At the end of Charli XCX's set on weekend two of this year's Coachella festival, the English pop superstar suggested that her performance might represent the full stop at the end of 'Brat Summer', her much talked-and-written-about celebration of her 2024 album Brat.
As she closed out her set on April 19 with an energetic performance of I Love It, the UK number one single she gifted to Swedish duo Icona Pop, the video screens behind the singer (real name Charlotte Aitchison) displayed the message, “maybe it’s time for a different kind of summer?”
In a generous 'money can't buy' piece of promotion for other artists, the wording on the screens then changed to suggest that summer 2025 could be Lorde Summer, or Pulp Summer, or Pink Pink Pantheress Summer, or perhaps A$AP Rocky Summer. Or indeed, Turnstile Summer.
Lying in bed in Baltimore, Turnstile's Brendan Yates was oblivious to the fact that his band was getting a nice publicity boost on the other side of the country, until his phone started blowing up with notifications from friends.
"I thought it was a joke," the singer admits in a new interview with The Independent. "I was like, What is this AI image?"
“She’s really special and makes music that resonates with a lot of people, so to get that nod was really nice.”
Summer 2025 is indeed proving to be a landmark moment for the Baltimore hardcore band. Their new album Never Enough has received rave reviews in publications as varied as Metal Hammer, NME and The Guardian, and is currently holding down the number 8 spot on this week's UK mid-week chart. This weekend the quintet will headline the 20,000-capacity Outbreak London festival, and a return to Glastonbury festival lies ahead at the end of the month. Without getting carried away by the plaudits heaped upon his band, Yates is trying to enjoy the moment.
"A dynamic within a band is much different than anything else I’ve experienced in life, in a way that’s just very intense and the most beautiful and complicated and in every way," he tells The Independent. "The fact that the band can exist for this long and everyone still deeply loves each other – it feels like a miracle sometimes."
