My Inspiration: Cherry Knowle – Zombie

Cherry Knowle are an experimental industrial/post‑punk band from Newcastle who have dropped their new single Zombie. It marks a shift from their guitar‑heavy EP into a more electronic, drum‑machine‑driven sound, complete with ominous bubbles of bass, atmospheric synth and vocals that morph from croak to glitch to shout as the track ramps up. Exploring the idea of becoming mindless in everyday life, the song is paired with a video, created with filmmakers Verity Field and Phoenix Stephenson, that pushes those themes into bold, provocative imagery.

Here the band tell us about the inspiration behind this track and accompanying video…

The project has existed since November of 2024 and the main goal from the start was to provide something different to the north east music scene. There have been a developing scene that has cropped up here for around a couple of years at this point of the different dark post punk groups like Social Youth Cult and Black Rain, in which I been to the shows and being there from the start of Black Rain sparked a creative need of wanting to be in a group like that and after speaking to Shaun from Social Youth Cult at a goth event called Nightbreed I remember joking to him in a conversation saying ‘Hey won’t it be funny if started a band after years of being in other bands’ in which I remember he stared back with eyes that cut through the tension and said ‘well why don’t ya?’. That was the moment I was thinking to myself ‘sh— why didn’t I do that sooner?’

So after being at Sunderland University studying Music and being properly introduced to stuff like Musique Concrète and Media Clash, along with getting into bigger past acts like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Swans, The Cure (Porngraphy era), The Fall, and Coil, that’s where I had the idea of taking the current dark post punk music and take it most darkest and politically it can go with the idea of ‘The state of the UK is an absolute mess and there’s a rise within fascism… Has the world gone mad or have we ourselves gone insane?’

Zombie, the new single, is coming out on 22nd of July and the music video is coming out the day before, which we are really excited to show you the new version of this band! This track is about the warning of being mindless in this political climate, and I don’t think there’s much else to explain with that statement as it feels like today (especially in the UK) things have gotten really intense that to almost stay neutral to everything, just brainlessly consume everything, and just generally don’t vote and say ‘oh I don’t do politics’ is bit of a concerning thing as to us this is how bad policies goes unnoticed and how horrible politicians can thrive to power.

Musically, this track is a big tribute to songs like ‘Dig It’ by Skinny Puppy and that Wax Trax’s record label sound (from bands like Front 242 and Front Line Assembly). The song took a while to get going as it was written during a time where the band members were changing, so in a way this track is a transitional point from the previous EP into our current sound. The song was the first time that I’ve decided to use video game soundtrack samples, of which I’ve been a massive fan of the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack and found a sample pack containing a lot of the sounds from the game, which I’ve mostly used the sample drums from that pack. The passion for the Wax Trax’s sound leaks into the music video, which reflects the concerns of the song itself, along with taking influences from David Lynch and the film editing work from Rob Zombie.

The music video was shot in a few different places around Sunderland and in places that the band loves, like The Plough in Cramlington and The Bunker in Sunderland and working with Phoenix and Verity (from both Dead Egg Productions and Shields Production respectively) was a great experience. The process of what to shoot was very much on the fly, but that was the point; it was meant to be somewhat planned with leeway for stuff to happen naturally and I’ve been great friends with Phoenix and Verity, so working with them was great fun and we captured some great shots along with having fun doing it.

At the end of it all, I hope many people will hear and see the work that me, Loz, Joseph, Verity, Phoenix, and other Alex have put into this video/single, along with getting the appreciation for it. As it feels like we made something special, and that it’s not forgotten anytime soon.