All Hail Hyena: Beneath the Pyjamas

When you think of the UK punk scene, Burnley, Lancashire, is probably not the first place that springs to mind. Nonetheless, the picturesque market town is home to one of alt-punk's most exuberant and energetic bands: All Hail Hyena.  

Since going viral on social media back in 2022, this musical trio has been making waves with their distinctive, infectious mingling of punk, grunge and alternative rock.

All Hail Hyena’s music is irreverent. The band’s mischievous side is evident in signature tracks 'Crowdsauce', 'Beetles & Slugs' and ultimate crowdpleaser ‘Stranger’s Song’.

We got to see and hear the band for ourselves last Friday, when they travelled 170 miles to perform at Banbury’s top live music venue Also Known As. All too used to travelling far and wide to entertain an ever-growing army of fans, the band, bedecked in their trademark pyjamas, didn’t disappoint.

For this exclusive backstage interview, we joined drummer Rob Ashworth, bassist Tom Cross, and guitarist and lead vocalist Jay Stansfield for pizza and a chat before their Banbury gig.

Funny and self-deprecating in a distinctly Northern way, the Hyena boys spilled their beans on the band, the importance of friendship, and how not to smoke a can pipe.

If you're a dedicated fan, or discovering them for the first time, get your PJs on and join us as we journey into the bizarre world of Burnley’s alt-punk torchbearers: All Hail Hyena!

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All hail All Hail Hyena. Please introduce yourselves.

JAY STANSFIELD – Hello, I'm Jay. I'm the lead singer and guitarist of All Hail Hyena.

TOM CROSS – And I’m Tom and I’m the bassist of All Hail Hyena. 

ROB ASHWORTH – Hello, my name’s Rob and I am the drummist of All Hail Hyena.

Please describe the band for anyone who hasn’t heard you before.

ROB – Wonky, progressive, alternative punk. How would you describe us, Jay?

JAY – Like that, yeah. John Robb [music journalist and frontman of ‘80s post-punk band The Membranes] came to see us in Manchester a few years ago and he said we fit more into one song than most bands fit into an entire set.

High praise indeed. What’s your secret sauce?

TOM – We’ve all been playing together for 20 years now, in various different outfits, so I think the secret sauce is just that we know each other too well, musically and otherwise. We just sort of know what everyone's gonna do, when they're gonna do it, to a large extent.  

JAY – I think the extra thing for us as a band is the kind of music that we've listened to growing up. Me and Rob, particularly, listened to a lot of alternative music, and that's really influenced us.

ROB – We love ‘60s and ‘70s prog, krautrock, Fugazi, Shellac, the eclectic side of harder rock. And, like Tom says, there’s definitely grungy elements as well. But we also love a lot of post-punk stuff, like XTC and Elvis Costello.

Let's go back to the beginning. When and how did the band start?

JAY – We started 8 years ago. I was playing a lot of solo stuff, and releasing albums with Rob. We'd done tours and all sorts of stuff, but I kind of got to an end. It was taking its toll on my mental health. I had a manager, but we weren't on the same page. I found it very lonely. So, me and Tom got together. 

TOM – I think it was a case of trying to get back to the vibe we had when we were younger. It was like, do you ever just want to blast out some chords, like we used to when we were kids?

JAY – I said yeah, let's just do it. So, we started a punk band.

Is being in a band more comfortable than it was as a solo performer?

JAY – Much more comfortable. It's just a better expression, you know, because we can really thrash it out.

TOM – And there’s no filter. We can tell each other if that part's shit and you need to do something better. We know each other well enough to not be upset by that kind of critique.

You’re clearly very comfortable with each other.

TOM – I've known Rob since I was 7. I’m 39 in a week. Jay and I have been friends since I was about 19 or 20. We’ve known each other for half our lives or more. We've been there through marriages starting, marriages ending, children being born. We've shared genuine, serious, massive life events with each other, and supported each other through that. 

ROB – We're absolutely friends before band mates. The friendships are paramount. The band is fun, but the friendships are for life. I think that's the key for doing anything successfully.

Now for the question you must get asked most often. What's the meaning behind the name?

ROB – I'm out.

JAY – We were trying to think of a name and we saw an old volume of an encyclopaedia that ran from ‘Hail’ to ‘Hyena’. It had it on the spine. There was already a local band called Bird to Beast, and we thought we can’t really call ourselves Hail to Hyena because it sounded too similar.

TOM – We changed it to All Hail Hyena because it sounded better. 

Tell us about your stage outfits. Who came up with the pyjamas?

