‘Illegal Aliens’ is a protest song that’s highly political and unflinching. Delilah Bon is talking about what is actually happening: the brutality towards immigrants, families torn apart, thousands of children alone in detention camps, and the terrifying reality of ICE raids dominating American streets. When you hear the real events she is referencing, it is genuinely scary. The track covers a range of world topics, bringing issues to the table that too many artists are afraid to touch, and yes, the shadow of Trump’s America looms large over every word.

“People need protest music and now is the right moment to speak out,” Bon explains. “Seeing the brutality towards immigrants, many of which have lived and worked in the US their whole lives, imprisoned in these inhumane camps breaks my heart. There’s thousands of kids alone in those camps, families are searching for their loved ones.”

The track has already been censored and made inaccessible in certain regions, with audio muted on social media. All digital download proceeds will go to MIRAC (Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee), a grassroots charity helping immigrant families with groceries, legal advice, and protest organisation. A handful of songs from her back catalogue will also have proceeds donated this month.

The US tour cancellation came after fans flagged how potentially unsafe it would be for an LGBTQ+ protest artist to travel, given the current climate. “I have many POC fans that are in hiding, many trans fans who are afraid of being body searched by federal agents,” Bon shares. “It filled me with rage imagining my shows becoming a target.”

Rather than retreat, Delilah Bon is channelling that rage into a charity show in Leeds in May 2026. The event will raise money for immigrants impacted by ICE raids and family separation, with the entire show filmed professionally and potentially livestreamed for her overseas audience. She calls it “something historical” that will form part of a new documentary she is working on.

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Check out the clip below:

As you can probably see from the video, this amplifies the band’s message against animal cruelty, as well as exploitation.

The track has been performed for years by HOG and will be finally available on their upcoming release The Angry EP, out March 9th. This will be available for download, on CD digi-pak, and limited white vinyl.

Hands Off Gretel are also on tour later this year, see below for dates:

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The band told us in a statement this was all the songs performed live, but never released. The statement reads:

“WOOP!! We are so excited to be launching our new 3 Track EP that we recorded a few months ago at Tree House Studios with James Pinder! After a lot of people asked us to record the tracks ‘She Thinks She’s Punk Rock N Roll’, ‘Don’t Touch’ and ‘Bigger Than Me’ (songs that didn’t make the album) we decided to hit the studio and bring them to life for you! It’s LOUD, it’s NASTY, it’s all you need in 2020“.

The EP will be released on white or 4-panel digipack CD and will be released on March 9th. Pre-orders are available now via this link.

HOG has also announced an extensive UK headline tour for 2020. Check out the dates below:

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The album will be released on September 20th, via Lauren’s own label Trash Queen Records. 11 of the 14 tracks are produced by Lauren Tate herself.

The first single is ‘What About The Kids’ check out the video below:

Lauren had this to say about the new material:

“I planned to get my album produced by someone when I could afford it, but there was a certain magic and honesty captured in my recordings that I knew would really move people. My lyrics are honest and brutal with songs about domestic abuse, body image, feminism and fear of dying. I wanted it to sound like a girl writing in her diary, unapologetic and imperfect like real girls are.”

Featured image by Adam Kennedy

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As you may know, this band has gained a lot of attention from the online rock community for Lauren’s frank and shocking statements, even Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale responded with encouragement. So tonight, with hope, should be a peaceful environment for fans and performers alike. Think Tank? is possibly one of the best small venues in Newcastle, and hosts several rock and alternative gigs so Hands Off Gretel should fit in nicely. The first thing to note is that this place is packed, keeping in mind HOG have released both albums independently. Their latest offering, ‘I Want The World’, is possibly the album of 2019 so far.

Getting straight down to business with the new album’s title track, this is sure to be an amazing set. Minor detail but this is definitely a band who are always themselves. That sounds a bit odd, but there are so many bands out there who try to be something they aren’t. HOG mix influences from pop stars like Pink to grunge bands like Nirvana and Hole. There’s nothing like them out there. Four young people living their dreams and putting a positive message out there for future generations. This is what bands should be like in 2019.

Lauren leads the performance like any classic frontperson should, even owning up when she forgets a lyric or has hair in her mouth. This isn’t just the Lauren show though, this four-piece that work like the foundations of a skyscraper, each one is as important as the other. Last time we compared HOG to a “Well oiled machine”, and that hasn’t changed. Sam Hobbins’ drumming echoes through the room, Sean McAvinue’s unique, yet precise, guitars put you in mind of a young Kurt Cobain, and Becky Baldwin’s bass puts everything into place. A personal favourite of mine ‘Alien’  demonstrates this well.

