As Pop Will Eat Itself prepare to return to SHIIINE ON, Adam Mole reflects on four decades of reinvention, creative risk and refusal to follow convention. From the grebo explosion and sampling culture to PWEI.40 and beyond, this candid conversation celebrates a band that has always thrived on unpredictability.
SHIIINE ON celebrates some of the most influential bands of the 90s. When you look around the festival bill, what memories come flooding back from that era?
Well I guess pretty much a Reading or Phoenix festival line up, hanging out in the backstage bar and getting pretty wrecked… so yes pretty much a Shiiine weekend.
PWEI always felt like outsiders, even when you were becoming incredibly successful. Did you ever feel part of a particular scene, or were you deliberately trying to exist outside of one?
We really just embraced the new technology and felt an urge to change and be a little ahead of the game.
Working with Robert Gordon, the house producer at Fon in Sheffield, and then Flood, who produced our second and third albums, helped us have that extra edge, one that encouraged experimentation and pushing boundaries.
This would drive RCA, our record company, mad as we weren’t delivering that bona fide hit to make us a household name like, for example, EMF, The Wonder Stuff, Jesus Jones and Carter USM.
If songs were getting a bit ‘catchy’ or radio friendly we’d change the chorus or drop it altogether. The final album mixes were often quite different to the pre-production demos that got the top brass at RCA quite excitable.
So much of your music was built around sampling, media culture and information overload. Looking at today's social media-driven world, do you ever feel like PWEI saw the future coming before the rest of us?
Of course we did, always!
Songs like Can U Dig It?, Wise Up! Sucker and Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies! still sound uniquely PWEI. What do you think gives those tracks their lasting appeal decades later?
I think we were pretty unique in a way, so tricky to plagiarise. I can’t really ever imagine a PWEI tribute band.
I think this affords us a certain cult status, ensuring many of our songs continue to mean a hell of a lot to a treasured hardcore of fans.
The Midlands produced an incredible number of alternative bands during that period. What was it about places like Stourbridge and the wider Black Country that seemed to inspire so much creativity?
I think the wider area was pretty much a rock paradise having spawned Black Sabbath, Slade and half of Led Zeppelin.
Stourbridge had a very vibrant art college and I just think the pubs and nightlife reflected all those things.
Once we started to get a few out-of-town gigs we would ask our friends The Wonder Stuff to play with us, and a year later Ned’s Atomic Dustbin would support both bands too.
Helping each other out really helped forge a little scene and the pubs at the weekend would heave with people who started to drink in Stourbridge, and it just snowballed I guess.
PWEI evolved constantly throughout your career, moving from grebo and indie roots into industrial rock, dance music and electronics. Was reinvention a conscious decision or simply the result of following your curiosity?
Grebo was a term we coined in a way but was a local insult for a greasy old biker.
We soon realised after we all witnessed the Beastie Boys in Birmingham on their first album tour that we were actually shit!
It was a lightbulb moment and the idea of writing another song in the same way was suddenly totally alien to us… literally overnight.
Graham said he ain’t playing drums again and was gonna run around and sing, and that’s exactly how it happened.
We had a tour already on sale in a few weeks and we came on stage having basically dumped the set that people were expecting and played stuff in our new style.
They were, to say the least, interesting shows and not totally understood, but that’s what we always wanna do, even now!
Your music has always balanced humour, satire and social commentary. Do you think modern alternative music takes itself too seriously, or are there still artists carrying that spirit forward?
I think a lot of bands can have tortured souls in them and yes, maybe too serious, but this business has a lot of fake people in it too, guided by the hope of making it big. Many people aren’t what they seem. After all, it’s show business, often driven by good old fashioned hard cash!
Festivals can often become exercises in nostalgia. PWEI have continued making new music and pushing forward creatively. How important is it for you to be seen as a current band rather than simply a heritage act?
Yes, we have recently done new stuff and sometimes it would be easier to just play the same set every gig. It does indeed seem a very, very good idea at times.
This PWEI.40 project, although harking back to some older songs, is a way me and Graham can look at re-designing ourselves, keeping things fresh and exciting and, yes, of course anxious and bloody hard work, but it’s what we’ve always done: push the boundaries.
You've influenced countless bands who blend guitars, electronics and sampling. Are there any contemporary artists who make you think, "I wish we'd thought of that"?
Absolutely tons. Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Orbital, Massive Attack, Prodigy, Gans… anybody any good basically, ha!
Clint Mansell's later success as a film composer has become an extraordinary chapter in the wider PWEI story. Looking back, could you see those ambitions and talents emerging during the band's early years?
In fairness Graham was always the guiding light of the band early on and the one who wrote the early stuff, directed the change of styles and provided the edge.
Clint later generally came up with the singles and more catchy tunes that RCA would lean towards.
Clint very much was into the glossy comics, films and futuristic dystopian life.
Rich was a genius with the technology and I learnt to drive first and had access to borrow my dad’s car so we could get to practice. That was my paltry effort in bringing things to the communal table.
So in answer, yes, I think Clint was very driven and perhaps nurturing a real desire to be a one-man band, go alone and just see what this world had to offer. He’s done amazingly well and I think we’re all tremendously happy and proud of what he’s achieved.
If you could go back and give the original version of PWEI one piece of advice before stepping on stage, what would it be?
I’m not the one to give advice really. A large part of me wishes I hadn’t just winged it so much and I’d actually tried to play guitar properly, as I never ever really practised… and it shows.
Having said that, maybe I’d have gravitated to loads of boring old man solos over everything and disappeared up my own arse, so every cloud and all that!
Many fans attending SHIIINE ON discovered PWEI in the 80s and 90s, while others are finding the band for the first time. What should a first-time PWEI audience member expect from your set?
They should definitely not expect anything, otherwise they’re in the wrong room!
Are there any songs in the catalogue that have taken on a completely different meaning in today's world compared with when they were originally written?
Well, Ich Bin Ein Auslander has certainly not. It’s more current today sadly.
Finally, after nearly four decades of challenging expectations, what is it that still excites you about being in Pop Will Eat Itself?
I’m looking forward, albeit with a degree of anxious worry, but that’s me.
PWEI.40 is obviously a risk but we’re confident in our vision.
We will most definitely see, but we’re hoping 2026 finishes on a high.
The band's name famously suggests pop culture endlessly consuming itself. In 2026, with streaming algorithms, viral trends and AI-generated content everywhere, has pop finally eaten itself, or is there still plenty left on the menu?
Our last album under the guise of Pop Will Eat Itself was called Delete Everything and that’s sort of the way we feel about things… starting again and taking chances.
If people end up chucking stuff at us, please bring soft goods.
Few bands have challenged expectations quite like Pop Will Eat Itself. Honest, humorous and fiercely independent, Adam Mole's reflections reveal the same restless spirit that drove the band from the very beginning. As PWEI head to SHIIINE ON, one thing remains certain: expect the unexpected, and enjoy the ride.
Keep up to date with PWEI’s sonic happenings via INSTAGRAM