The Howlers are currently a two piece band when playing Live with Toby Richards on drum duty the dynamic and ambitious singer, songwriter and now careers advice councillor Adam Young. Having witnessed The Howlers at Alphabet in Brighton this last week it was clear that the charismatic front man has the “tools” to deliver musically and mentally, he believes in his band and also he believes in himself.

A potted history to this point would sound like this, formed in 2018, The Howlers rose from the East London scene and despite overcoming severe personal loss, pandemic-related setbacks, and health crises, released the debut album What You've Got To Lose To Win It All  in 2024 along with singles and EP’s along the way. They have a sound mixing the modern with early 2000's rock influence in a direction of The White Stripes and The Black Keys.

Toby Richards of The Howlers

Adam Young of The Howlers

Previous to the live date where the photos here were taken I spoke to Adam Young over zoom, the conversation went toward a fascinating discussion on the music industry as it is in 2026 and the mindset you have to have to manoeuvre the twists and turns and ultimately to have success or to just keep afloat.

I started by asking how the 2026 Tour was progressing. “Yeah, we've done three nights so far”. He continued, “it's been going good, man. We're not really promoting anything at the moment in terms of music. So, you can't expect too much from a tour like this, where you're playing a lot of places that are pretty random or a lot of places that you've never headlined before. So it's been good to see people there in good spirits and queues every night and getting to chat to everybody. So, yeah, it's been a good little time so far."

Return To Sound: “Well, it's keeping your, let's call it “product”, ultimately, in the public eye, isn't it?” 

Adam: “That's a big part of all of this, this tour was booked initially because we wanted something to keep ourselves busy and go out and play. But then things get pushed back and you end up with this tour that really has no purpose as such. 

So yeah, it's a strange one. It feels pretty weird doing it because I'm kind of on the stage every night and usually you would say, oh, we're doing an album tour, we've got this single out, we've just done this. It's like, I don't have that focal point. So I'm having to just mix things up a little bit, which is fun”. 

The Howlers

Adam then explains that there are also new songs to road test “We've got an album coming out this year. So we're doing about five, six tracks in the set list that no one's heard before, but they're going down really well. We've structured the set so we’re just dropping tracks left, right and centre. Then playing the oldies in between. It's the first time we've got to play some new stuff “Once the album comes out, it'll be a long time since we've debuted them. But you never know how a track's actually going to sound in a live setting or how people react to it. And it's interesting to see the things that people react to and what people don't. So far it's been a good reaction to every new track, really. You know, when you're doing a 14, 15 song set and five or six of them are new songs, it's a big chunk”

RTS: “Do you maybe get a little impatient waiting for something to come out? Let's say you've worked on something really hard. Is there a desire to just get it out there?”  

Adam: “Yeah, you do get a bit impatient, a lot of people don't realise the timelines associated with creating and releasing music, particularly now. There's a lot of timelines that have been forced upon us by streaming services and radio and press.  

With the debut album we put out in 2024, that came out in May, 2024. We recorded it in October 2022. So by the time that record comes out, you're a year and a half down the line. Those songs are old hat. The experiences that I wrote about, I've cathartically healed already. By the time we toured that, at the end of the year, 2024, you're looking at two years since the songs were recorded, maybe three years since they were written. You're done by that point. Yeah. You're over it”.

The Howlers

Adam then went on to mention how releasing and promoting new material is all about timing and can be complicated “Everything is so saturated that you're all fighting for the same things at the same time. You know, I think there’s statistics in the 60s or 70s, I can't remember which year it was, it was 100,000 tracks were released globally in the year or something like that. That now happens on Spotify every single day! So you're fighting for the same real estate. But there's lots of things that have happened in the interim, like labels have stopped investing in artists. 

We're very fortunate that we have just signed to a label that is heavily investing in new art, new music and new artists. So we've got a real platform to build on the independent success that we have, whilst also sort of remaining independent because the label isn't taking things from us that they usually would. They came in and said “Here's a load of money and we love the album, we can see where you can grow. We want to help you grow there”, that was right for us”. 

 Below is

The Howlers - You Can Be So Cruel (Official Video)

He then spoke about the good and bad that can be Spotify “The recommended time frame to put out a song, distribute a song to Spotify, and pitch it, if you want to try and get a playlist is anywhere between eight to six weeks and ideally more. So you need to put that song up three months before its release. That means you need to record that song way ahead of that. Now obviously the bigger you get, the more room you have effectively because you can just put a song out there and you know people are going to stream it. With smaller artists you don't have that luxury. So you have to play into the big corporation's hands who don't always play ball and don't really care about you. So for us as an artist, we've never had that playlist and support. So every one who listens to a song or bought a record, that's someone that we've had to really graft for. But that's a stronger fan base, ultimately.We live in a world that is so focused on the numerical figure that is attached to your art”. 