Other than the spot-on musicianship, HOG’s young but layered lyrics are a big part of this band. Lauren explains how songs she writes like ‘Freaks Like Us’ can help her vent any frustration. It was only a matter of time before the social media comments came up. A voice from the back even exclaims “We love you Lauren!” which is a sweet moment.

This tour is a big win for the band, proving the haters wrong and that you shouldn’t go to see bands to leer at the opposite sex. HOG is possibly the best young band in the country, and you should be going to gigs for the music and atmosphere anyway. The Yorkshire rockers are highly recommended and they can 0nly get bigger. They have already upgraded venues, festivals like Download have to be in sight for this band too.

Photos by Adam Kennedy.

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The video is for ‘Freaks Like Us‘ and features the band on stage in vintage gear, along with footage of a man practising his dancing, and someone dressing like vocalist Lauren Tate. Check it out below:

Lauren Tate had this to say about the track:

“‘Freaks Like Us’ is an anthem for the outcasts; for those that ever feel misunderstood and alone. I really needed this song on my iPod when I was at school. The video takes me back to getting banned from performing at the school talent show, when I flipped the middle finger to the girls sat whispering and laughing at me in the audience. Writing this song for me was a way of saying ‘Just watch me’ embracing who I am and continuing to prove all that doubted me, wrong.”

Hands Off Gretel are currently touring the following dates:

20^th June – Bodega Nottingham

21^st June – Clwb Ifor Bach Cardiff

22^nd June – The 1865 Southampton

23^rd June – Suburbs The Holdroyd Guildford

4^th July – Louisiana – Bristol

5^th July – Shacklewell Arms – London

6^th July – The Prince Albert – Brighton

10^th July – Fulford Arms – York

11^th July – Think Tank? -Newcastle

12^th July – Broadcast – Glasgow

13^th July – Bannermans – Edinburgh

Festival Dates

15^th June Isle Of Wight Festival

20^th July Black Thorn Music Festival

26^th July Kendal Calling

21^st July Amplified Festival

4^th August Rebellion Festival

31 August Lindisfarne Festival

More TBC

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Hands Off Gretel were a bunch of grunge-loving guys and girls in Yorkshire in 2015 and decided to form a band making music you just don’t hear anymore. Fronted by songwriter Lauren Tate, with a clear vision in sight – this is going to be big. Fast forward to present day and they have just self-published their second album I Want The World on their own label ‘Puke Pop’, despite a crowd-funding campaign that wasn’t going to plan. All on their terms. This is the dream, right here.

That’s a great story, bro, but how does it sound? Fantastic. As mentioned earlier: this is music you just don’t hear anymore. An amalgamation of the 1990s and 2000s alternative rock. You can hear elements of PJ Harvey, The Distillers, Green Day, Hole, Nirvana, Garbage…the list goes on. Very forward thinking for a band this young, the 90s are back in terms of fashion, gaming, movies, and now in up-and-coming bands. A lot of these tracks follow the quiet/loud/quiet method made famous by The Pixies and Nirvana, as seen in tracks like ‘My Fault’. Opening track ‘Kiss Me Girl’ kicks you between the legs from the start…in a good way! The attitude continues with the ever-so-catchy ‘SASS’.

It’s apparently this band are the total opposite of bands like Paramore, who have turned into a pop group to sell more records. HOG could easily sell out a tour being themselves, forever. Even so, there’s a sprinkling of angst-y popstars like Pink in Lauren Tate’s vocal stylings, incorporating elements of pop, hip-hop, punk and even echoes of Blondie. We are only into the second track and this is the most versatile rock album of 2019.

Although Lauren is on the album cover and is a big part of the album, this isn’t a one-woman show: Sean’s guitar is very versatile going from 90s alt-rock to punk, indie and post-hardcore on the following track ‘Big Boy‘. Becky Baldwin’s bass and vocal is also a huge element in this record and Sam Hobbins is possibly the next Dave Grohl. This is a very apparent team effort.  By the title-track, this feels like a punk-rock selection box for even the most casual rocker. ‘Freaks Like Us’ is the grunge power ballad that really sets this album aside from everything else today. The subject matter is also one a lot of their fans can relate to. I won’t ruin anything but give it a listen.

‘I Want The World‘ is a very apt title because they will get the world if this is the quality of music they are making.  I’d compare this to Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind‘ or Metallica’s self-titled ‘Black Album’ because this is what will bring all of the eyes on them. No doubt fans will be dressing in Day-Glo vintage fashions and forming their own bands and next thing you know HOG are headlining festivals. Or so they should be soon.

