Clean Cut Kid unleash infectious pop track "Make Believe"

"Make Believe" is a bright new offering from the Liverpudlian quartet - it's got a focus on sharp riffs and melodies, with their signature harmonies weaving through the pop-rock with aplomb. They've proved time and time again that they've got the chops to go all the way.

The single, which debuted as Annie Mac's Hottest Record In The World last night, is out now via Babe Magnet/Polydor.

Can you tell us about Make Believe?

"Make Believe" is our latest single and it’s out today! We’ve been playing it a while in our live shows and it’s always a highlight in the set. The breakdown bit is always cool coz everyone claps along and tries to sing but no one - til now - has known the words!

What's it about?

This song's about the last moments of a failed relationship when you turn to the girl/guy and say “just for a moment, can we pretend like it’s the first time we fell in love and everything's okay?. The recording sounds so happy, but it’s really not when you break it down.

How do you think it sounds?

We love it. It was a long process getting this one recorded and mixed, so it’s boss to finally have a version we’re happy with. We particularly love the mix, done by Michael Brauer who also did our last single "We Used To Be In Love". We also know we love it because we filmed the video the other day and when you film your music videos the track gets played again and again again and again. It’s always a good test to see if you’re really into it, if you’re sick of it by the end of the day or not. We didn’t get sick of it, so good sign!

What side of Clean Cut Kid does it show off?

It shows our favourite side, the side where we take sad subjects and make the arrangements happy and uptempo... we like the juxtaposition of happy songs with sad arrangements and vice versa. It also shows the fuzzy heavier side to the band. There’s nothing clean or particularly ‘safe’ about the production, and we’re glad we’ve been able to do that and still have so much support.

How did the single come together?

Mike wrote it around the time we signed our record deal. When the labels were all putting forward their offers, they were trying to gauge just how much we could do as a band, how quickly we could write, turn around singles, how hard we worked basically... but without asking us outright. They asked Mike how quickly he could write ‘singles’ and he said "I’ll have one written and demoed by our next meeting.” He went to that meeting at the end of the week with "Make Believe" demoed up and was like “here you go!”

Now the dust has settled on your busy summer, have you had time to reflect?

We’ve still been flat-out busy since it finished, so there’s not been much time for reflecting but when we look back we feel really proud of ourselves for how much we achieved. It was a packed summer, and I think people don’t always realise when you do that many festivals you’re not AT the festivals getting to see it all, watching bands and chilling - it’s a lot of work, a quick turn around, and you can easily get burnt out. We sometimes had three festivals in three days in completely different places so it’s all a bit of a blur really! We managed to pick up a load of fans and get a lot of radio love across those 32 festival dates though, so it felt like it built naturally but at a really exciting pace. What we wanted the summer to do for us, it definitely did.

What's the craziest thing that happened while you were trekking around all the festivals?

We got evacuated at The Big Feastival due to lightning. We found it really funny but it was pretty extreme when we look back on it. The storm started and the rain was pretty bad so that stopped the main stage... then the lightning started and we got dragged from our cabin backstage (because they were metal) and shouted at to run to get into the main arena where it was safer. There were these metal grates to stop the vans from slipping and security were literally screaming “don’t walk on the grids you’ll die!” on account of the lightning. We were laughing and joking about it until some lightning hit the ground next to us and then we realised ‘actually, this is pretty bad'. It was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard, like a gun going off next to you and it shook the ground so much I nearly fell over. This went on for about two hours, then we saw Alex James running round backstage with a face like thunder coz the cheese tent had been destroyed and the cheese didn’t make it. He was gutted. We didn’t get to play which was a bummer but it was a fun day out for Clean Cut Kid.

What are you working on now?

Debut album! It’s nearly done, we have three weeks in December booked in to finish up. We’re super happy with what we’ve done so far, it’s been amazing to even be making our debut record. We feel so lucky to have been given this opportunity.

What's next for the band?

We go on our UK headline tour 19 October, finishing up on 30 October. Then we go on tour with The Courteeners in November where we’ll be playing our first arena shows. In between all of that we’ll be finishing the album. It’s gonna be a busy-but-boss end to the year and we can’t wait for the next one to start.