I wish my neighbours were as good as the band!

It’s been two weeks since I saw Good Neighbours at The Globe and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It had been sunny and I had spent the day lying in the park, before going home to get ready to see Good Neighbours at The Globe that evening. The Globe and I have become fast friends since I did my own residency there last year. Not really. I just went there two days in a row to two different shows — but still, it sure felt like one!

I had the chance to catch up with the boys before their first headline show in Cardiff that evening, and it was a genuine pleasure. Oli Fox and Scott Verrill are the two incredibly down-to-earth minds behind the band. What struck me most was their genuine enthusiasm, a far cry from the often more polished personas of rising stars. We covered everything from the origin story of their summery sound, Oli explaining that they wanted to create something that was “bright, loud and fun”, a deliberate shift from the “self-deprecating and acoustic” music they had been writing for other artists. As well as this, we talked about the sheer unexpectedness of Home going viral, over a staggering 400 million streams on Spotify, which the boys are still bewildered by.

I love this feeling every time it comes around.

Stepping into The Globe, there was a tangible buzz. The room was nicely packed, a welcoming mix of faces, all excited for the boys to take the stage. As the lights dimmed and that first hit of the drums sounded, the twinkling synths bouncing around the room, the cheers that were heard felt warm. Oli bounces with a kind of energy that keeps you focused on every move he makes on stage, while Scott has this more grounded presence about him, just as they were in our chat earlier.

They launched into Kids Can’t Sleep. Live, the infectious energy of the track was amplified tenfold. Oil’s clear and bright vocals soared over the glimmering instrumental, taking you to your own sunny, soaked dreamland—the whole room got it straight away. Good Neighbours designed music to make you move and smile, and boy, was it working. I don’t think there was a time, apart from when I was taking photos, when I wasn’t jumping, singing, or moving in some way.

Home, the song that unexpectedly catapulted them to viral success, was a definite highlight. Even the band themselves, as they confessed with a laugh, were initially taken aback by the song’s unexpected TikTok explosion. “We didn’t even like the song that much,” Oli laughed. But, hearing the song live and everyone sing the lyrics back just as loud, felt like a unifying anthem, a testament to its undeniable emotional resonance. That unexpected journey of the song, from something they almost overlooked to a global hit, felt particularly poignant in that moment.

Home is the kind of song that worms its way into your brain and stays there for days, and hearing it live gave it that extra punch. Since seeing it live, I’ve been humming it for the last two weeks, reliving the crowd’s collective release of energy and pure enjoyment. It was nice to see a collective of people just let loose in the way that I always do in concerts—not a care in the world, just an innate need to move as much as possible.

While talking about what lyrics resonate the most with the two of them, Oli mentioned a line about embracing life’s challenges and being grateful for their current success. It felt like a perfect summary of their journey so far — a band that is genuinely appreciative of where they are and excited for what’s to come. Every time a new song came around, the audience was thrown headfirst into it, not really allowing any room for a breath, but honestly, that’s what I loved so much about the show.

By the time their newest release, Starry Eyed, came along, the energy surged. A track that felt most assured, a confident step forward and a taste of the album to come. Scott had mentioned wanting to “bring as much energy as possible” to their live shows to break any awkwardness, and their constant movement on stage certainly achieved that.

Leaving The Globe, the lingering feeling wasn’t just of having seen a great band live. It was the sense of having connected with two genuinely nice guys who happen to make insanely catchy music. Their authenticity, so evident in our conversation, translated perfectly onto the stage. Nothing wrong or amiss, everything perfect and as always with a good gig, everything I had been ruminating over the last few weeks melted away.

Good Neighbours aren’t just a band making good tunes that are going viral on TikTok, they’re consistently creating an atmosphere of genuine connection and joy.

All that’s left to say, I guess, is that they could be my neighbours any day, and I can’t wait to continue to see them grow and change the music industry as we know it. Knowing their future goals, as they mentioned wanting to play festivals like Coachella, adds another layer of excitement to witnessing their current success.

Cardiff definitely showed Good Neighbours some love that evening, and I have a feeling that the feeling was mutual.

Not your normal chat with neighbours, but still a good one none the less 🙂

Good Neighbours — Oli Fox and Scott Verrill — are far more than just a viral sensation. Before their energetic headline show in Cardiff, we stood in an arcade and delved into everything from the viral success of Home, creative sparks and what life’s really like when your music suddenly finds a global audience.

Meg: I guess we should start with your origin story. I’d love to know when the moment was that you both decided you wanted to make music, and what that looked like for you.
Oli: We started separately, but I was super young. Probably around five or six, I loved playing music, but I didn’t start playing in bands until later. You [Scott] were in bands earlier than I was.
Scott: I was really young. We both had a similar background where we were doing music from the age of five and then releasing music when we were like fourteen or fifteen.
Meg: I love how nostalgic your music feels. It literally feels like summertime. How did you arrive at that sound? Was it something that was discussed beforehand, or were you doing sessions together, and that’s how it all came together?

