SLAK

Pembrokeshire indie rock band return to home soil for Welsh venue tour after move across the bridge

For indie rock band Slak, there has never really been a moment where they stopped and asked, should we actually do this?

It’s always just been the obvious next step.

School turned into jamming. Jamming turned into pub gigs. Pub gigs turned into writing their own songs. Instead of drifting off into separate paths like most people do, they all leaned further in, choosing to study music not as a backup plan, but because the band was already happening.

“It just made sense,” says bassist Jack. “It was the natural trajectory.”

Their sound follows a similar logic—less carefully constructed, more instinctive. It pulls from indie, sure, but there are flashes of heavier guitar work, cleaner pop-leaning vocals, and moments that feel like they’re about to slip into something else entirely before snapping back.

Nothing sits still for too long.

It all started in secondary school. Guitarist Tom says: “It was originally me and Ruben, the drummer, because we met in primary school. And then we met Drew in year seven.”

“Then in year 10 we met Jack. And we were just like, yeah, let’s just do something”

From there, they all decided study music at Pembrokeshire College. It became less about learning music in a traditional sense and more about learning how to exist as a band.

“You’re there every day playing,” says bassist . “Writing, recording, rehearsing. You actually make time for it.”

Drew adds: “They would tell us straight with certain things. They wouldn’t be afraid to tell us if it was bad, or if it was good.”

That kind of environment speeds everything up. Songs don’t linger half-finished. Ideas don’t get romanticised. If something works, you push it. If it doesn’t, you drop it and move on.

You can hear that in the way they talk about it, nothing overly sentimental, just forward motion.

At the same time, they weren’t all pulling in exactly the same direction.

Drew and Ruben got into songwriting and lyric writing, whereas Tom and Jack were more into recording and producing.

What came out of it wasn’t just tighter playing or better recordings, it was a clearer sense of how they work.

Not as four separate musicians, but as something that only really makes sense when all of them are in the same room, pushing at it from different angles.

That becomes even more obvious when they talk about influences.

“We’re all different,” they say. “Very different.”

Rather than landing on one shared sound, their influences pull in multiple directions at once. Early on, it leaned towards Arctic Monkeys and Catfish and the Bottlemen, before shifting towards bands like Fontaines D.C. and Wunderhorse.

But even that only scratches the surface.

You can hear it in the details. The core of it stays rooted in indie rock—tight formula, its driving and guitar-led but there are small shifts that give it a bit more edge. Some parts lean heavier, especially in the guitar work, while the vocals sit cleaner over the top, cutting through rather than blending in.

Drew adds: “It works because I feel like a lot of bands, they get together and they all like the same thing and then they end up making music that sounds like what they listen to.”

That push and pull between them meant staying still was never really an option.

By the time college started to wind down. They felt they’d taken things as far as they could in Pembrokeshire— at least geographically. Gigs meant travelling to the Bunkhouse in Swansea and opportunities felt scattered.

They made the collective decision to pack their bags and move to Bristol, each taking up a place at BIMM, because it was the only version of things that made sense to them.

“If we were going to uni, we were going together,” says Jack. “Otherwise, I don’t think some of us would have gone at all. It was all or nothing.”

There’s a certainty in the way they talk about it, it’s less like a choice, more like momentum carrying them forward.

“We knew exactly what we wanted to do,” he continues. “Even before coming to Bristol, we knew as soon as we got there what we’d be doing.”

Like everything else with Slak, it wasn’t overanalysed or second-guessed.

“It’s never really been a decision for us,” he says. “It’s just sort of all happened.”

The shift to Bristol didn’t just make things bigger, it made them more accessible.

Jack says: “I’ve never lived in a city before, but it’s just been so easy to fit in.

“We thought coming up here it would be completely different, maybe even a bit too overwhelming. But we love it, it’s been really great.”

My favourite one to spin rn:

Their latest release, Trophy feels like a step up for them. It leans into big, harmony-soaked choruses and guitar-led momentum, the kind of track that feels like it should be soundtracking a sweaty car stereo in July.

It started the day they got back from Reading Festival in 2024. Still buzzing from a weekend of watching some of the biggest indie bands they’d grown up on, Tom picked up his guitar at home and wrote the main riff in one sitting. He recorded it and sent it over to the rest of the band that same day.

Within a few rehearsals, it had already started to take shape.

Drew says: “The song is about reaching our goals, the lyrics don’t directly translate to that.

“If you're a band at a festival, it’s always in the back of your mind, it would be so great to play here, this is one of my goals.

“It was linked to seeing all of those massive bands. The trophy is being in that position, being a successful musician.”

That idea feels closer now, more like something in progress than something out of reach.

This June, Slak head back to Wales with a run of shows supporting Trampoline in June. It will take them through some of the venues that first shaped them.

“We’re really excited for it,” they say. “It’s going to be great coming back and playing those places again.”

The Bunkhouse, in particular, carries its own history.

“That was the main place we just rinsed when we first realised we could actually play Swansea,” they add.

Now, they’re stepping back into those rooms slightly differently—not as a local band trying things out, but as one arriving with momentum already building.

Yet, still the same group of friends from school.

Upcoming gigs:

LE PUB, NEWPORT - 9 JUNE

THE BUNKHOUSE, SWANSEA - 11 JUNE

CLWB IFOR BACH- 12 JUNE

THE BLACK CAT, BRIDGEND - 13 JUNE

STAY TUNED FOR NEXT MONTH WHERE WE TALK TO CARDIFF BAND CRIME SCENE ABOUT THEIR LATEST TRACK