Yard Act had the biggest physical sale of the week - how did you achieve such an impressive result? When the band dig deeper into the essence of humanity – and with some sentimentality – they show a well-rounded side. ‘Tall Poppies’, the album’s highlight, is a six-minute tale of a small-town hero who dared to dream big: “He played football / Boy, could he play / A scout from Crewe Alexandra came to watch him once and they said they were gonna be in touch.” Given that Yard Act stormed the airwaves in the summer of 2021, a time when we could barely leave the house, let alone the country, it’s surreal to meet the Leeds band finally in the midst of a sold-out run of European shows. When we scoot over to Paris to greet them in November, it’s a bitter late afternoon; a sense of cautious optimism hangs in the air of the Bastille area as friends huddle around bistro tables and lovers canoodle with a carafe of red wine. Despite missing out on the top of the main albums chart, Yard Act did claim No.1 on the physical albums chart, the vinyl chart and the Record Store Chart. LB:“We have seen all the DSPs come on board to support this release and this band which is great, and it definitely feels as if the week one success will help take the band to the next level.”

Needham weighs in on the meaning of a chart position: “It’s one of those trinkets that I collect for family weddings and stuff. It’s nice when a second uncle goes, ‘My mate will sort you out if you’re still doing gigs mate – do you do covers and that?’.” He lets out a middle finger of a laugh as he relays the reply: “‘Nah – we’re on … Jools Holland and signed to Island.’ It’s a Pandora’s bracelet for showing off.” Given these elements of warmth and humour, which are often omitted in post-punk, it’s perhaps unfair that Yard Act get lumped in a crowd that often favours darker, denser topics. Though it’s something of a catch-all term for British guitar music, the genre’s revival has seen bands like IDLES and Shame move into a mainstream space. Has the tag helped or hindered Yard Act’s journey? “I think it helps people get into it,” Smith says. “We’ll outgrow it like every other band worth their salt will. It really helps here on the mainland. It helps people understand there’s a British guitar movement coming through to get excited about.” OJ:“I'll leave that to Island to answer in full, but we've definitely seen a huge uplift since the start of the year, and there's still huge scope to grown, in the UK and beyond.”

The Overload is a record of great dexterity and curation, the output of a band who were raised on a 00s digital-revolution buffet of wide musical influences. Growing up on US MTV Hip-Hop, minimal 70s No-Wave and sharp-witted British indie, Yard Act benefit from this rich tapestry of musical near-history, using it to create something that feels like more than a trendy pastiche. It took me ages to get used to being in front of an audience who are belly-laughing” – Ryan Needham Someone told Ryan that I said that his band was just a flash in the pan” laughs Smith, sipping his beer. “I don’t think I said it, but maybe I did.” It was at a party in 2018 where the two properly hit it off. “We were the last two there in the garden drinking cans and talking about our favourite records. That’s when I realised I really loved Ryan and he was a really nice guy.” In our previous bands in the Leeds scene, the connection to the festival has probably not been as strong, so I don’t know how many people at that festival will know who we are. But nonetheless, it’s an essential festival and hopefully we will be able to make it into a homecoming in the long run if we foster a good relationship with the people that go there, and the people who make it happen, because it’s a rite of passage. I’m really excited to play and win some people over but I am going into that one thinking that very few people will know who we are. But I might be wrong. I always tend to have the underdog mindset.”

On a day when their first NME cover shoot collides with a sold-out Saturday night show in the French capital – their first here – the Leeds gang are finally seeing their dreams play out. Fighting the chill in his signature trench coat, frontman James Smith is eager to get celebrations underway as he soaks in the sights over the Canal Saint-Martin: “What are the rules on street drinking here?” We’ll take our chances – you’ve earned it, lads. In the summer of 2021, it’s suddenly all becoming very real. With live music returning, Yard Act are having their first experiences of playing songs like ‘Fixer Upper’ to audiences who know and love them, who belt out the words and fill far larger rooms than the band were expecting. Smith is genuinely amazed at how the crowds have reacted to these initial sets. OJ:“You have to remember that our biggest headline date so far is a Lexington, so there is huge scope to grow. With all our pre-festival UK shows sold out, and a massive festival season in the works, live is going to be a huge focus for us through 2022 and beyond. Here, Island president Louis Bloom, manager Ollie Jacob of Memphis Industries, plus the PR and promotions team at They Do, share campaign insights with Music Week…

Side guide

What's the long-term plan for this campaign - will Yard Act's album be supported with a range of singles? But it was still a result beyond expectations for Yard Act, particularly as The Overload is officially the fastest-selling debut on vinyl of any band this century. It’s another strong result for Island Records, who have made a chart impact in recent years with guitar acts Sports Team, Easy Life and The Lathums. The Overload’s best moment might be its most restrained. While IDLES’ signature village song is full of racist idiots, “Tall Poppies” zooms in on one villager: a promising and handsome football captain who, for reasons unclear, never leaves home and trades his athletic gifts for a career in real estate. In comes a promotion, a mortgage, a marriage, a dog, children, and a vacation home in Costa del Sol. He can still play football on the side (he knows he’s still got it), and hey, his town now has an authentic Italian restaurant. The lyrics convey happy compromise. The music implies restlessness, growing looser and more uneasy as the footballer moves through marriage counseling, grandchildren, and an increasingly frightening feeling: Is this all there is? The whole village comes to his funeral. Smith then reveals himself to be the late footballer’s friend, viewing the deceased’s life as a question: Is the goal to live so that after we die, nobody speaks ill of us? Is it better to lead a small yet safe life involved in our communities, or to live big and in constant awareness of our insignificance? Does it matter? Yeah, none of us had a clue what was coming, did we?” recalls frontman James Smith of March 2020. “And then one Monday it was like, ‘Right, I’m gonna be in the house for three months then.’ We realised it was gonna be a long time before we could do anything, but having loads of time on our hands meant we were writing loads of demos, and it was a real rush.”