ROB – I’m out.

TOM – We’re performing for people. It’s not a gig, it’s a show. We find it strange that bands can play a gig in the same clothes they did the sound check in. And we’re old and it means we’re ready for bed when the show’s over.

JAY – On stage you’ve got to put on a performance, especially if you’re a frontman. If you’re going to use your ego anywhere in life, do it on stage.

ROB – I think being in a uniform gives you a strange confidence that you don’t have if you rock up in jeans and a t-shirt. It’s like you’re wearing a mask. You can be a bit sillier because you’re playing a character. Once we get the pyjamas on, we’re All Hail Hyena. It’s still us, but with the saturation turned up 20%.

Rob wasn’t there when the band started. When and how did he join? 

TOM – When we started, we asked Rob if he wanted to play drums. He said no. We found another drummer. It didn't work out. Eventually we came back to Rob and said, look, we're desperate, we've got a gig in two weeks. Will you just do this one gig? And here he is, six and a half years later, still playing with us.

JAY – That was an absolutely vital gig. It was at The Continental in Preston. It was a fundraiser for Tim Smith of Cardiacs. 

TOM – Cardiacs were a genre-defying, mind-bending, experimental rock band of the mid-to-late ‘80s, early ‘90s. Tim’s no longer with us, bless him, but at that time he was suffering from a debilitating illness and required 24-hour care. There was a lot of grassroots funding from his nationwide network of fans. We were happy to be part of that, which made it all the more imperative that we found a drummer, so we could go ahead and not let them down.

JAY – The Cardiacs fans absolutely took us under their wing. They’re just wonderful people and they all care about each other. It’s a real community, which is unusual. And now we’ve got that too, which is amazing.

ROB – We've got fans out there tonight who’ve come three hours to see us, from St Helens. We can’t believe they’ve showed up.

One of the fans here tonight is the guy whose reaction went viral on social media when you played a surprise gig for him. Tell us about that. 

TOM – His wife arranged that we secretly come and play for him. It was under the pretence that he and his brother were going to have a jam. They’re musicians as well. They took him to the pub and when he got back we were there. The moment he walked through the gate and realised we were literally playing in his garden was the moment someone filmed and put up on Reddit.

JAY – I didn't even know was Reddit was! That video changed everything. It got something like 12 million views in a week. Our Spotify listeners have been going up and up since then, within a day.

ROB – Yeah, I think it was the day after that our song went from less than a thousand streams to something like 33,000. It was unreal.

JAY – It was like what would happen if we'd had an expensive marketing team. But we managed to do it without one. We got to present our music to people who would never otherwise have heard it.

ROB – We were lucky, in a way, because we’d put so much work and effort into the band before any of that happened. When people realised who we were, we already had music videos, we had releases on all the platforms, we had decent looking marketing stuff, and our online presence was there. We didn't have to think, oh god, we'd better react to this. We could just enjoy it.

Is it fair to say that moment transformed the band?

TOM – For sure. Obviously there was a peak when the viral moment happened. We were sat there going, oh, this is wonderful but it isn't going to last. But here we are, 18 months later, still getting a significant amount of play.

ROB – Before it happened, we'd release an EP, an album, and we'd maybe get a few hundred streams. After it, we've released three singles and really ploughed into the marketing – did videos and all sorts of stuff, all completely self-funded, no label or anything – and we've got tens of thousands of streams on those new songs.

JAY – We've never had this level of fan base before. It’s really exciting.

ROB – The irony is Spotify stats are 90% skewed towards the US. I'm assuming Reddit is mainly a North American platform. It’s a kind of cruel blessing. We’re breaking America, but we can’t afford to play there!

How do you write your songs? Where do the ideas come from?

JAY – Sometimes there might be an idea from Tom or myself. It could be five notes or something. Then we'll jam around that, and shape it, and listen to it.

TOM – We have a high level of quality control. If we've been jamming around an idea for 4 or 5 weeks and nothing has come of it, that's a sign we need to bin it off. If we come to a rehearsal and one of us can’t remember the chord sequence, or whatever, a week later, that’s a sign that we need to think again.

JAY – That’s a sign of old age, that. Old age and hard living.

ROB – We’ve tried to come back to things, but we've always decided again, for the second time, that we binned it for a reason. It doesn't turn into a finished song until we've all had our hands on it.

What’s the best thing about being in a band?

ROB – Making noise with your mates.

TOM – Our drive here today was three and a half hours. That’s a long drive, but it's just been so much fun, hanging out with you guys, taking the piss out of each other.