Regarding the numbers game he says “I tell people all the time that, if people ever bring up numerical nonsense with me, I always just say “what does that actually mean?” We've had it held against us so many times,you've got X amount of monthly listeners and I reply but I can tour, you know, 36 date tours across Europe. So what does it mean? It's a total false flag that people have. It's just ego stroking. And I'm not about that. This tour as well that we're doing at the moment, every night I'm manning the merch stand myself and speaking to every fan that wants to, that's what it's about. I'm not here to inflate my ego. This is my job. This is what pays my bills. And part of that is being thankful for the people that put you there." 

Toby Richards

RTS: “Maybe a band's pinnacle time is that rise up? I mean, if you look at some bands especially more recently it is the first two albums, the first three albums. They're the times you think that was the time for that band? Can the music then plateau?” 

Adam: “I think it plateaus quicker than that these days. I think the industry and society backs the wrong horse time and time again at the moment. The best bit of advice I was ever given was it doesn't matter how good you are. It matters how much you can stick at this. Like, do you have another year in you? Yeah. 

Your art is only worth what your fans are invested in. Bands that explode quickly into a society which is a single-use, it's a very much want it now and dispose of it world. 

We play to our strengths, and if playing smaller venues is our strength, and we can afford to pay our bills and pay ourselves from that, keep meeting fans and building that rapport and engaging with people, then that's what we'll keep doing, and eventually we'll get there, where we wanna be. 

I've got my targets in my mind, how I see this band, where it will go to, and where I want it to go, and where I'll be happy. And it's not that crazily far off where we are now”.  

Adam Young

The dreaded COVID always rears it’s head in artist conversations and sure enough it had an effect on The Howlers as Adam explains “How I see it is that if COVID hadn't happened, we would have got our singles out quickly like we did, keep building on that hype like we had done. And then, you know, we probably would have played a couple of festivals, played a couple of shows, and then probably would have burned out because we didn't have that time to assess and look to do things properly. We were shooting for the moon, but we didn't know what we were doing. 

I shot a music video at the time in Soho, and it was void of life. There was no one else about. You wouldn't get that now. So there were things we got to do there that were great”

Adam follows up with “The tour off the back of COVID also did very well. But we've just been plagued since about 2022 with, just really bad situation after really bad situation, you become old hat quickly. I had to really think, well, we don't need the industry for this. 

It's figuring out ways around this, that's what I've become really good at, is that when someone shuts a door in my face, I go, well, fuck your door!.  

All the team that worked with me and have worked with me for a number of years know that I work harder than anybody else. I put more into this than anybody else. ." 

RTS: “I can see you're a driven man and you're determined?”. 

Adam: “Oh yeah, I don't give up”. 

Adam Young

RTS: “Obviously the songs matter too? And you've got to have a good band?”  

Adam: “I don't even think the songs matter these days to most people. I really don't. 

You see new artists blow up and you go, what? If you take Cruz Beckham's band, for example, the songs are terrible but because he's David Beckham's son, Live Nation booked the entire tour. He has a major agent. There's a big label behind him. He's selling out dates. You listen to the music and you think, there is nothing there? 

It just matters what you look like and can you be marketed? I’ve learnt from my experience as an artist and all the crap that we've had to deal with as a band, we are very peculiar because we're not like any other band because we go into everything as an exercise in proving people wrong. That's all”. 

Adam Young

As an artist surviving financially is something you need to learn quickly, the utopian hope of pots of money can always be just out of reach as Adam went on to talk about “I'm an expert on the route up, I've seen lots of other bands going through the same thing. You've got to take a few steps forward as long as you're not putting yourself in debt and this is going to sound really harsh as well. You see these clickbait stories out there all the time about bands that are financially struggling. English Teacher, for example, did a story a few years ago about how they couldn't afford to pay their rent or food even though they're on a major label. 

And the reason isn't because they're, they're getting shafted by labels. The reason is because they've not been smart about stuff. And, like, with Witch Fever, for example, they're moaning about, they're on a major label and they can't afford to pay their bills and all their money's tied up in Europe at the moment from a tour with European holding fees. 

You know, that's just bad management. Did you not realise that that money that you were given as an advance isn't for you to stop doing your job? It's just people that think that signing to a label is the end game these days. You still have to really graft and cover your arse."

Adam uses an old analogy to describe the music industry “As kids, we're all told the story about Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma's gone. In that bed is a wolf. If you aren’t careful, that wolf's having it.There's a pack of them in the bedroom waiting for you and you have to understand what other people's motives are”. 

That is sound advice for anyone entering the “rocky” world of Rock ‘n’ Roll with the intention of surviving. With the results of Adam Young’s knowledge and means of self managing we wish him and The Howlers the very best for 2026 and an expected New Album, with all the hopes and opportunities that brings along with an associated Tour.

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Interview for Return To Sound by Dan Reddick

Photographs by Dan Reddick