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If you're not up on your pop-punk music, you might only know Mark Andrews as the Welsh high-flyer from NXT UK, but Mandrews is actually also the bassist and co-lead vocalist of Junior. Performing alongside Matt Attard, the man behind Hot Tag Media Works, and Si Martin of the Heads Above The Waves mental health charity, the NXT UK Superstar is currently touring the UK in support of their recently released debut album, Beautiful Life.
Attard, as you may have guessed from the name Hot Tag Media Works, is also heavily involved in the wrestling industry, creative theme songs for the likes of Marty Scurll, Tenille Dashwood, CCK, and previously Pete Dunne among others.
Last week, the band released PYD (Pay Your Dues) with a video starring wrestlers from across WWE, AEW and NJPW. Ruby Riott, Adam Cole, Drake Maverick, Ali, Kassius Ohno, Rhea Ripley, referee Drake Wuertz, Will Ospreay, Elijah, Jimmy Havoc, TJP and Marty Scurll all have a part to play in the video for the wrestling anthem, which details what every one of them have gone through as part of dedication to their career.
Junior may be an incredible band in their own right, but they're embracing all things wrestling, and projecting a positive message to audiences via their debut album - so we caught up with Matt and Mark on Episode 2 of our new show Dropkick DiSKussions!
Hi, guys. Thank you for joining me, and congratulations on the new album and tour. It seems like everyone's loving the new stuff! How's the tour going so far?
Matt: Yeah, it's going great. Cardiff was mental because that was a hometown show so that was just something else.
Mark: That was our best show so far I think. Our best show so far I think.
Matt: Yeah, just a really good way to start it because we wanted to give the record the best landing platform possible and what better way to get yourself going down with a hometown show?
Mark: Birmingham yesterday was awesome. Glasgow tonight. So hopefully we'll have three great shows in a row.
NEXT: What Beautiful Life means
COMING UP: What wrestlers Matt and Mark want to duet and do cover versions with
I think Beautiful Life is an incredible positive message and something that's maybe needed in the world right now. What does Beautiful Life mean to you and why did that phrase become the name of the album?
Matt: For me, Beautiful Life is supposed to be about appreciating the little things that make life beautiful. That's basically the overarching theme. Juniorland, our first EP, was very introspective. It was all about personal experiences of home, leaving home, just all those sort of issues which a lot of people go through, like leaving for university, breakups and stuff like that.
When we did Beautiful Life, we thought about taking in other people's perspectives. People who are going through circumstances like not being comfortable in your own skin or being uncomfortable as themselves so we wanted it to be the sort of record where we spoke to people and said, "We understand, it is okay to be uncomfortable or unhappy." It was supposed to just radiate positivity. Like you said - now, more than ever is when that message really needs to resonate, which we hope it has with some people.
Mark: I like to think it's an album which a lot of people can relate to - because everyone has had times where they don't feel comfortable in their own skin, or at least we have. Other people have struggled with that to a way bigger scale and it's a regular theme in their lives. The main theme of the album is not feeling comfortable in your own skin and overcoming that, but there are other aspects as well. It has a song about my friend Ricky's first crush, and a song about pro wrestling. There are other things in there, but the overriding theme is about being comfortable in your own skin, and the idea that it's okay not to feel okay.
For me, it feels like you guys have been around forever but this is the perfect album to... Well, you've spoken before about not wanting to be a "wrestling band", but this is perfect because it addresses wrestling head-on with PYD, but it's also very well produced and just a great album musically.
Mark: Thank you! We appreciate that!
No worries! Mark, did you think that, with you being a wrestler, that you want to capitalize on that but not JUST be a wrestling band, and is that a difficult balance to achieve?
Mark: It has been a difficult balance. We've always had this thing. It is so hard for small, local bands to break out into a bigger scene so you have to latch onto what you have. For us, what we did have was wrestling fans and a lot of our shows are full of wrestling fans. They've been the most supportive fans, the most loyal fans - so I don't regret, in any way, us latching on to wrestling, and getting Matt Hardy involved and stuff like that because - why would you not want wrestling fans behind you? They are the most loyal fans in the world.
