#75: Shit Present: 'In the UK, we say “shit” for everything. It’s barely a swear word'

Going deep on shit ideas with Iona Cairns

Shit Present, from left: guitarist/bassist Thom Weeks, drummer Ben Cottam, and guitarist-vocalist Iona Cairns. Photo by Ali Cairns.

This is the Band Name Bureau way: Approach an artist to talk about band names, then slip a discussion about mental health into the otherwise light chat about whether their name gets censored on flyers.

In the case of “emo pop rock punk indie guitar-based music project or whatever” Shit Present, it’s no digression. Mental health is a prominent theme on the British trio’s excellent new full-length, What Still Gets Me (Specialist Subject), and also shows up on the band’s preceding two EPs. Their best-known song is called “Anxious Type,” so it’s not just me and my tendency to ask bummer questions!

Those EPs came out in 2015 and 2016, respectively, which makes it surprising that seven years passed before Shit Present released their debut full-length. That’s an eternity in just about any era of popular music, but especially in the go-go Streaming Era, when it’s especially challenging for artists to find traction.

Again it comes back to mental health. Shit Present founder and singer-guitarist Iona Cairns faced some challenges with hers between releases. We get into it below, as well as the pitfalls of telling your boss about your shit band. It’s been edited for clarity blah blah blah.

Band Name Bureau: The thing with having a name like Shit Present is that people are gonna want to ask you about it, I’m guessing. In this old interview, you said, “It’s a double entendre, and I don’t want to talk about it.” When people have asked you about it in the past, what have you said?

Iona Cairns: You know what, I really don’t think many people have ever asked about it.

BNB: Really?

IC: I really don’t think they have. We haven’t actually done very much. I don’t if that’s part of it, or people are just like, “Whatever, it’s a stupid name,” and take it at face value and that’s just kind of been it.

BNB: So are you still not talking about the origins of the name?

IC: No, I’m very happy to talk about it. Let’s do it.

I honestly don’t actually have a great story. I just remember us thinking about band names and that feeling of coming up with something that’s gonna sound cool or interesting—I didn’t want that. That felt like, “Oh, I don’t wanna try.” At some point when [Shit Present] was thrown around, it just tickled me a little bit and stuck with me. I think it does resonate with me in some ways. When I think a bit more about what it means to me, it just felt silly and lighthearted, and that was what we were trying to do—not take ourselves too seriously and just play some music.

BNB: I’ve been doing this a long time, and seldom is there a story behind the name. Usually it’s “Oh, we were high when we came up with it, and now we’re stuck.”

IC: Yeah, we were definitely always high around that time! [Laughs.]

I remember us saying at the time that it was almost a test of how a band name can be as stupid as you want, and you get used to whatever it is. And I was like, “Could we get used to having a name this stupid?” I do feel like that happens. It’s just what it’s called.

The only time it’s really weird is if someone asks me what it’s called. I just started a job six months ago, and the manager was like, “Oh, what’s your band called?” And you just think, “Nooooooo.” I remember saying to her, “Oh, it’s Shit Present. It’s really embarrassing.” And she was like, “No, it’s, uh, intriguing.” [Laughs.]

BNB: The name fits thematically.

IC: I wonder that. Only since you reached out was I thinking about [that]. Because our music’s maybe a little intense, the themes of stuff I’m singing about—like an outlet for mental health and stuff like that—and then you’ve got this kinda stupid, bad name. And I’m like, “I wonder how that sits with people?”

BNB: Speaking of mental health, you work in mental health research, and especially on the new full-length, there are a lot of themes around that. Does your work inform what you write about?

IC: Yeah, I think it does. On the second EP there was a song that was completely lifted out of a person I’d been working with, their story.

We have one song on the record called “Unravelling.” I’ve been working on a psychosis trial for the past four years, exclusively working with people in psychotic episodes.

So then when I had my own, like, as near to psychosis as I’ve ever been, I think I did mix my experience with the experiences I’ve been seeing. That’s where the lyrics of that song came from.

BNB: You obviously don’t have to go into this, but you were diagnosed bipolar, right?

IC: I was. I got all the diagnoses. I’d like to think I’ve got them all. [Laughs.] I think that’s the main one that’s on my [medical] record.

BNB: When you got the diagnosis, did it feel like, “Okay, yeah, this makes sense?”

IC: I think what’s probably common in bipolar is what happened to me, is that you kind of just lose your mind and go quite crazy and have to go to hospital. Because you’re having a manic episode and then you come away with that diagnosis in that post-manic confusion of what’s just happened. So it makes sense that I had got given that diagnosis, but it also felt like, “Surely it could be a million other things. I’ve smoked too much cannabis. I don’t think this diagnosis is right.”