Hopefully, that is a good enough case why this is THE one album you need to hear this year. HOG’s own brand of grunge-pop is the future of rock n roll. The Yorkshire four-piece are on tour soon, you need to check them out. I never saw Nirvana or Linkin Park live, but I am so glad I can still hear these songs live.

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RAMzine: So what is your new album all about?

Lauren Tate (vocals/ guitar): Overall I’d say the album is from the perspective of a young girl that feels she doesn’t fit in or belong anywhere. For a lot of my life, I’ve been told to keep my opinions to myself, shut up and just conform to what everyone else is doing, especially during my school years not so long ago. I wanted to channel a lot of frustration mixed with an attitude of ‘I want to be a star’. A lot of the songs are about wanting more from people that hurt me and striving to prove people wrong, fingers crossed I can do just that with this album, I want more than anything people just like me to connect with it.

RAMzine: This is quite a long album, did you record more that you couldn’t fit on this record?

Sam Hobbins (Drums): No, it was a pretty lengthy process of whittling down the songs that were lined up for the album. It was a conscious decision to keep the album a little shorter than our previous one. Keep it a little more to the point and in your face. I’m sure we will do something with the songs left over as some of them made it into our live set and people have been asking for studio versions.

RAMzine: The album started as a Pledge campaign. The campaign ended – why did it change?

Becky Baldwin (bass/vocals): We ended our Pledge Music campaign early and started collecting pre-orders and funds on our website instead. We had reached 100% of our goal on Pledge Music within 24 hours, so it was a huge success… But by the end of January, news had started to come out from other bands who had been using the platform, saying they hadn’t been paid by the site and the debts were still outstanding from over a year ago! By this point we had exceeded 240% of our campaign goal, meaning the company now owed us over 25K and we had also noticed that our first payment was late. As a new, independent band we can’t afford to pay for products and send merchandise out to our fans if we aren’t going to receive the money for it, so we acted quickly and moved the album campaign to our website. We are currently at over 200% of our new target, which is amazing that our fans have come to the rescue! The fans are the only ones that have stepped in to help us. But it’s still very disappointing that our first effort has gone to waste and that Pledge have lost the money of many of our dedicated fans. Pledge has been extremely vague about what has happened, why they have lost band’s money… It’s hard to really process how bad the situation has become! It’s stopped us from being able to chart the album and with well over a thousand sales we think we may have made an impact.

RAMzine: Are pledges the way forward for young bands? 

Lauren: I think it works for some but not all. A load of people have messaged me asking how we did so well doing a crowd-funder and if I recommend it to them. Really it depends entirely on your fanbase and whether or not you have one big enough to support you the way ours did. I’ve built our fanbase up organically since my solo career when I was 14. It took years to get to this point where we are able to do what we are doing. Our connection with our fans is real, I know pretty much all their names off by heart and that’s important to me especially when they are so passionate about the music it makes everything so personal and exciting. After Pledge Music screwed us over I was really worried we wouldn’t be able to get back on our feet, but our fans turned that situation around for us and got together stronger than ever helping us by donating and re-ordering items Pledge Music still owed them. We were able to re-coup the 25K we lost from Pledge Music for a second time via our own website within a few months!

RAMzine: As you are inspired by grunge and 90s style alt rock – do you think the current music scene needs a kick up the backside? 

Sean McAvinue (Guitar): I would argue that art can come from any and all places, that contemporaneous happenings are what drive it and are sometimes irrelevant to the finished piece. There are some amazing bands, with amazing songs that will exist because they hate their town, or local scene, or the state of music in general and wish to change the set formula with their art… and there are definitely others whose sole focus is their music – they create because they need to create, and if change occurs via this creation, hindsight deconstruction is a wonderful tool. I did feel the music scene needed a kick up the arse until I really joined it; I have seen some INCREDIBLE artists that prove art transcends whatever the media, or them PubeyPies or whoever off YouTube tell you is the ‘Next Big Thing’.

People power (see our Pledge debacle and subsequent salvation via the sheer fucking brilliance of people power for example!) can easily change a perceived era or scene, and with access to information like we have now, trends mean less than they did. The internet has truly humanized art – giving us the potential for the best-to-the-worst to come to stimulate us – we just need to stop accepting the horseshit that’s fed to us and LOOK for that which emotes and motivates. That being said, don’t look at my browser history. Christ.

RAMzine: A lot of your songs follow themes of bullying and mental health- do you think it’s important for bands to address these issues?

Lauren: For me, music was my biggest escape. I looked up to role models that I couldn’t find elsewhere, these we real people that talked about emotions that in everyday life nobody really did. I resonated so well with artists like P!nk who for me sang all the time about how she felt outcasted and alone from others. I’d sit in the school toilets at school with my earphones in skipping class and it felt like she was sat there with me. I think if artists like myself have the power and voice to address these issues they should, it saved me in many ways and I’d love to be that for someone else.

