Nova Twins have gone supernova all over again with new album Parasites & Butterflies. We joined Georgia South and Amy Love in the heart of the storm at Boomtown Fair, just one mega-show in a summer of madness, to get a better look as they continue to explode…
Georgia South is screaming for dear life. She and Amy Love have just jumped away from the plush green sofa that Kerrang! thought could be good for a catch-up ahead of the release of their killer third album, Parasites & Butterflies, as a giant spider has also decided it looks rather comfy.
It takes several attempts before the eight-legged critter is caught. When it is, the pair cheer and let out a large exhale.
“I was trying not to scream,” Amy admits as the panic settles. “I had to preserve my voice.”
Then again, would it be a festival without a sprinkling of chaos? After all, Boomtown is an event that doesn’t just relish it, but spins it into a colourful, otherworldly celebration of creativity. Taking place in the sloping cocoon of the Matterley Bowl, just a few miles from Winchester, it’s less a festival than a pop-up fantasy city populated by 24-hour party people, with an interactive storyline unfolding in the daytime before thousands of revellers dance the night away.
We’ve found Nova Twins in a rather warm marquee located in the scaffolded shadows of the Grand Central stage, a quirky-looking palatial structure where they will be playing in the early evening. Watching a set there is almost like being at London’s O2 Academy Brixton if someone had vomited colour onto it.
Nova Twins love it here, having attended as punters before they stepped up to play. Today is no less than their third appearance on the bill. Boomtown’s line-ups are dazzlingly diverse, offering a home to everything from hip-hop to dancehall to drum’n’bass, but there’s plenty of space for guitars too. The Frank Carter-fronted Sex Pistols are performing directly after them on the same stage. Record label Earache takes over a small stage named Hangar 161 for a day, giving a platform to up-and-coming artists, including K! favourites like BEX, Lake Malice, SNAYX and Mimi Barks. Alien Ant Farm have a 1am slot later on. And beyond that, there is space for absolutely everything.
In this, Boomtown and Nova Twins have a shared spirit. It’s not one thing; it’s basically everything.
“When we first started people tried to pigeonhole us, and when they couldn’t quite place us here or there, they kind of excluded us,” says Amy. “It’s nice that now people finally understand we’re not just one thing. We love rock, we love punk, we love R&B, we love hip-hop, we love it all and that’s all in the music.”
“It’s all about exchanging energy, rather than necessarily the genre,” adds Georgia. “I feel like festivals really come alive when the atmosphere just feels good, when it has a really great vibe. Everybody’s looking after each other and there’s a positive mentality around it.”
Nowadays, the band’s chameleonic sound means that they can make any festival their home. They’ve racked up slots at Slam Dunk, Download and 2000trees, while this summer, they made stops away from the beaten path, including Glastonbury and Derbyshire bank holiday blowout Bearded Theory.
Then again, huge stages are what Nova Twins are made for, and they’re where their greatest passion – playing live – resides. They even find joy in tinkering with the arrangements of their songs, tweaking and polishing them for maximum detonation when they get onstage.
“There’s nothing like that feeling when there’s that exchange of energy and everything’s going right – from the in-ears to all the crew – and everyone’s felt like they did a good show,” says Amy. “It’s such an amazing thing to be able to bring people together. One of the main things we’ve discovered is that our community like being able to express themselves freely and feeling that they’ve got a safe space to do so. That’s why we love music. That’s why we go to festivals – we’re around different people, and we meet new friends and hang out. It’s so fun seeing on our Discord how people liked our shows and how they’ve made friends.”
“Also, you don’t really get phone signal at festivals, so you’re cut off from social media and just living in the present,” adds Georgia. “You lose your friends. You have to make new friends. It’s very back-to-basics. You’re so overstimulated by what’s going on, you can’t scroll because it’s all happening in real time.”
These past few months, Nova Twins’ motor has been running at full speed again as the release of Parasites & Butterflies rushes closer.
While the album captures them in a somewhat anxious, downcast place from being overwhelmed by the chaos and speed of band life, it appears that they have stepped back into the light now they’re out playing live again. And lately, they’ve had lots to write home about.
