We interview Emmie-Mae and Billy Doyle of Man/Woman/Chainsaw to discuss their debut album, Cannonball, their sonic evolution, and making room for silliness.

Date published: 7th Aug 2026

Where much of London’s art-rock scene trades in severity and mystique, Man/Woman/Chainsaw arrive grinning.

Formed in the music rooms of their sixth form, the six-piece first made their mark by densely packing songs with serrated guitars, anxious violins, sudden eruptions and structures that always seemed seconds away from tearing themselves apart. That volatility still tears through their music, but years spent growing together have made room for more of themselves to spill through: their innate warmth, silliness and willingness to indulge in poppier instincts.

Their debut album, Cannonball, captures that evolution in full force. With the record out today via Fiction Records, we caught up with Emmie-Mae Avery and Billy Doyle to discuss embracing pop without losing the chaos, turning a team-building exercise into one of their best songs, translating studio ambition to the stage, and how their debut finds six friends growing ever more comfortable being entirely themselves.

 

 

Before we dive into the record, I’d love to get a bit of context around how the band reached this point. You’ve got this great story that stretches back to sixth-form music rooms. How did those college jams turn into Man/Woman/Chainsaw?

Emmie-Mae: "I think, for the most part, we all knew each other, but the music came first, and then the closeness came second. 

"We’d do some projects together in school, just when we got put into random groups, and we got along really well. But I don’t think I would have been able to call anyone who’s in the band now one of my ‘best mates’ when we were in school; that’s definitely come afterwards. 

"It’s also really nice because it’s hard to keep in contact with the rest of the people we went to school with, even the ones I felt really close to then. I don’t really see them anymore, so it’s nice that we still have us."

Billy: "We kind of joined in stages. I’d say it was three stages, right?"

Emmie-Mae: "Stage one was Billy and Vera, then stage two was me, Lola and Clio, and then you."

Billy: "And then me, yeah."

 

A lot of that early material came from experimentation and you all playing together, figuring things out. It gained a lot of praise for those experiments in noise, but it feels like these newer tracks move away from that slightly and begin to find an identity beyond the chaos. How has that been for you, and how has the writing process changed since those early singles?

Emmie-Mae: "I think the sort of thing we were doing when we first started out was maybe following a bit of a trend of what other stuff was around us. We were young and excited about that sort of music, and I think that’s why we wrote in the style that we did.

"It was also just a bit of fun back then. We didn’t really take it very seriously. I think what’s probably changed is that we’ve grown up a bit, our tastes have changed, and we’ve realised that we want to maybe just write music that we would also listen to normally."

Billy: "We also all got better at our instruments."

Emmie-Mae: "That too. Actually, I've definitely got worse. I don’t know what you’re talking about."

 

 

Part of that changing taste seems to be embracing poppier music. That really comes across on the record, but you also haven’t lost the weirdness and edge that made the old material appealing. How did you start to balance those things as you moved into this new phase: retaining what people loved while embracing the pop music you yourselves love?

Billy: "That’s quite a good question. I actually don’t think we think about it. That’s probably the easiest answer.

"I feel like we probably just want people to watch the gig and sing along to the songs, which is easier to do when there’s a clear chorus.

Emmie-Mae: "I think we’re still the same people as we were years ago, so it’s natural for us to still have a similar sound coming from us because it’s the same brains cooking up whatever.

"But I think we’ve just learned better how to play with each other. There’s more of a good mush now, where we leave space for each other and are able to highlight certain people, rather than all playing over each other a bit. It just comes with practice, I guess."

 

That bit of space really stood out to me on the record, whether in certain parts of different songs or across whole tracks.

Billy: "Yeah, I remember that being one of the standout comments from reviews of the EP. It was like, 'It’s good, but it’s very busy, and I can’t hear one single thing.'"

"Maybe that was something we unconsciously took on board, like, 'Okay, let’s fix that.' It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, though."

 

One of the things I love about that journey from the bands you listened to and wanting to make this really big wall of noise towards the poppier music you love is that you puncture the mystique that a lot of bands in your genre try to build around themselves. Whether that’s embracing silliness, walking out to “In Da Club” or being open about your love of pop songs in interviews, is that lack of preciousness important to how you work?

Emmie-Mae: "Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be a mysterious musician. I just don’t think that’s any of us. We’re all just a bit silly, really, and loud."

Billy: "I also just think, we live in a shit time; don’t take yourself too seriously. Just have a bit of fun. Maybe it’s a bit more personable, and people can feel like they’re along for the ride with you. I don’t know. I just think, yeah, have fun.

"Maybe when we’re on our fifth album we’ll be like, “Yeah, this is serious now.'"