We said that the biggest curveball we can do to break out of being a "wrestling band" would be to actually release a really good album, so we just tried our best to release the best album we could. Obviously, some people will think it's good, some people think it's terrible - which is fine - but we want people to give credit to the music and not just the fact that I'm a wrestler in a band or we're a wrestling band. Even if they like it just for that reason, that's cool as well, as long as they can find something that they enjoy in the music.
NEXT: How Junior convinced so many WWE, AEW, and NJPW wrestlers to be in their video for PYD
COMING UP: What wrestlers Matt and Mark want to duet and do cover versions with
Of course, you recently released a video called PYD with Elijah, and with a video starring wrestlers from across WWE, AEW and NJPW with the likes of Ruby Riott, Rhea Ripley, Adam Cole, Will Ospreay, Ali starring. That's a lot of favors to pull in, and a unique way to pull the wrestling world together, which brings together the idea of Beautiful Life for me too! How did it all come about, and how happy were those guys to all be in the video or did some take a little convincing?
Mark: Do you know what? It's so awkward asking people, "Hey, can you just mime these words for a song that you don't know?" It was quite awkward.
Luckily I'm close friends with a lot of them, or at least close enough that I could approach them and ask them. We had a long list of wrestlers that we wanted to be in the video, but some people didn't get back to me - understandably, because it is very awkward to ask somebody, "Hey, can you just mime these words about wrestling?"
But the guys who did do it, I'm super appreciative that they did it, and most people in the video are actually quite supportive of the band. Ruby Riott, I know she's a fan of our stuff and she's been supportive of the band from way back when I met her on the Indies, back in the day. Rhea Ripley is another one who's supportive, Drake Maverick, Marty Scurll - all these guys tend to be people who are my friends who have came to shows in the past or have shown an interest in my band any pass which is really nice. It's just really cool.
Matt: Seeing it online as well, people sharing it and their response to it was really cool, it was quite surreal. It was all these names from lots of different places and obviously they have really big careers, so it was kind of daunting in a way but it was great to see how enthusiastic they were about not just the video but their appearance in the video.
That song was the biggest news for about one day until Triple H tweeted out about your song - Brick By Brick - becoming the NXT Loud theme for NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff. How did that come about, and how awesome is it to have your song as the theme for WWE's first ever Welsh pay-per-view?
Mark: It was perfect timing, wasn't it?!
Two thirds of us are from Wales and Si lives in Cardiff, and actually when we saw Triple H's tweet, it was just after we got off stage after the Cardiff show, so we'd just had this amazing, like, "Yeah! That was amazing! Oh, Triple H has tweeted about our song!"
It was so cool. I'll be honest, I'm not going to lie - we did specifically write that song trying to appeal more towards the wrestling world. Our music has always been... Not all over the place but our inspirations comes from a varied amount of places in music, and this one we thought to ourselves, "What the kind of song you would hear on a wrestling video game or a Tony Hawk's video game? Or a wrestling pay-per-view?"
We specifically wrote it hoping that something like this would happen and when it did, we're like, "Ah, okay, sweet! We did it well enough for it to be used!"
I'm really excited for it to be used. It is the first ever TakeOver in Wales, first ever televised WWE event in Wales, so it'll be very sentimental to me in general. Now the fact that the band gets to be involved in it as well is awesome - and seeing Triple H tweet about it was cool.
Matt: It was just so surreal, so surreal. We're still getting over it, we still haven't fully let it sink in.
Mark: We'll get him to do guest vocals next time.
That's coming up, don't worry!
NEXT: What wrestlers Matt and Mark want to duet and do cover versions with
COMING UP: How Junior cope with Mark's schedule
I mean, I'm a huge wrestling fan and I love your music, so my Junior highlight is definitely you guys' appearance at Download Festival where you played a short set before Pete Dunne attacked Mark. Who's idea was that, and was it something you were all on board with or did you just want to play?