The Leeds post-punk band were in hot pursuit of Years & Years last week. Ultimately, Olly Alexander finished at No.1 with Night Call. Yard Act caught almost everyone by surprise when debut album The Overload made them No.1 contenders. Staying true to their independent roots, the band are releasing through Island in tandem with their own imprint Zen F.C – the label through which they put out early singles, all of which disappeared before you could think about hitting the ‘Add to basket’ button. Ollie Jacob (management, Memphis Industries):“From the band and management perspective I think we've approached it as if it's both the most and least important thing in the world. I think for us, the whole thing was undercut by a recognition that for a band like Yard Act, being involved in a chart battle is ridiculous. Which ultimately meant that, in amongst the hard work and effort, we were genuinely having fun.” People are told to be fully formed by 16. You’re meant to know how your life’s gonna play out” – James SmithHow is the tour going and how do you see the live business growing? Are there international plans for Yard Act? Perhaps that’ll happen this weekend at Leeds Festival (you suspect it won’t). Taking to the BBC Introducing stage on Friday (with Reading on Sunday), Smith sounds guardedly excited about appearing at a festival he first attended as a kid – even if he’s astonished that they’re sharing that stage’s bill with acts like the Mercury-nominated Berwyn, who he sees as far bigger than Yard Act. Homing in on the little things is important, because they go unnoticed but everyone is aware of them,” he says. “If you don’t look in depth at what we’re doing as a species on Earth, it can feel really harrowing and overwhelming because we seem so parasitic. It’s hard to see any good in the big picture. But if you look at the little details, you realise you can find a lot of amusement and wonder in the tiny things humans do. If we all just let our guard down a bit and look at each other properly, take into account where everyone kind of comes from and now they’ve ended up at the point that they are, that’s the way you undo this kind of tug-of-war that we’ve ended up in.” The Overdub is a reimagining of Yard Act's Mercury Prize shortlisted debut album The Overload. Yard Act approached legendary dub pioneer Mad Professor to create The Overdub, and the result is a spectacular and surprising reconstruction of their debut LP The Overdub, currently available on exclusive vinyl via Rough Trade.

It’s this sense of creative abandon and humility that’s made Yard Act such a vital and fresh presence. Their debut album is always ready to transcend genres and throw in surprises – take the banging climax of playful ‘Payday’, which sounds like a LCD Soundsystem remix of ‘Three Blind Mice’. Though they’re willing to throw themselves into everything, they never lose sight of who they are, something that was instilled in Smith during his teenage years when he watched Yorkshire heroes Arctic Monkeys explode onto the scene. Smith takes on an impassioned, almost angry tone: “You have the ability to reframe your perspective and try to find empathy. If you can’t, then you can still decide whether there’s a better avenue to go down than shoot people down to make yourself higher up. I have a chance to communicate with the culprits of bad behaviour in this world. It’s not my role to appeal to everyone and look woke. It’s my role to try and explain that people could look at things from another angle.” Pulling off a debut album in a pandemic isn’t easy, but somehow, Yard Act have made it work. Recording with Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Aldous Harding) at his Bristol studio, those prolific demos have been sharpened down into something that speaks to the times we live in, creating a statement of intent that survives on nuance – a record of retro influences, recorded in a modern way, that manages to poke fun at society without punching down from a place of lefty superiority. The Overload is a political record, but in the same way that all great observations of human nature are – a messy, complex, knowingly hypocritical snapshot of our current state of play. He freely admits that without that time to experiment and adapt to the new circumstances we’ve all come to know so well, the band may not have arrived at the sound that many listeners are finding so thrilling. It’s a distinctive blend: Smith’s sardonic vocals provide the focal point, around which a workmanlike rhythm section combines with nagging guitar lines to evoke The Fall at their very poppiest or Life Without Buildings at their most straightforward. Perhaps most striking are Smith’s lyrics, which eschew overt political statements in favour of specific, changeable detail, grandiosity making way for snatches of conversation and subtle character development. The way Alex Turner wrote lyrics around social observation definitely helped me grow in confidence,” he says. “To go into that amount of detail on specific objects, to make them seem poignant and profound was really cool. Before that, the music I was listening to wasn’t doing that. I never got into the poetry of The Libertines – that always felt too flowery – and with The Strokes, you could assume everything was set in a dive bar in New York.I’m not interested in politics as much as people. It’s all social; it’s all human nature” – James Smith I’m not interested in politics as much as I’m interested in people,” he explains. “It’s all social; it’s all human nature. It’s looking at what divides us to figure out what connects us, and realising how alienated everyone is. The loudest, most confident voices in the room are usually the most frightened – that’s the Grahams of the world.” Perhaps the biggest weapon to drop on unsuspecting uncles would be Elton John’s glowing praise for the band. In last year’s Big Read, the legend described the band’s vocal approach as a different ballgame: “I can’t do it but I love it and I wonder how they do it.” It’s not unwarranted. On the strength of 2021’s Dark Days EP—which, one year later, sounds like a concept album about “Remember when Johnny Marr was in Modest Mouse?”—Yard Act signed to Island, the same label that released Pulp’s major-label debut. Elton John became a fan. So did notable post-punk scholar Ed Sheeran. Cue the up-and-comer appearances in NME and DIY, on the BBC and Jools Holland. Smith, a frontperson who values a good narrative, seems to encourage the Britpop comparisons in interviews just so he can laugh them off (and shout out Orange Juice and Postcard Records instead). How you feel that he shares the same last name as Mark E. Smith—fun happenstance, insufferable media bait, a shrug—will probably tell you how much you’ll enjoy what Yard Act is selling.