For other people, I don’t know how common it is really to be struggling with ups and downs and mood, and then your doctor gives you that diagnosis. My experience working in mental health and having some issues myself is, you have to get really unwell before you’ll get given a diagnosis. Maybe it’s different in North America, but our service is all free and pressured and overwhelmed—you have to get quite unwell with bipolar before you get a diagnosis. But lots of people probably would have the diagnosis.

BNB: How did your mania present itself? Were you super productive?

IC: Yeah, I had all of the classic mania symptoms like overproductivity, but to the point where you’re just constantly starting projects and not finishing them. There’s lack of awareness of, like, safety and hyper-talkative and pressured speech—constantly talking at people, not giving people a word in. Acting on some strange ideas, writing lots—I wrote books full of nonsense. For the beginning, I think it was probably a bit endearing. [Laughs.] And then I was quite clearly unwell, and all my friends were quite alerted.

BNB: I think it’s “Unravelling” on What Still Gets Me that references paranoia. Was that part of it?

IC: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. Mine was quite a lot of thinking people were talking about me. And thinking there was—I think it’s quite common as well—hidden meaning in things that don’t mean anything and equating a certain amount of emotion to experiences that were just really inane. But then I think that song was a different kind of episode I had that was not quite so manic—a bit more mixed and paranoid. [Laughs.]

BNB: How did you get a handle on it? Is it still ongoing?

IC: It’s nice, actually, to talk about it, because I was like, “This is gonna be something I have to live with forever.” But actually I just really learnt how to manage it, and I feel like I’ve made a really full recovery from that episode.

I had to take antipsychotic medication for a couple of months and take sleeping tablets, because I think that so much of it is not getting the right sleep. I had to move home with my parents. It was completely starting again. Everything changed. I quit my job. It felt really serious to talk about it, but a year on from having it, I was in such a better place than I ever had been before the episode that I’d had. So in many ways it was a good thing for me.

BNB: The band is quite active right now, at least in comparison to how it has been. Does performing help? Is it cathartic?

IC: We haven’t done a huge amount of shows. I get quite nervous performing. I don’t feel it’s a cathartic release necessarily, but I think it’s fun to play music with your friends. I wanted to play these new songs and see what we could do.

The lyrics are how they are, but actually the way I want to manage the band and perform… I want it to be fun and silly.

BNB: With show promotion, is your name usually spelled out, or do they use an asterisk?

IC: It’s usually been full Shit Present. Recently someone wrote about us with an asterisk or two asterisks.

BNB: I feel like you can get away with “shit.” If it were “fuck” or “cunt”—in the United States at least—it would be trickier.

IC: To be honest, I’ve been surprised that people are even a little bit taken aback by it being a swear word. Because, especially in the UK, we say “shit” for everything. It’s barely a swear word—just like, “Oh, that’s a bit shit.” It’s just really, really widely used.

BNB: You understandably didn’t write for a few years. Once you started again, did it come easily?

IC: Yeah. Just, like, couldn’t stop.

BNB: Why do you think that is?

IC: I have no idea. I don’t actually talk to many people about songwriting, and I have lots of friends that write and stuff. I don’t know how it works for other people, whether it’s more continuous. I never tried to get it back. It just started coming, so then there was a period of like two years where I was writing all the time.

I think I wanted to finish off what we’d started. It felt similar to that style of nostalgic, cheesy, pop-punk-type stuff that was coming out. Because I was thinking, “Oh, do I just come up with a new band name? Maybe it’s a solo project?” I thought it was a shame to just leave the project where it was, so this feels kind of rounded off now.

BNB: Here’s what I always ask people when I do these interviews: Do you think it’s better to have a bad, memorable name or one that just kind of blends in?

IC: I think the way that we connect the music with the name completely transforms the name, doesn’t it? Bands where you don’t know what they sound like, it’s quite easy to forget their names. But when I know what they sound like, there’s an association. It’s really hard to think of the name in a vacuum, so I don’t know.

BNB: Everybody always says that it’s better to have a generic name that you don’t really think about, because bad names can be so prejudicial.

IC: Yeah, well I’m sure that’s happening with us, but I also think it’s probably happening the other way—that some people would check us out because of the stupid name. People have said, “Your name will hold you back,” but I don’t care. I don’t even know where I’m trying to get to.

POST-SCRIPTS

• What Still Gets Me is probably my favorite album of 2023 so far. Physical copies are sold out (!), but you can find it digitally on Bandcamp and the streamers.

• FUN FACT: Iona played bass with her fellow Exonians in Muncie Girls, whom I have loved since their essential 2016 debut, From Caplan to Belsize. Do yourself a favor and listen to “Respect” right now. That chorus slaaaaaaaays.

• “Wait, why is this issue #76? Wasn’t the one you sent last week #39? What the fuck is your problem, Kyle?” Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s take it down a notch there. Because there aren’t monthly bonus editions anymore, I changed the issues numbered with .1 and made everything sequential. Calm down!