 

Image: Charlie & Charlie

So, Cannonball is out on August 7th. At what point did the album begin to crystallise for you? I’ve read that some of the songs were written all the way back in 2024, so when did it come together as the record it is now?

Emmie-Mae: "Probably when someone said, 'Oh, we should probably do an album now.'"

Billy: "Last year we did more writing, we got a record deal, and then we were like, 'Oh damn, we’re legally obliged to make something now.'

"It’s weird because the recording took quite a long time. I don’t think there was one moment where it was like, “Oh, this is starting to feel like a record now,” until literally maybe the other day, when we got the physical copies.

"We could play them on a record player and see the artwork and everything. It was like, 'Well, this is actually done. This is basically completely out of our hands and finished. There we go.'"

 

How does it feel to have the physical record in your hands? Is it a bit crazy?

Emmie-Mae: "It looks thick. I played it on my record player the other day, and it sounded pretty good, although my record player is a little bit fast, so we all sounded slightly like chipmunks."

 

There were a few tracks that particularly stood out on a first listen. Coming back to what we were saying about the new, poppier material, 'Canyons', 'Lighter' and 'Snakebite' all begin a little more slowly. In different ways, they carry restraint and tension that builds and then erupts. It’s funny seeing the waveforms of those tracks, where they’re just flowing. Could you talk to me about those songs and the tension and release throughout the record?

Billy: "'Canyons” was quite a late one to arrive on the album. I think, at that point, we were definitely getting better at listening to each other and giving each other space.

"'Snakebite' is old."

Emmie-Mae: "Yeah, it’s the B-section of a longer song that we used to play and now don’t, which we may or may not bring back at some point."

Billy: "Then 'Lighter' - I love that song; it’s one of my favourites on the record. I really enjoy how it’s a bit of a down moment within the whole thing. It’s nice to have that on a record.

"I think we all kind of 'work' musically there quite well, and then obviously there’s Vera with the really beautiful lyrics. For me, that one is quite special.

"I really love playing it live. It feels good to play live, and we play it a bit differently live."

Emmie-Mae: "It’s like a breath of fresh air in the set. Playing that makes us take a second."

 

It’s interesting that you mention the difference between the old and new tracks. Can you hear that difference yourselves, and the progress and maturity in the writing?

Emmie-Mae: "I think so, a bit. In the last stint of us needing to write songs quickly, we actually came up with some of, I think, all of our favourites: 'Canyons', 'Nosedive', 'Something Else to Give' and 'The Thing'.

"I think they’re all some of our absolute favourite tracks on the album, and I do think there’s a slightly different sound to them.

"Obviously, there are some we’ve had for a couple of years. Maybe we’re just biased because we know they’re old, but I think there’s a bit of grit in some of the ones we wrote more recently.

"I don’t know how to describe exactly what it is, but there’s a little sprinkle of something in there."

 

 

You’ve taken the words out of my mouth because two of those are the next tracks I wanted to talk about. First is “Nosedive”, because I think it’s such an excellent tune. I’ve had it on repeat since it came out. That arpeggiated synth and the way the violin interacts with it is really cool.

Emmie-Mae: That’s all Clio. Both of those bits. She cooked that.

 

What was it like writing and developing that track?

Billy: "It was interesting. We split into two groups. We were a bit at a loss during a week of writing, and we decided to do a stupid activity that felt like one of those hellish assignments you get given in sixth form, like a team-bonding thing. But it actually really worked.

"Emmie, Billy [Ward] and Vera did the lyrics. Emmie had some lyrics before, then some more got added, and the structure became more apparent. Clio, Lola, and I did the musical side of it.

"I remember Clio was playing quite a few chords on the synth. She’d take two notes, and I was like, “Just take it…” She couldn’t keep playing the chords while also [playing the changing part], so I said, 'Just tape down one chord, then we’ll change underneath you and have that constantly throughout,' which was maybe a bit annoying."

Emmie-Mae: "It was weird because we did that literally by picking names out of a hat. We were like, 'Okay, let’s not speak to each other for two hours, and then come back.'"

"We expected that we’d have two separate ideas for two separate songs. We didn’t pick a key or a tempo or anything. Then, when we came back into the room and saw what each other had done, we were like, 'Holy shit. This is a step down from the key we were writing in, and it’s the same tempo.'

"It was obviously a very different vibe. The lyrics and melody we were working on were quite sad, and then they were like, 'Disco dance time.' 

"We all agreed and were just like, 'Sandwich it!'"

 

 

The next one I’d love to talk about is “Something Else to Give”, the album closer and most recent single. The atmosphere is really intoxicating, particularly the drum groove, vocals and violin. How did that song develop, and why did you choose it to close the record? It feels like a natural closer sonically.

