Interview: Successpit

Teesside’s premier anti-establishment outfit Successpit host an Illuminati Party at Stockton’s The Georgian Theatre on Saturday 31st October to mark the launch of their new single, I’m Not a Robot. Railing against bland indie tropes, the sharp post-punk four-piece deliver a satirical nod to tech-dystopia, capturing the rage-inducing monotony of endless CAPTCHA tests and forgotten passwords.

Sonically, there’s loads to enjoy, including sharp angular guitar, snappy rhythms, sci-fi synths, War Of The Worlds sounding bass, some interesting changes, nice lo-key harmonies, mint thrashy instrumental bits and lead singer Carl Jackson’s humanoid vocal convincing us he is not synthetic.

And their show is set to be a chaotic Halloween celebration complete with satirical games (including a Steven Bartlett piñata), alongside their signature raucous, rebel-rousing live set. Tickets can be purchased here.

We caught up with Carl to find out more…

What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a band over the last year, and how has it shaped you?
I think the music industry is changing again, and even within it, people are getting a bit lost. Waves of AI music, nepo babies, social media bots, fake fans. It’s just made us get our heads down and concentrate on what we enjoy: Writing music, then getting decent venues to play at and pulling crowds in. The best advice I was given is “You just don’t know; something might work, it might not, just try it.” Which is what we are doing.  

Successpit’s songs often take aim at very specific aspects of modern life, from ticket culture to technology and politics. What is it about these everyday frustrations that makes them such fertile ground for your songwriting?
People in my age group have lived a life. We have gone from Breakout on Atari to GTA 6 on PS5. Landlines to 5G. So I can see the bad and good these technological changes have made. I think for the first time, they have stopped aiding us, and technology is becoming a hindrance and an absurdity.

Weirdly, I think the younger generation sees it more than the older. Devices give them access to a massive archive of popular culture, and they have grown up with that access in the palm of their hand. They can see what things were, and what they have become. The more odd these things get, the more I have to write about.

I’m Not A Robot tackles the increasingly absurd process of proving you’re human online. Was there a particular experience that sparked the song, or was it more a culmination of digital fatigue?
It’s just a baffling concept. That we have to prove our humanity in a scheme where Google is using us for free labour to train its AI. The point is coming where the systems built to help us are holding us back. Being locked out of my finances because someone I have never met in Colombia cloned my card number. Just give me a bank with a clerk at the end of the road, please.

AI and eventually quantum computing are going to obliterate all this digital world we have built, and I do think the internet will become more or less unusable. It’s already doing that by creating death loops, killing off the systems of websites and journalists that give AI its information anyway. I can’t think of any product in history that has consumed its supplier, literally biting the hand that feeds it.  

How would you describe the track sonically?
Sonically, I was trying to capture an almost dreamlike state. Warpaint’s ‘Undertow’ was a huge inspiration. Yet I was also trying to mess with repetition. That Dua Lipa/Elton John ‘Cold Cold Heart’ song, which had stripped Elton’s ‘Sacrifice’ down to its bones, was in my head, and I wanted to make something repetitive to mirror the sentiment.

You’ve described yourselves as a reaction against the ‘#indiepoo’ phenomenon. What does that phrase mean to you, and where do you think Successpit sits within the current guitar music in the North-East?
When indiepool went viral, I was literally just trying to say to people, “Yeah, I know what it is; if you want something different, here we are”. It’s tough. It’s tiring seeing another massively hyped band only to find they are churning out poor Arctics/Libertines style riffs.  Yet, I also think indiepoo is really important. It’s essentially just people being in their first bands, which is vital. The fact that there is so much of it tells me more people are forming bands, which is always good.

The internet just throws them out into the world and cements it, which wouldn’t have happened in the past. It’s set in digital stone. Some of my old bands were horrendous, one of which was with someone who was massively successful afterwards, so it’s best that stays hidden for their sake. There are indie poo bands on Teesside who I think are mint, purely because they have so much potential. Might not be with that band, or the next, but you can see where it’s going once they find themselves. So yea, indiepoo is not all bad.

The Illuminati Party feels like a natural extension of your sense of humour and social commentary. How important is it for Successpit to build a world around the music, rather than simply release songs and play gigs?
It’s quite a new thing for me. I totally ignored social media for a long time. Then I realised that if I had to do it, I would do it properly and try to use social media as a canvas instead of following the same old ‘band on socials’ tropes.  

I quite like that term, world-building, because I never thought of it like that before. It was just me trying to do social media in a better way, and I guess that has been the outcome. It’s alien to me, but people keep bringing it up and saying how they like it, so yeah, let’s go with it.

What do you hope audiences take away from the evening?
Honestly, I just want them to have a good time. If you like our music, chances are you feel more or less the same way about the modern world as we do. We have Crescent on, who blast out psychedelic 8-minute prog tunes. In a world where songs should fit Spotify algorithms and be under 3 minutes with a short intro to get you onto radio, Crescent are my people.

What’s next for Successpit?
A seven-minute power ballad about an actress contemplating cosmetic surgery. I am handing over to Sim for that one. A live album. Then a few more singles. We are also aiming to get up into Newcastle and Yorkshire a bit more, so hopefully branch out and see people there.