Scott: We didn’t really discuss it. I mean, when we were writing for other artists, we ended up doing a lot of acoustic and sort of self-deprecating stuff. We did so much of that that we just really needed to make something that was bright, loud and fun. So I think it was kind of that that pushed us into it.
Meg: Since Home was released, you’ve gained so much traction. How has the experience of growing a fanbase been for you?
Oli: Honestly, I find it quite stressful. The whole project was very ambitious to begin with, and when the song took off, the song went so big that we were still technically smaller than the song, so we were trying to catch up to the song. So, that’s always a stressful thing to put yourself physically in every country where the song is. But we’ve kind of ticked off a lot of countries this year, but there’s still so much more to do. It’s amazing, but you do forget how much work has to go into building a fan base again. It’s not just about big songs. Now, everyone wants to see you, and people need to understand it physically and see it visually.
Meg: I’m going to talk about touring now, if that’s okay?
Oli: Sure!
Meg: I’m sure it can be really stressful if you’re on long tours. How do you maintain your mental and physical well-being while being on the road? Is there a specific routine you get into? Do you find it hard to get into a routine?
Scott: I mean, we’re not new to it, but we are new to touring this much, so we’re still figuring it out as we go. I guess our band is all of our friends from home, so that helps so much. No one is hired randomly, it’s a proper unit. It’s good to be surrounded by friends, and then it’s just sleep.
Meg: That must be so hard!
Oli: Especially because we just got off a support tour where you go on early.
Meg: What is the difference between support and headline, would you say?
Oli: Just pressure. With support, no one is there for you, it’s like a free hit. With the headline, I
guess you’re delivering for a fan to have an expectation.
Meg: How do you deal with that kind of pressure? Sorry, this is a quick-fire round.
Scott: We’re so used to doing supports and having to win people over, and so used to people being
like arms folded, straight-faced. We did our first headline in eight months or so, and it lifts you up so
much more when people know the words to the songs.
Oli: With support, you have to literally just fake it. You have to fake it to be like you are enjoying this; you can’t underplay yourself for sure.
Meg: Do you have any pre-show rituals that you guys do?
Oli: We have a little group hug, a little team talk before every show, and just try to focus on ourselves. But, we’re all pretty horizontal before a show …
Scott: Yeah, we just conserve our energy.
Oli: Especially because the show is very sweaty, so it’s our downtime before we go on.
Meg: I’ve got a couple of silly questions.
Oli: Ready!
Meg: If your music were a colour, what would it be and why?
Oli: I think we are contractually obliged to say blue. We’ve pushed it so far, but sonically we definitely are blue.
Meg: If your music could transport listeners to any time or place, where do you think it would be and why?
Scott: I guess it’s nostalgia — I don’t know about any sort of physical place, but definitely the 2000s.
Oli: It would be, you know, those days when you’re out of primary school and it’s the summer between primary school and secondary? It’s that summer. People come back with deep voices, and you have no pressure, because you don’t belong to anything. Just complete freedom.
Meg: That’s a good answer. How do you tend to approach performing live? What do you enjoy most about connecting with your audience?
Scott: I guess we try and bring as much energy as we can. It’s about breaking that awkwardness,
being embarrassed by ourselves.
Oli: We’ve had it where you get halfway through the gig and people still aren’t moving. Then it’s about us going even more stupid to make you [the audience] okay. You forget that your songs land in places and that people come and buy tickets. We just shoot them [the songs] out into the sky and hope for the best. When you see people singing them back to you, it’s like Oh yeah! Of course, you would do that. It’s really cool.
Meg: Is there a genre that you haven’t experimented with yet that you’d like to and why do you think
that would be?
Scott: I guess we haven’t done that much electronic-sounding music.
Oli: Yeah, we’re trying to definitely push electronic.
Scott: We want to get a DJ set going.
Meg: I guess the last thing is, what’s next for Good Neighbours? Where do you see yourselves this time next year? Maybe that’s too timeline-based. Maybe we should try 5 years time instead.
Scott: Five years is crazy.
Oli: We are already so much further ahead than I think we could ever understand. We forget that it’s only been just over a year now, so to do all of the stuff we’ve already done, it’s hard to even work out where that puts us in five years.
Scott: We’re kind of just taking it step by step. Last year was all about touring and finishing the album off. After that, we’ll have a new big goal, we’re doing it in chunks.
Oli: We’d love to get out to America and play something like Coachella.
Meg: I feel like you guys suit Coachella so well. Have you been before?
Scott: Yeah, we went last summer.
Meg: It falls on my birthday so everyone calls it Megchella every year. I’m like damn, I haven’t even
been to Megchella yet!
Oli: It’s really cool! I’ve never seen a curated festival like it before. The lawns are so clean, there’s no
rubbish!
Meg: Thanks so, so much for speaking to us and we’ll see you in a little bit!

Read more from the Music articles from KLATMAG

Written and Photographed by Meg Ivy Brunning