The pop-punk genre has been having a revival of late, with lots of new bands coming out of the woodwork in recent years. Bishop Takes Queen are one such band, although they’re much better than many of the other artists from the genre that have emerged over the last few years. Their song, All That I Am, makes for fantastic listening for anyone into their pop-punk. Find out more about the track below!

By Jane Howkins

How was your 2022?

Great Jane, thanks, it’s been a good year, although coming off the back off the year or so before, we suppose anything looks pretty good. Hope you’ve had a good year too.

You recently released a track titled All That I Am, which we reviewed. What can you tell us about the song?

All That I Am was written in 2020, we were living together at the time after Mike’s divorce. The song is ultimately about identity, and trying to recover a sense of self after a long period of toxicity methodically stripping it away.

Mike only speaking – perhaps some of the lines are a little on the nose in the context of someone deliberately screwing with one’s head. Although to be honest, I don’t even really remember writing most of it, I was kind of a mess at the time.

How has the reception been for All That I Am, and where can it be purchased?

It’s been pretty good, perhaps not as quickly picked up as our debut single, but definitely no complaints. It can be picked up on iTunes, but it’s on most streaming platforms.

You’ve also just released a new song titled Heaven Knows. What can you tell us about that track?

Lee – Heaven Knows was probably the biggest pain out of anything we’ve recorded, I don’t think Mike will ever be happy with it, I think there’s about 50 versions of the song.

Mike – Yeah, it was something that was reworked a lot. I think perhaps it was something that was at a point too personal that I needed to pull back from. But, Lee’s right. There’s probably a lot of guilt attached to that song.

Do you plan to release any more singles in the near future?

Ye,s although we haven’t actually named it yet, oddly enough we forgot we’d written it. We got to the studio one day and were looking for some video footage of an old guitar part to figure out and found it. We may just end up calling it forgotten.

Are there any plans to release an EP or album?

We’ve pretty much recorded a full album. A few tracks need a bit of polishing, but they’re mostly there, we’re planning to stick to a roughly 6 weekly release schedule of singles for the foreseeable.

Your music is based within the punk genre. What/who influences you most as artists? What have you been listening to recently?

Mike – Ahhh, that’s always a big question. We’re all quite eclectic in taste, everything from A7x through to Nirvana right down to classical. I guess I was listening to a lot of Billy Talent at the time when we wrote Fahrenheit and that shows vocally, I think – well I’m told – and I can see how that translated to Bishop Takes Queen. To be completely fair as well, our producer Roni’s input probably shapes things a little bit, but I can’t necessarily speak for his influences, that’s probably too big of a list for one interview.

Sort of on a Dance Gavin Dance kick at the moment, although I don’t think that will be overly reflected in the sound as it would be quite a big departure.

Lee – I’ve always loved bands that build a lot of tension for big pay offs, things like Biffy Clyro’s early albums and math rock bands like Delta Sleep. Though the genres are disparate, you can basically take all the tricks they use to build tension and apply it to a post hard-core/emo/punk revival setting, and you’ll come out with music sounding exactly like ours.

What do you think is the biggest challenge in the music industry at the moment?

The necessity to produce content. If we’re looking at promotion at least. To reach an audience, the level of consistency needed sort of feels like you’d need to be an influencer as much as a musician. The other option being aggressively touring in a world with less and less venues. In a way, the internet has been a double edged sword, both giving you the ability to reach millions, but also making content so inherently transient that it’s hard to keep up.

Where are you based? What is the local music scene like?

We’re based in Leeds. It could definitely be worse here for sure, there’s a lot of really good artists locally which is awesome.

Do you have any UK tour dates lined up?

Not currently, Mike’s going to be out of the UK for a few months so we’re planning on sorting that out when he’s back.

Any last words for the fans?

Thanks for listening!