JAY – I really enjoy the way that our music makes people feel when they're watching us, and the way they respond to us. I love that feeling. 

ROB – We’ve got a fan family of people we’ve really connected with. They love the band, and we love them. It’s like having those moments where you go, holy shit, what I’m doing actually matters to these people. It’s mind-blowing. We never take it for granted. 

What’s the worst thing about being in a band?

TOM – Back pain. Long days. Tiring days. But the bottom line is, if there were more negatives than positives, I don’t think any of us would still be doing it. We’ve always said, if we’re not having fun that’s when we’ll call it a day.

JAY – The hardest part for me is balancing it with family. But that’s not really been a problem. We have understanding spouses, and I’m really, really grateful for that.

ROB – We're in a different space than a band in their 20s. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want. We've got commitments.

If you could be in any band, not including All Hail Hyena, now or at any time, which would it be?

TOM – Easy. Queen.

ROB – I’m trying to think of a band that isn’t crazy and self-destructive and awful. Pixies.

JAY – I think I'd be in Flaming Lips.

What were you listening to in the car on the way here?

ROB – Pavement. Nirvana, Animal Collective, and Flaming Lips.

JAY – That's all that was in Tom’s CD collection. No Spotify playlists in his car.

Give us an album everyone should own.

JAY – ‘Carrie & Lowell’ by Sufjan Stevens. 

TOM – That’s a shit choice. ‘A Night at the Opera' by Queen.

ROB – ‘Five Leaves Left’ by Nick Drake. I think it’s coming to light that we don’t actually listen to the style of music we play! 

What's the best way to start the day?

TOM – Cigarette and a cup of tea.

ROB – Tea and toast.

JAY – Brush your teeth and then have a brew.

ROB – No, wouldn't you have the brew first and then brush your teeth?

JAY – No, no, no! You should not do that because if you get up and eat, there's still bacteria on your teeth from the night before, shitting all over your teeth. And then you add to it and they’ve got something else to shit.

What's something you think everyone should do at least once?

JAY – Get married. At least once.

ROB – Get divorced. Or try to learn a musical instrument. It just unlocks part of your brain. You don’t have to be good at it, just have a crack at it.

TOM – Go to Disney World. I've just been. Genuinely the most magical place I've ever been to, with not a scintilla of sarcasm. It made me feel like I was a 4-year-old boy again.

What's something you will never do again?

JAY – Get married!

ROB – I think I’d have to concur. I’m not doing that again.

TOM – Have children.

You're the condemned man. What are you having for your last meal?

JAY – Caviar. Why not? It’s horrible, but it's expensive. Yeah, I’ll eat fish eggs before being electrocuted.

ROB – Cheesy beans on toast, with a crack of black pepper on top.

TOM – Shit, that's such a good answer! I was just going to go with pizza. I’d happily eat pizza for every meal, and I don’t see why death row should be any different.

What's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you?

ROB – Being in seven car crashes and never sustaining life-changing injuries.

TOM – We were in one very serious crash together and both of us sustained only minor whiplash. I wasn’t driving.

JAY – I narrowly escaped death when my appendix nearly exploded.

ROB – We have an album called ‘3 Organs Down’ for a very good reason. We’ve all lost an organ. Two appendix and a gallbladder.

JAY – Should that be appendices? 

What the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?

ROB – I smoked a can pipe the wrong way round in front of lots of people. How old was I? Sixteen, maybe. First time I ever smoked weed. I’m smoking this can pipe and I’m like, oh yeah, this is great. It were the wrong way round. I was just sucking on the bottom of an aluminium can.

TOM – Yeah, the best bit was you telling us how good it was!

Do you have any advice for someone starting a career in music?

ROB – It's a shit business. 

TOM – True. Don't expect anyone to give a shit about what you're doing. You've just got to give a shit about what you're doing yourself. You should never take yourself seriously; just take what you do seriously.

Sound advice. What’s next for All Hail Hyena?

ROB – Because we have people in other countries that like our music, and we can't play for everyone, obviously, yesterday we filmed a live session in a church near Bolton that we’re going to do as a streaming gig that people can buy tickets for.

Thanks guys, we really appreciate you chatting with us today. The interrogation is over. Any final words?

ROB – Give us your money!

JAY – Support each other as much as humanly possible, because the music industry won't do that for you.

TOM – That's deep. Jay. To quote a great man, be excellent to each other.

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► All Hail Hyena are streaming now on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and elsewhere.

📸 Dave Shakespeare