Comprised of Emmie-Mae Avery (keys & vocals), Clio Starwood (violin), Billy Ward (guitar & vocals), missing Billy (guitar), Vera Leppänen (bass & vocals), and Lola Cherry (drums), Man/Woman/Chainsaw are an undeniable genre-bending force in the UK music scene. After being signed to Fiction Records– a label that hosts bands such as The Cure, and formerly, Tame Impala– in November of last year, Man/Woman/Chainsaw released their latest single “Only Girl”, and have since embarked on a tour across the UK. Before their headliner show at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh, Maria Laird met up with Ward, Starwood, and Avery to discuss the unusual nature of the band, Batman, and what the future holds for Fiction Records’ newest signees.  

Is this the band’s first time in Edinburgh?

Cleo: Second time.

Second time? Was it here at Cabaret Voltaire, or somewhere else?

Billy: It was Sneaky Pete’s.

Cleo: Mash House!

Billy: I was about to say it wasn’t Sneaky Pete’s, it was Mash House. Sorry guys, I got messed up.

Cleo: Good thing I’m here.

Am I right in saying that you guys have played King Tut’s in Glasgow already?

Emmy: Hell yeah!

Billy: Yeah, twice– that was like, one of our first shows out of London. We got the megabus up overnight, it was… long.

So are all six of you from London?

All: Yeah, yeah.

And how did you all meet? 

Cleo: Everyone except for me went to The BRIT School, and then I met Billy through other means of making music.

Billy: Another band I was in, yeah.

Cleo: And he was like “Oh, we need a violin player, we’re looking for one.” And then I started playing with them.

I was about to ask if you guys prefer an Edinburgh or Glasgow crowd, but that might be a bit too divisive.

Billy: We haven’t had enough Edinburgh crowds– maybe after today we’ll know.

Cleo: We do love Glasgow though, always good there. 

Billy: We’ve been back there a bit more, I think it’s one of our favourite cities to play in.

And English crowds? Must be nice getting to play to a home crowd.

Emmy: It really depends, but a London crowd is always nice because our friends always come.

Billy: But you’ll always be surprised at what cities surprise you, and then some nights it’ll be amazing, others it’ll be a bit more quiet. 

Cleo: Yeah, we played a show in Southampton about 2 weeks ago, and it was really good.

This tour that you’re on right now, has there been a London stop yet?

Billy: No, not doing a hometown stop this time.

Emmy: It’ll be our first time in Dublin on Saturday though, which is exciting.

On you guys being a six-piece band– that’s pretty uncommon. Do you find it makes certain aspects of being in a band easier? More people to help lift the gear?

Emmy: I think at first it was a bit tricky to navigate, like how to not make crazy, raucous-sounding music with that many people and trying to find your space in the band.

Cleo: Your purpose.

Billy: I feel like with rock bands, the trio is classic, but there’s been big bands doing pretty different things like having super orchestral, arranged stuff or having a horn section.

Cleo: We saw Iggy Pop back in May and that was a pretty big band up on stage with them.

Billy: Yeah, it was the standard rock band, and also keys and horns.

Cleo: Us in fifty years, hopefully.

I feel that when listening to your music, it’s definitely very full and maximalist, but it still works, there’s not too much going on.

Cleo: It also makes the vibe more fun, we’re just all a bit of a squad. 

I was going to say, have any of you played in smaller bands before?

Cleo: I’m in a three-piece as well, but with the bigger band it’s definitely more friends, more vibes, more people.

Billy: Chainsaw used to be smaller and we would just bring in mates for a few shows on horns or violin or keys. It was a lot more wiry, not as… It just kind of sucked, so we were like, “Let’s not do that.”

Emmy: I thought it was sick. I think the first proper gig I went to was Chainsaw at The Dublin Castle.

Billy: Crazy.

Cleo: Really? That’s mad.

So out of the six of you, do you all contribute to lyrics and production? The more technical stuff, I mean.

Cleo: The lyrics remain mostly all of us.

Billy: We’ll write very democratically, we’ll still throw stuff around the room. Someone will usually write the central bit of a song, but then we’ll all take it apart and work on it together. 

Emmy: Some like “Only Girl” we’ll do in the room as well. It was kind of a jokey thing, “What can we write as a really pop-y hook?” We all did that one together.

I’m sure you get asked this all the time, but why are you guys called Man/Woman/Chainsaw?

Billy: It was a cover of a book we saw when we were very, very young.

Emmy: The title of a book.

Cleo: Men, Women, and Chainsaws. They added the slashes, I wasn’t actually around when that happened.

Would you describe yourselves as a punk band, or are you not really bothered about genre labels?

Billy: Yeah, I know a lot of people get hung up on, like, post-post-post-post…

Cleo: “It’s not punk to say you’re punk.”

Cleo, did you learn violin with the intention of being in a punk band?

Cleo: Haha, no, I started when I was three years old– didn’t know what punk was. I was classically trained, and it was definitely weird applying that to this sort of music, but now I basically just focus on popping strings and things like that. It can really make a song– but it can also break a song. Strings can be incredibly jarring, it’s just knowing where to put them. It’s quite similar to the human voice, so I like writing hooks that pair well with the guitar parts. Playing the electric violin especially gives it a nice edge.

Emmy: We used to have an early archive Chainsaw song where the intro was basically Cleo just shredding a classical piece.

Cleo: Wieniawski’s “Scherzo Tarantelle”. It was a banger, I don’t know why we dropped it. Actually, I do know why we dropped it.

Billy: Bit of a failed experiment.

Are there any other bands that you had heard of with an unconventional instrument for their genre?

Cleo: Not really. I really like Jean Luc Ponty and how he uses the strings.

