The Wedge Band’s city debut comes with a trigger warning
Massive Wagons kick off their UK tour in Portsmouth – their first show here
In recent years the word ‘triggered’ has taken on a new meaning – it has come to mean experiencing a strong negative reaction to remembering something traumatic.
Films, TV shows, magazine and online articles often come with ‘trigger warnings’ when dealing with certain subjects.
’Triggered!’ is also the name of the new album by Lancastrian hard-rockers Massive Wagons. With their trademark tongue-in-cheek humour fully intact, the album wraps its barbs in huge-sounding anthems.
Album six kicks off with Forget The Haters – a song railing against bullies and trolls, while the title track reels off a list of supposedly triggering things, from the Covid vaccines and the Black Lives Matter movement to veganism and gender politics.
Frontman Baz Mills says: ‘I like trying to mask serious issues with humour. I don't want to sound like I'm banging a drum. I want to say my piece, but I don't want to sound like some sort of moany bastard! Yeah, I am quite angry, and it's all got to come out somehow…
‘There's a song on the album called No Friend of Mine about people being stuck inside and stuck behind their computer screens with nothing else to do, and they get carried away, saying things they wouldn't normally say. Because they're sat there and looking at the news, they're spouting all this stuff. The song is about people you know showing this side that you didn't know: “I didn't know you felt like that...” And somehow they think, naively, that there isn't anyone watching. And you think, bloody hellfire, that's a bit of a strange way of looking at things! People are strange, aren't they?’
The band never let the silliness obscure an often important message. They used a range of Forget The Haters merch to fundraise for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, the charity set up in memory of the young woman murdered in 2007 simply for dressing like a goth.
And they have recently started working with Tonic, the music and mental health charity based in Portsmouth – which will have a stand at The Wedge gig to promote their Never Mind The Stigma campaign.
‘I'd never heard of them until (The Specials frontman) Terry Hall died. I came across them because people were sharing it about and he was a patron of theirs. I thought they sounded great, had a look at the website and it looked brilliant, so I contacted them and said, if I can be of any use, or our band can be of any use, just give me some jobs to do and we'll help out. They're great people.’
Has he or anyone in the band had problems with their mental health? ‘Over the years we all have, I think, I have without a doubt.
‘I realise we're in a bit of a privileged place here, we have a bit of a fanbase and a following, and I like to think people listen. I just want to do some good like using your platform in a positive manner and doing some good stuff and helping people out.’
With the band forming in 2009, it’s been a long crawl to the top – but each album has performed better than the last in the charts. 2018’s Full Nelson cracked the top 20, while 2020’s House of Noise made it to nine, and Triggered! hit number six.
They play The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, tonight. Tickets £20. Go to wedgewoodrooms.co.uk.