Bruisermusicuk and if you find two people making an unreasonable amount of noise with a bass and a drum kit, you’re probably in the right place. Come and see us live, though. That’s really where Bruiser makes the most sense.

https://www.instagram.com/bruisermusicuk/
https://linktr.ee/bruisermusicuk
https://www.youtube.com/@Bruisermusicuk