Pale Waves frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie has said “bands are a dying breed” and that it is “so hard” for music groups to grow these days.
The Manchester-formed rock band performed on the Chevron Stage at Leeds festival on Sunday following their set the day before at Reading festival which included a cover of The Cranberries’ Zombie.
Speaking to the PA news agency ahead of their Sunday set, the lead singer opened up about how difficult it is to sustain a music career in the current financial climate and on the impact social media has had.
She said: “It’s so hard. We’ve been doing this for years and still we have to look at every single budget, and sometimes we have to decline so many things, because it’s just not feasible. Like we’d be losing £10,000 to do it.
“Bands are a dying breed and the world makes it even harder for bands to grow these days.
“I honestly feel sorry for people and bands, especially starting out. It just feels like the world’s obsessed with solo TikTok artists these days.”
The rock band is made up of singer Baron-Gracie, drummer Ciara Doran, guitarist Hugo Silvani and bass guitarist Charlie Wood.
The group released their debut album, My Mind Makes Noises in 2018 which made it into the top 10 UK album charts.
Their second studio album, 2021’s Who Am I?, peaked at number three, followed by Unwanted in 2022 which reached number four on the charts.
The group released their fourth studio album, Smitten, in 2024 and in June announced their Still Smitten UK and Ireland tour.
Speaking about the tour, Baron-Gracie said: “The UK tour starts in October, which is going to be really fun. Kind of felt like we didn’t play enough shows for Smitten, so we decided to do it all again, but with different songs from Smitten, some songs that we’ve not played in years, just a kind of really fun, refreshing tour for us.
“Then we’ll probably just start on the next album, more EP. To be honest, kind of started writing for that, got about like nine songs but it’s such early days, just sort of discovering where we want to go with it.”
Reading and Leeds Festival continues on Sunday with sets from Travis Scott, Amyl and The Sniffers and Leigh-Anne in Reading while Leeds festivalgoers can expect to see Becky Hill, Bring Me The Horizon and Bakar.