RAMzine: The way you dress and merch is a big part of your identity- where do you get your style from? 

Lauren: My style has changed and evolved so much over the years. I get bored really easy of the same things so I’m constantly thinking of ways to re-invent myself. The fun will start when I figure out how to work the sewing machine though haha! I theme the merchandise and the whole band aesthetic around my style, it’s a whole package really. I think style is really important with music, it almost makes you into a cartoon version of yourself and makes you and your brand easily recognisable. Even now so early in my career, it’s crazy to see people trying to imitate and copy me be it my hair or clothes or overall band aesthetic haha, I’m never sure if I should feel flattered or creeped out. I guess people see what I’m doing and instead of being themselves and working with that they are actually just trying to be me, it’s a sign that I’m doing something right I guess.

RAMzine: Your new album is available on cassette and vinyl as well as CD- are physical format still important? Or is this one for the nerdy collectors? 

Sam: I think music fans are usually somewhat nerdy and into collecting by default. We had loads of requests for vinyl as it seems to have made quite a comeback so thought we’d offer as many platforms as possible, and yeah they’re definitely still important. Years after CDs and USB sticks and digital downloads people are still into picking up the vinyl.

RAMzine: Are you planning any tours or festivals this year?

Becky: Yes! We begin our album tour in June, with those dates being announced this week! Until then, we have a few select gigs around the UK, including our two amazing album launch parties in London and Barnsley (28th and 29th March), and 4 dates with ‘This Feeling’ events which we are very excited about! This summer’s festivals so far include Rebellion, Camden Rocks, Amplified and Lindisfarne. We plan to tour in Europe later this year.

RAMzine: Finally, do you have any other plans for the future? 

Lauren: Yeah! We plan to record a few more of the tracks that didn’t make it on the album, lots more music videos and singles to come. Looking at touring more of Europe and doing lots more writing. It’s going to be a crazy year! Can’t wait for it!

Hands Off Gretel’s new album is available now via their website.

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The attitude-oozing video features the band taking over a skatepark, check it out below:

The album is released on March 29th via their own label: Puke Pop Records.  You can pledge to this record and purchase extras by clicking here.

Vocalist Lauren Tate had this to say about the album:

“I Want The World is a song about how I’ve always felt since I was young. It’s me pouting like a child and saying ‘no! I want more than what this world is going to give me.’ I channel Veruca Salt from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory when I sing it. I am being obstreperous and impossible like a child, kicking and screaming until I get what I want… It feels like I wrote this album 6 years ago in a school toilet whilst skipping class and hiding from the world,” continues Lauren. “The way I felt so ostracized and alone like I didn’t fit in anywhere. It became my mission to sing for the outcasts, the weird kids, the ones that feel mis-represented in society and left behind like I do. I made it my obligation at 15 to make as much noise as possible as a young woman, to challenge everything.”

The album includes singles ‘SASS’ and ‘Kiss Me Girl’ as well as 10 other new tracks.

Check out Hands Off Gretel at the following dates:

Sat 19th Jan – ‘Big In 2019’ This Feeling – Nambucca London

Thurs 28th March – London Album Launch – Nambucca London

Fri 29th March – Home Town album Launch – Old School House Venue Barnsley, South Yorkshire

April tour – ‘This Feeling’ Tour

Sat 6th April – Brighton – Hope & Ruin

Sat 20th April – Sheffield Café Totem

26^th April – Glasgow – Broadcast

27^th April – Edinburgh – Edinburgh

Confirmed festival dates:

Camden Rocks Festival – 2^nd June 2019

Amplified Festival – 21^st July 2019

Rebellion Festival – Aug 2019

 Check out what we thought of Hands Off Gretel live in Newcastle, here.

Also check out our interview with the band in issue 21 of RAMzine.

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This issue we take a look back at The Answer’s Rise in our RAMzine Classic series. We also review nineteen brand new releases. Stand out releases being… the new sophomore release by I Am Pariah, Clevedon based Kikamora‘s Masquerade and Belgian band, The RG’s The Cricket Sound.

Also including reviews of: Dirge, Behemoth, Flight, Crooked Teeth, AZUSA, Eluveitie, Atria, Steve Kilbey, Ginger Wildheart,  Sabaton, Unearth, Rifflord, The RG’s, Metal Church, Gotthard, Amon Amarth, CommonWealth.

https://beta.ramzine.co.uk/product/ramzine-issue-21

Read the full version here:

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