Billy: I think as a band, we were always really into having a core rock band and then bringing in other things, so that was part of why we asked Cleo to join.

Not to compare you to anyone, but first listening to Chainsaw and realizing you incorporate the violin reminded me of how X-Ray Spex used to have a saxophone player.

Emmy: Oh yeah, they’re the ones that did “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”

Billy: We did a show the other day where it was random singers doing David Byrnes covers, and Gina Birch from The Raincoats did two songs before Vera and I. I was just listening back to it and thinking how Cleo would like it because they have a lot of crazy textural parts in their songs.

Cleo: Yeah, I’ll sometimes write a part and can hear the classical side coming out, and I’ll really resent myself for it– like “No! Leave that behind!”

You guys were signed to Fiction Records back in November, who are well known for having The Cure signed to them. Have you guys met them yet?

Emmy: No, unfortunately. Waiting for the Fiction party where they introduce us.

Cleo: We’re playing the same festival as them in the summer though. It’ll be amazing just to see them. We’re also playing the same day as Twenty One Pilots.

Billy: I know where I’ll be.

Cleo: They’re a bit religious, aren’t they?

Billy: Imagine Dragons are Mormons.

Yeah, The Killers too. I think Mormons should get back into making rock music.

Billy: It’d be better than whatever Benson Boone is doing.

Cleo: You can keep that on the record.

I know you guys played London Calling in Amsterdam on Halloween– the Batman group costume was amazing. 

Emmy: Really proud of that.

Billy: We were all just like “let’s all be budget Batman.”

Cleo: When we came out on stage people went crazy– they were just roaring. Wearing a mask gives you quite good confidence so we were all just standing there.

Billy: The masks were sick, I felt indestructible.

Cleo: There was a lot of sweat by the end of the set.

Emmy: We’re going to become like that band who all wear masks.

Ghost? Or Sleep Token?

Emmy: Sleep Token, yeah. 

How did you guys land on Batman?

Billy: We just thought it would be funny.

Cleo: Because there’s only supposed to be one of him, right?

Superman last year brought back rock bands on superhero movie soundtracks which was quite cool.

Billy: Ooh, Twenty One Pilots on the Suicide Squad sountrack was banging. “Sucker for Pain”.

Doesn’t have to be a superhero movie, but if you could pick a movie or director that you think Man/Woman/Chainsaw would work well with, what would it be?

Billy: Rest in peace David Lynch, you would love Chainsaw. 

Emmy: What was the Batman movie that Seal did a song for? Maybe that one.

Billy: I think a Spiderman movie would be jokes– or one of the animated ones. 

Cleo: Or maybe, like, Paddington? He’s a superhero, in many ways.

Billy: He’s kind of England’s Spiderman. Let’s be real. He’s an outsider, gay, kind of quirky, wears a costume.

Cleo: Spiderman: Attack of the Chainsaw. Marvel won’t stop calling us! We’re not interested in your money!

Billy: “I don’t want to be Gwen Stacy, for the millionth time. I know Jacob Elordi asked for me personally–”

Cleo: “But I can’t be bothered being upside down for a kiss.” Anyways.

Have you guys seen Wuthering Heights yet? What did you think?

Billy: No, haven’t seen it.

Cleo: Did not think it was very good. Seems to be the general consensus.

The soundtrack was alright.

Billy: One of the Charli XCX songs that came out of it was a banger.

Cleo: “I think I’m gonna die in this… house.” There was one song called “Wall of Sound”, the instrumental for that was beautiful– it was all strings. 

Emmy: Hey, all the most beautiful things are. And string players.

Cleo: Yeah, it was basically their love theme, I really liked that one.

“Only Girl” came out back in November as the first song you’ve released under Fiction Records. Is the vibe of that song a sign of things to come? Does what you’re working on right now– if anything– sound like “Only Girl”?

Billy: We’ve got quite a diverse roster of songs, I think. We’re too hyperactive, we can never quite write two things that sound the same. It definitely fits in with the record we’ve made.

Cleo: Yeah, we’ve got a record. 

I was going to ask about that– is that a definitive yes?

Billy: We’re working on it, I feel like you can allude to it.

Cleo: It’s coming at some point.

Billy: We have been working on a record, I feel like we can say that.

Cleo: “Only Girl” was nice to have out because we’ve got some downtime right now; the calm before the storm. I think people really liked the song though, which is the most gratifying thing you can do when making music. When it comes on live people really get into it.

What song gets the most energy live?

Cleo: “Adam & Steve”, “What Lucy Found There”, “Only Girl”.

Billy: People do really go in for “What Lucy Found There”.

Emmy: The phones come out, y’know?

The cover of “Only Girl”, is that one of you guys’ music boxes?

Emmy: It’s Vera’s.

Cleo: Now that is a part of something big. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. 

All the cover art for your first few singles, were they done by a member of Chainsaw? 

Billy: We work in a building in London and there’s a guy who does paintings on the floor below us, so he did the cover art for our EP. Most of our other cover art has been by Lola.

Just one last question for each of you individually: Man, Woman, or Chainsaw?

Cleo: Woman.

Emmy: Man.

Billy: …Chainsaw?

Emmy: I feel like Cleo is the chainsaw, though. 

Billy: Am I the woman?

Cleo: I also love women, so… I’m going to say chainsaw, actually. Chainsaw women– women who like to wield chainsaws.

Emmy: We’ve all got a bit of man, woman, and chainsaw in us.

Maria Laird

First year student studying English & Creative Writing and Journalism, Media & Communications. Sometimes writes well. Also the host of Strath Fusion’s F1 recap and music show “The Garage Playlist” (@garageplaylist on Instagram).