Mark: We wanted it! A lot of bands get to Download, it's a big opportunity for a band. We're just a small band and we're trying desperately to get to that big platform, so we thought, "How can we separate ourselves from everyone else on that stage over the weekend? I'd like to think we did a good job because we got to do a limbo in the crowd, got a massive limbo, with a huge rope going down the middle of the crowd. everyone involved, with the NXT roster getting involved, which was awesome.
The flip in the end, we were like, "Hopefully this will solidify us."
Matt: What else can we do? What else can we do?!
Mark: What else can we force into the set? So it was just something that came around quite easily, and relatively last-minute - as always!
Matt: I don't know if we decided to do it when we were at Download. Obviously, it was your [Mark's] idea. I can't remember when it was but I remember it being like, we were worried about getting past the red tape and stuff but the fact that we managed to pull it off... I didn't have to do anything. I say "we," I didn't do anything, I stood on stage and played guitar.
Mark: You can do the flip next time!
Matt: That's for next year. Did you hear that, Download? Next year!
So, you've technically shared musical stage with Pete Dunne, you joked about Triple H doing guest vocals earlier. You broke the news to me about Kurt Angle being a drummer via Sean Smith's Sappenin' podcast! If you could have any wrestler share the stage with you to cover any song, who would you choose, and which song?
Mark: An obvious one is Jericho, with Fozzy! If we could do a cool, classic rock version of A House That's Not Quite Home, that would be pretty cool. I'm trying to think of who else...
Matt: I want Undertaker to do a cover of Here Comes The Sun. That would be really nice. I genuinely think that would be pretty heartwarming.
Mark: Aleister Black, he's a hardcore kid himself, so I think he could belt out some great screamo versions. Maybe him, or a nice acoustic Elias cover or something, you know.
You guys can join him on RAW in the background.
Mark: There we go. Yeah!
NEXT: Matt on creating theme songs
COMING UP: How Junior cope with Mark's schedule
A little known fact about Junior. You have the wrestler in the band but, Matt, you also write a lot of wrestling entrance music - previously for Pete Dunne and Marty Scurll - under the name Hot Tag Media Works. What's your favorite entrance music you've created?
Matt: So, probably the biggest is Marty Scurll. It wasn't just that he was such a big wrestler and his career has blown up - it's huge - but it was such a fun song to do.
It was a long process but it was fun to do and to me, it's not just sort of. like him being such a big wrestler, it has sentimental value because it was the first turning point where I feel like Hot Tag really took off, so it has that. I would say, Marty's theme.
Mark: It's a great song as well. it's awesome! The 'whoop-whoops'! He did the 'whoop-whoops'!
Matt: It was all me! At 3 AM in my old uni house, it was definitely something. Every time I hear it, I occasionally just go to Google, watch it on YouTube to see where it's been used, and seeing it in these Madison Square Garden-size arenas, with this 'whoop-whoop' which I did when I was at my uni house, had a deadline tomorrow for a uni project and I was like... [Matt shrugs] That's my memory from it.
And who would be your dream talent to create a song for?
Matt: I don't want to dunk on Code Orange but I reckon I could do a pretty good hardcore song for Aleister Black. Code Orange, I'm coming for you.
I could do something even heavier.
Mark: It's so funny coming from a pop-punk band! We're like, "Hey!" [They sway and air guitar melodically] then "WHAAA!"
Well, Brick By Brick is kind of...
Matt: That's the gateway. We're unpredictable!
Mark: The next album could be super-heavy.
And I think it's important to mention your drummer Si as well, who's the founder of Heads Above The Waves - a mental health charity. In this day and age, I feel like it's particularly important to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health. Particularly in music and wrestling, there have been way too many losses of life recently - how important is it for you guys to promote the importance of mental health, too?
Mark: With Heads Above The Waves, it's crazy even just having a clothing brand, a company, or even a little shop in Cardiff that you can go to and see the messages that it's okay not to be okay, that self-love is important.
Just that alone helps people. It's the smallest little thing but people need to be reminded.
