The Second Coming: Once Signed To Sony, Dirty Circus Are Back – And Hungrier Than Ever

“Mike Pickering drove up from London for the gig. It was in an old cinema in Wigan. It was massive. The gig was sold out and it just went off. It was wild, literally wild. I was getting dragged into the crowd and everything. We get off stage and Mike goes ‘I’m signing you. We’ll sort the deal tomorrow.’ It was like something out of a movie.”

Chris Binns, lead singer

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Dirty Circus began life as a gregarious six-piece, touting a raucous brand of immersive indie-rock. Formed in Wigan around 2005, they gigged heavily for six months, built a sizeable following and seemingly had the world at their feet.

They went on tour with the Happy Mondays – including a show at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax. They played Glastonbury. And they did, indeed, sign a deal with Sony’s premier label, Columbia Records, after that fateful encounter with the famous Mike Pickering in an old cinema in Wigan. (Several other major labels were chasing them at the time.)

But the debut album for Sony didn’t see the light of day for another 14 years.

Chris: “We signed at the wrong time. Record labels weren’t making any money. Sony had lost a lot of money on the Kasabian album and they were letting a lot of bands go. They offered us a way out of our contract, so we took it. It was quite a lot of money at the time and we assumed we’d get another label but it just never happened.”

It was a decade of enormous transition for the majors who were, in some respects, caught off-guard by developments in digital and, in particular, the emergence of streaming platforms. Dirty Circus, hamstrung by their contract, unable to get music released and playing hardly any gigs, needed a way out. They got one. But it heralded the end of the band.

Chris: “We started falling out with each other. Everybody started blaming each other. You’re in your early twenties, you’re given your dream job and you think you’re set for life, then you lose it. Obviously, resentments start to build.”

Following the dissolution of the band, which turned out to be a somewhat protracted affair, Chris embarked on a musical odyssey of a very different kind. Turning away from his rock roots, he dived headfirst into the nascent alt-electro scenes that were quickly coalescing around the likes of The Weeknd, Jamie xx, Caribou and Sbtrkt.

Chris: “2010 was like a year zero for me, musically. I’d always been massively into hip-hop, breakbeat and dance music. I just decided to learn how to use Logic and write my own songs.”

After meeting up at a wedding in 2016, Dirty Circus briefly reformed as a four-piece. They did a bunch of jubilant reunion gigs, primarily playing the old material and, after tracking down the master tapes, finally released that debut Sony album – What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Worse – in 2019.

But today’s iteration of the band is markedly different. Now a streamlined trio of Chris on vocals, multi-instrumentalist Stevie Ahern and Ryan Whittle on drums, they have fashioned an entirely new sound built around Chris’s deep exploration of electronic music.

Chris: “The new sound, it’s got everything. It’s from R&B. From mixtapes. It’s got loads of echo. It’s got some mad Prince guitars. Fourtet is definitely in there. We’ve got breakbeats. There’s a couple of tracks that are still quite rocky. It’s got spoken word.…”

It’s genre-flitting, for sure. And feels rebellious. But not in an old-school punk kind of way. These new songs confidently flaunt sophistication and knowledge. There’s a determinism here to stand apart from the crowd. Dirty Circus II, while infectiously energetic to the core, also smacks of intelligence, nuance and efficiency.

They have so far released three tracks from their bank of new material, with an album ready to go in the summer.

Latest single Things Have Got To Change is, appropriately enough, a call to arms, a fightback of sorts, a declaration. But a controlled one. Spacious house synths and steam-funk opulence abound, like a Jamie xx loop from his In Colour era, with micro-traces of Burial bobbing away at street level. There are further modern electro adornments a la Caribou, as well as a swell of retro 90s indie-dance that harks back to the heady Madchester days of Paris Angels or World Of Twist.

The B-side is a bug-eyed, space-hopping, clubland stomper – a remix of an old track called Sunshine that has been eloquently re-crafted by Dean Horner of Moonlandingz, I Monster and The All Seeing.

Previous single Gloom is, by considerable contrast, a hefty barrage of electro-static with a serious measure of industrial grit and zeal. It’s an unabashed soul-rattling assault of the senses for the most part, with sumptuous breakdowns quite psychotically flipping your noggin when least expected.

The album has been recorded at Airtight Studio with Joel Anthony Patchett, the man behind The Orielles’ 2022 album, the experimental texture-fetish that is Tableau.

Chris: “He gets it. He’s cool. He’s contemporary. We booked in for 10 days at Airtight but did it all in five. We recorded 17 tunes, 16 with final mixes. The other lads had never heard the tunes before, my demos. Whittle put his drum tracks down for all 16 songs in one day. It just shows there’s real chemistry between us. We’re really happy with it all.”

One of the new singles, Gloom, has already been picked up by 6Music, without any promotion. Chris favours the organic approach, having experienced very different versions of the music business – the old one, driven by A&R executives and human ear, and today’s, where there’s a sharp focus on data and a reliance on social media muscle.

Chris: “The whole landscape has changed. Back in the day, if you played a lot of gigs and you were good, you got noticed. Now, that’s not the case. A&R don’t even go to gigs anymore like they used to. There’s a lot of great bands out there that are just never going to get picked up because they’re not very good on social media. The whole industry is screwed up. And you’ve got all these fake streams and shit. It’s mind bending. It’s a weird industry to work out.”

Today’s landscape may be different, very different, to 20 years ago when Dirty Circus were gigging around the North West every weekend to salivating crowds. But Chris is adamant the band has more relevance now than ever before and is determined their second coming lasts longer than the first.

Chris: “I feel like we’ve got unfinished business. We’re a great band. We’re a brilliant band. I want as many people to hear the new record as possible and I want us to play some great gigs. The reason we’re still doing it is because we all feel like there’s a point to prove.”

In support of the album, Dirty Circus will be playing a number of shows throughout 2025. Their first, at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, is particularly exciting for Chris who has long carried an obsession for Andrew Weatherall.

Chris: “Oh man. When we were kids, he was the ultimate. I remember having a meeting with Sony in Manchester. They said: ‘Who do you want to work with for your first album?’ I was like ‘Weatherall’. They were talking about us going to the US. I said ‘Weatherall.’ We had some conversations with Butch Vig. But I was just like ‘Weatherall. Weatherall. Weatherall.’ That’s all I wanted.

“But The Lion, you know, you’ve also got people like Andy Votel. He’s another hero. That whole Twisted Nerve era. Working Men’s Club. It’s that connection with electronic music.”