Billy: "Vera literally had, I think, one chord. She was strumming one chord on a guitar and singing the chorus, and then we expanded from there and all these other elements got added.

"It felt like a natural closer, just with the grandiose stabs and then the constant repetition of the lyric in the part after it.

"It’s not the heaviest song, but it feels like a nice way to end an album. Also, it’s called 'Something Else to Give', so maybe we’ve got more to give. I guess it kind of mirrors that.

"I can’t really remember why; we just felt that way."

Emmie-Mae: "It was something where we were looking over the songs we had - even when we didn’t have 10 songs ready to go and probably only had four - we were like, 'Oh, this feels like the end of it.' We didn’t have everything else to look at yet.

"We wondered if 'Nosedive' should be the closer at one point, but we were like, 'Nah, end them on a loop so they want to play it again.'

Billy: "Funny enough, my dad’s favourite moment is the same as yours with the beginning with the violin, bass and drums. He loves that part. He’s like, 'This is so good.'"

 

I’d love to move on to the production of the record. Margo Broom and Seth Evans co-produced it. What were they like to work with? Did they challenge any of your assumptions, or were they primarily helping you bring what you already wanted to life?

Billy: "There were challenges that were good and important. Because I’d never really been in a studio before recording. I had for the singles, but never doing an album.

"They were definitely telling us how we could get the most out of each other and the most out of the songs, which was really good. They had some great ideas for the songs as well.

"At the end of 'Nosedive', there’s this gang vocal that we were a bit reluctant to do because we thought it would sound like Matilda. Then we did it, and it added a new level to the song. It lifts it in such a beautiful way.

"That wouldn’t be there if we hadn’t worked with them. There are a lot of moments like that on the record, but I can’t think of all of them right now. It was lovely.

"We did it on 'Nosedive', and then we did it on some of the other tracks as well. Thank God it’s down in the mix a bit, but on 'The Thing' we also do a gang vocal, and that does sound like Matilda.

"It also sounded worse without it, so we just kind of left it."

 

“The Thing” seems like it would be a really fun one to play live.

Emmie-Mae: "It's my favourite right now for sure"

Billy: "Yeah, it’s brilliant live."

 

Image: Charlie & Charlie

Speaking of the live show, the production on the record felt quite tangible and live to me. You built your sound by playing hundreds of gigs. Was translating that live quality onto the album something you spoke about, or was it another happy accident?

Billy: "Maybe a bit of both. I think that was the direction they wanted for most of the record: something that could be done live easily and could be our first stamp on the world. So I think it was a by-product of that."

Emmie-Mae: "I remember them saying that definitely from an instrumentation perspective. I think the vocals were more produced.

"A lot of the time, Vera had demos of songs and vocal stacks ready to pull up on a laptop in Logic. She’d be like, 'I’m just going to get in the booth, and I’ll let you know when to give me a new track.'

"You’d leave the room for half an hour, come back and be like, 'Whoa.' Especially on 'Lighter', she really cooked hard on that."

 

Some of the more recent tracks were quite studio-heavy in their creation. Have you run into any trouble adapting them for the live show? Have you changed anything, or has it been straightforward?

Billy: "I think we’ve got most of them down. We’ve changed things, not because they were necessarily hard, but because we wanted to do them a bit differently live.

"We are struggling with one: 'Still Angry.' We haven’t quite nailed that one yet for live."

Emmie-Mae: "There are two examples that were our main challenges in translating things live. One was the synth in 'Nosedive'. We had to get an SPD to get that synth in there, which is fine. We’ve also added microphones for everybody else so we can do the gang vocal, which is lovely.

"The other one was 'Lighter.' For the most part, it’s the same. Then, in the end section, where it’s more produced on the recording and the vocal stacks come in, we’ve changed it so we can dig in a bit. We’ve made it quite a bit heavier live, which isn’t on the album.

"Which is something you’ll get to see if you come to one of our shows.

"It’s kind of mad we didn’t record it that way, but hey!"

 

A little bit of extra spice for the live show.

Billy: "Exactly."

 

It has been great chatting with you. The album feels like it captures this version of Man/Woman/Chainsaw. Does releasing it feel like an arrival point, or are you already thinking about something new?

Emmie-Mae: "Yes, but I’m also like, 'Oh, we need to start writing album two now.'"

Billy: "Yeah, we have a record deal; we need to finish it.

"On to the next one!"

 

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Man/Woman/Chainsaw's debut record, Cannonball, is out now. Find streaming links, vinyl, CDs, and more by clicking or tapping - HERE

 

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Header image credit: Charlie & Charlie