It was great writing this album about that exact topic because Si is very knowledgeable on it and it's something that everyone in the world can relate to. If they can't, then maybe they should think about it a bit more and try to relate because it applies to every single person.
As a charitable organization, Heads Above The Waves is a very important one and something we support massively as a band. They do really good things.
Matt: It was kind of in the DNA of the record. We learned a lot about mental health through Si, whether it's our own or understanding others. We tried to make Beautiful Life as empathetic as possible with the ones nearest and dearest to you, so it was better to get that perspective from Si about how to better understand and convey those emotions. He's doing awesome work, so we're always grateful.
Because there's only three of us in Junior, everyone is important anyway but we are lucky that everyone is doing something really cool that we're all really proud of amongst each other.
NEXT: How Junior cope with Mark's schedule
Album, tour... What's next for Junior?
Matt: I thought you said "album two" there. The first one's just come out! Bit of stress going on there.
Mark: I'll be honest, we're kind of unsure at the moment in a sense that... We released this album ourselves, we didn't have a big label behind us so it was all self-produced, with the recording, we did have help from friends but it was very much a DIY project.
At this point, your kind of just seeing what comes next. We have a lot of other things going on in our life. Site with head above the waves, matched with hot tag, Mu with the wrestling. You're seeing how everything goes and it's great to just be back on the road, finally get this album out that he'd been working on for the past two years.
Matt: A labour of love, for sure.
Mark: Definitely a labour of love. I feel like, at this point, we're kind of just seeing what comes next. We always have something going on in our lives - Si with Heads Above The Waves, Matt with Hot Tag, me with WWE and my wrestling career. There's so much going on that we're really just seeing where things go. For now, we're just happy being back on the road again and being able to play shows - and to finally get the album out after two years!
Whatever's next hopefully is good, hopefully, it's positive. I'm sure it will be. If it wasn't, we wouldn't do it.
You've just mentioned how difficult it is to actually make music together and find time to tour. How difficult is it working around Mark's schedule - and even you, Mark, having to juggle both of your passions with everything else in life?
Mark: It is but I quite like the challenge. We were talking today about going to the gym while on tour. When you're in the wrestling bubble, around loads of other wrestlers, it's a priority for everyone.
When you're on tour, driving from Wrexham to Glasgow today, tomorrow is here to Manchester. When you're in the van for five hours at a time, it is quite hard to maintain a decent diet and hit the gym regularly and stuff - but it's also quite rewarding then when you manage to pull it off!
Equally, that's why sometimes we will have a month or two at a time where it does seem quiet in Camp Junior, because I might be off in America or Si might be touring with Novo Amor.
We accepted a long time ago that we were never going to be in the same situation as other bands. We're never going to be able to climb the ladder of the music industry in the same way that other bands do, be able to tour constantly, but I kind of like that in a way because it's a bit different.
You don't take it for granted.
Mark: Exactly, yeah. We just do what we can and when we do end up doing a tour like this one, it's really, really fun. We're not burnt out.
Matt: We are not at each other's throats or anything, we enjoy each other's company, which helps because I feel a lot of bands who go on tour for months and months, they just get on each other's nerves - but we just like each other's company. Obviously, we have our own personal space and go do our own things but we just enjoy being in a band and having a laugh with the guys, so that is really beneficial.
Mark: It works out quite well, actually!
I like ending with one controversial question. You don't need to answer if you don't want to. I know you guys are big blink-182 fans, Tom DeLonge or Matt Skiba?
Matt: Tom DeLonge.
Mark: End the interview, now! No!
I mean, musically, obviously, I'm going to favor Tom DeLonge when he was in the band because it was nostalgic but I like the California album, and I think Matt's got an awesome voice, and I really like Alkaline Trio so... I don't know.
There's a fence there if you want to sit on it.
[Mark actually sits on a fence - literally]
Mark: I'm in the middle. I'm the middle.
A huge thanks to Junior for joining me on Dropkick DiSKussions. You can order your copy of Beautiful Life here and follow the band here. You can also follow Mark Andrews here, check out Hot Tag Media Works here and Heads Above The Waves here.
