UK rock force Artio want to make a real connection. Social media, they reckon on new album Soul Rot, is eating away at our brains. Fortunately, as singer Rae Brazill explains, fans are already forging a more natural bond with them…
“I’ve been playing shows in the UK since I was 14,” says Artio’s warm and charismatic vocalist Rae Brazill. “When we started going to other countries, people were wearing T-shirts I’d made in my living room that had been posted from the Leeds Post Office! They were singing my words back to me.”
The quartet are a hearty DIY bunch, who’ve built pretty much every element of the band from the ground up. Completed by guitarists Rob Arkle and Jai Akhurt, and bassist Ieuan Jones, Artio often team up with fellow working-class creatives, and even take aspects such as video production and graphic design into their own hands. Their second album, Soul Rot, lands in January, and looks inward at Rae’s perceptions of the world around us, and how the internet’s unending thirst for more is withering their spirit. “It’s basically a play on words with brain rot.”
Even though the band have grown an impressive TikTok following, online success turned Rae into an “involuntary content machine”, so they teamed up with Cody Frost on opener The Devil You Know to pick it apart further.
“I absolutely detest the way that bands are made to dance for the algorithm,” they spit. “My soul feels like it’s not real anymore, because I’m looking into a camera to perform so that you might give my career a chance.”
And yet, Artio’s grassroots, community-driven fire and fresh sound has worked just excellently, and even landed them on the anniversary release of reunited Brit emo heroes As It Is’ Never Happy, Ever After album and subsequent UK tour.
“They’re integral to the founding of Artio,” reveals Rae. “Ieuan only went to the Slam Dunk Festival that we met at because he was there for As It Is!”
Another band that shaped the early formation of Artio was PVRIS. Witnessing an openly LGBTQ+ artist like Lynn Gunn put her own spin on rock and blow the roof off with her vocals on the White Noise tour changed everything for Rae. In a similar way, Artio are now paying that same magic forward to whoever’s next.
“It’s really cool because I’m not intending it to,” Rae says chipperly. “That’s what makes it real and genuine. I’m not pandering to hit buzzwords, I’m simply expressing myself.”
Forging a livelihood full of creativity, music and collaboration is what fills Artio’s cup. Forget any sort of plan B or chasing a hustle. By drawing in fans that mirror their beliefs and spirit, this is how Artio will persist.
“Creating something and leaving your mark is one of the things that human beings are designed for,” Rae grins. “It’s ingrained in all of us. I’m gonna do it in as many ways as I can, with as many beautiful people as I can.”
Soul Rot is released on January 21 via LAB. Artio tour the UK from March 11. This interview originally appeared in the winter 2025 issue of Kerrang!.
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