Massive Wagons prepare to get Triggered at The Wedgewood Rooms | Interview

All kinds of media, from films to TV shows, magazine and online articles often come with ‘trigger warnings’ when dealing with certain subjects.

’Triggered!’ is also the name of the new album by Lancastrian hard-rockers Massive Wagons. With their trademark tongue-in-cheek humour fully intact, the album wraps its barbs in huge-sounding anthems.

Album six kicks off with Forget The Haters – a song railing against bullies and trolls, while the title track reels off a list of supposedly triggering things, from the Covid vaccines and the Black Lives Matter movement to veganism and gender politics.

Frontman Baz Mills says: ‘I like trying to mask serious issues with humour. I don't want to sound like I'm banging a drum or being a whinger or moaner. I want to say my piece, but I don't want to sound like some sort of moany bastard! Yeah, I am quite angry, and it's all got to come out somehow…

‘There's a song on the album called No Friend of Mine about people being stuck inside and stuck behind their computer screens with nothing else to do, and they get carried away, saying things they wouldn't normally say. Because they're sat there and looking at the news, they're spouting all this stuff. The song is about people you know showing this side that you didn't know: “I didn't know you felt like that...” And somehow they think, naively, that there isn't anyone watching. And you think, bloody hellfire, that's a bit of a strange way of looking at things! People are strange, aren't they?’

However, the band never let the silliness of their delivery obscure their often important message. They used a range of Forget The Haters merch to fundraise for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, the charity set up in memory of the young woman murdered in 2007 simply for dressing like a goth.

And they have recently started working with Tonic, the music and mental health charity based in Portsmouth – which will have a stand at The Wedge gig to promote their Never Mind The Stigma campaign.

‘I'd never heard of them until (The Specials frontman) Terry Hall died. I came across them because people were sharing it about and he was a patron of theirs. I thought they sounded great, had a look at the website and it looked brilliant, so I contacted them and said, if I can be of any use, or our band can be of any use, just give me some jobs to do and we'll help out. They're great people.’

Has he or anyone in the band had problems with their mental health?

‘Over the years we all have, I think, I have, without a doubt.

‘I realise we're in a bit of a privileged place here, we have a bit of a fanbase and a following, and I like to think people listen. I just want to do some good like using your platform in a positive manner and doing some good stuff and helping people out.’

​With the band forming in 2009, it’s been a long crawl to the top – but each album has performed better than the last in the charts.

‘We got to 16 with Full Nelson and that really was a massive deal – the first time we'd ever entertained anything like that and it really was something. Then for House of Noise to go top 10 was a huge feeling. Triggered! has done better than both but it wasn't really something we pushed. It's really nice to see, and it's certainly a sign that people are on board and buying the album.

‘Consistency is what it's about! There comes a point where you've got to let it do it's own thing - see if it's real or not,’ he chuckles. ‘There's a number of rock bands doing it, getting in the charts, and it's nice to see.’

This time around has certainly been different to the release of House of Noise, which came out in summer 2020 when it was virtually impossible to tour.

‘We'd filmed the video for the lead single In It Together about a week before the first big lockdown. It was a stroke of luck that we managed to get that done, and then we had to decide whether we put the single out and release the album.

‘A lot of other bands went quiet and didn't do a lot, so we made a noise and got kind of noticed. Then we thought if we wait until after lockdown, every band is going to be putting their album out after lockdown, so it might get lost in a sea of other albums!

‘It was a bit awkward and we couldn't tour and we had a load of things - promo for the album, events and whatnot, and all of those got cancelled. But it put your back against the wall and you had to come out fighting. It was an interesting time and I'm glad we did it.’

As part of the campaign for the new album, Baz and guitarist Adam Thistlethwaite have been doing the Triggered! podcast, which has racked up more than 20 episodes.

‘It's changed a lot from the start,’ says Baz with a laugh, ‘we sort of make it up as we go along. It started off as a rip off of Room 101 – the old version, the new one's garbage. We thought we'd call it Bin It Together, and take things and discuss them and whether to chuck them in the bin or not. Then we started talking about what triggers people.

‘We enjoy doing it, it's a bit of fun, people seem to like it. We don't really know what we're talking about, as long as people understand that, we're not professing to be experts...’

They play The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, tonight. Tickets £20. Go to wedgewood-rooms.co.uk.