Just a couple of weeks before Boomtown, Georgia and Amy played the Long Beach date of the recently-revived Vans Warped Tour. Historically a gruelling proving ground, Nova Twins grew up hearing plenty of stories about the notorious touring circus, and were now finally part of its rich, riotous history.
“We had a great time, and the audience were really up for it,” recalls Amy, happily. “It was a really lovely, diverse crowd.”
Meanwhile, Warped’s famed policy of only publishing the stage times on an inflatable board the morning of the festival meant they got a healthy turnout to their lunchtime slot.
“We were like, ‘Is anyone going to show up at this time?!’” she adds, “But it was a really good vibe.”
“They had a really strict schedule, though!” continues Georgia. “Usually at festivals, if you go over by a minute it’s fine, but at Warped, we got cut off. Lesson learned – don’t overrun at Warped Tour!”
In a far cry from car parks, Novas also played in the much greener settings of the Eden Project in Cornwall, opening for Biffy Clyro in July. Before showtime, they even got to explore their famed botanical gardens.
“It was very calming,” Amy smiles. “We were basically playing to the trees.”
“They can hear us!” Georgia points out. Can they? “You can speak to trees and they listen.” Okay…
Prior to that, they landed a slot on The Jonathan Ross Show, a rare moment where a slice of our world gets beamed into unsuspecting living rooms. It turns out the host himself, an unexpected fan of heavy music, wanted them on the show.
“He was over the moon about it,” Georgia recalls. “He came into our dressing room and was talking about music and telling us so many stories.”
Playing wasn’t dissimilar to a live show, it turns out. There was a studio audience, and unlike the notorious task of miming on Top Of The Pops, The Jonathan Ross Show prides itself on doing everything live, for real. They even let the duo dress the stage as they wanted, including their giant butterfly amps.
All this has certainly helped P&B’s songs emerge properly from their chrysalis.
“We feel like a song doesn’t fully exist until it’s played live,” says Georgia. “This album now has a new life on the road. We get to see our audience, see how they respond to the songs in real time. It feels very special.”
Showtime arrives, and Grand Central bears witness to that beautiful, communal collision of energy Amy and Georgia were just talking about.
With a gleeful crowd assembled and ready to mosh under the orange-tinted sky, it’s a deservedly massive set in a deservedly massive setting, where each song becomes its own unique spectacle that’s evolved from how it sounds on record.
There’s moments of politicism, with 2022’s Cleopatra dedicated to the trans community, and a pointed denouncing of the evils outside of Boomtown’s walls: “Fuck the fascists, they don’t belong here,” declares Amy. Meanwhile, in a move that’s true to form, the crowd even gets an early album taster, with several unreleased songs in the form of the twisty, politically-charged Parallel Universe, the pacy, drum’n’bass-laced Drip and triumphant album opener, Glory.
A little later, as darkness falls, Amy and Georgia retreat to the rather snazzy yurt backstage that doubles as their dressing room to enjoy a well-deserved post-gig bev.
“We’re feeling great!” a cheerful Georgia remarks, cup in hand. She does add, though, that there’s a bittersweet note to today’s party, given it’s their last festival of the summer. On the plus side, Amy counters, they were able to play new tune Drip in the very place they had in mind when writing it. “It was nice to have that realised.”
Now, they’re onto the next thing. Summer may soon turn to autumn, but it’s ushering in another busy phase. At this point, they’re just weeks away from the release of Parasites & Butterflies, and on the other side of the release date there awaits another big chunk of shows. First, there’s a celebratory run of record in-stores.
“We love doing them because it’s so intimate and personal,” says Amy. “You actually get to see people up close and meet everyone.”
Summer might be over, but they won’t get to properly stop until November, after their nationwide headline tour, taking in some of their biggest venues to date, including London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
For now, they get to celebrate and have some rest. It’s the end of festival season, but the reality is, Nova Twins are still only just getting started. Watch as they spread their wings.
Parasites & Butterflies is out now via Marshall. Nova Twins tour the UK from October 11. This interview originally appeared in the autumn 2025 issue of the magazine.
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