Britain’s Most Underrated Band? NOISY’S Euphoric Sound Can’t Be Boxed
NOISY, with The Groove. Image credit: NOISY
‘We're just like, let's write a banger and put it out.’
The first thing you’ll notice when you listen to a NOISY song, or see the Worthing trio live, is their huge sound. It’s hard to pick apart individual instruments, colliding into each other to form a genre that is neither rock, electronic, indie, pop or rave music.
Formed in 2014, originally enjoying success as four-piece High Tyde until a creative reshuffle in 2022, Cody Matthews, Spencer Tobias-Williams and Connor Cheetham have toured with Yungblud, soundtracked the official Premier League, and received airplay on Radio One from the queen of party, Charli XCX.
Beneath the noise, there's humour and carefully considered lyricism, something they’re keen to develop. NOISY’s music is founded in the essence of rock and roll: escapism, luxury, and bravado. But beyond that, it’s relatable, with one of the best examples found in the opening lines of ‘Green Light’: ‘Falling out of that moving car like a moviestar / Apart from my grazed knees I feel pretty cool’.
In conversation with The Groove fresh off their UK/EU headline tour, frontman Cody spoke about NOISY’s musical influences, finding inspiration from normal life, and what’s on the manifestation list for 2026.
NOISY frontman, Cody Matthews, performing in London, November 2025. Image credit: The Groove
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Interviewer: Welcome home! Did you have a highlight moment from the tour?
Cody: London was the highlight, 100%. It just felt… gangster. I think there's a thing with musicians, especially frontmen, you can feel – not in a big headed way at all – but have the crowd in the palm of your hands. And when you feel that way, the show just goes exceptionally well. There’s definitely been shows where I haven’t felt like that, but London, I felt ready to have a party.
Where do you get that energy from?
Cody: I think it's a mixture of emotions… couple of Jaeger bombs…and just the energy from the crowd. It's a weird one with London because whatever day you play, it always feels like a Friday night, and we are such a party, Friday night band. It just felt like a weekend to me where everyone was letting loose. All the cogs have to be turning at the same time for it to be perfect, you know?
Do you have any tactics when you're having a bad day to be able to switch it on?
Cody: I remember watching a Green Day interview once with Billie Joe Armstrong, he was saying as soon as you step out on stage you just take on a new persona. My mates always say to me, you talk different. Maybe I do kind of take on a character. I always thought that performing on stage was kind of like acting in a way. Obviously, I'm being myself, but it's an emphasised version of me I try to channel. And then when I get back off stage, I'm quite normal again.
At your show, you said ‘we've got two songs about love and the rest are about getting f***ed up’. Do you ever see your themes expanding?
Cody: I'm not one to like, write lyrics on the train or at work. I will just kind of vibe off a beat or chord progression. I always say that if it doesn't fall from the sky, it doesn't feel right.
I’m going through a bit of a tough time mentally at the moment, so there will definitely be more topics to talk about. Also there's only so much you can say about going on a night out before it just gets repetitive. Obviously, there'll always be funny stories. But I think, when I say that, it's more about the repercussions mentally and how to deal with it, and leaning on your mates.
We've always been fascinated with the mundaneness in lyricism. When you listen to The Streets, for example, he is talking about the most basic, boring, everyday life stuff, but in such an interesting way. We’ve always tried to channel that.
Who are your lyrical influences?
Cody: Definitely Mike Skinner. I’ve been in awe of him since I started writing lyrics, I think he's a genius, his punch lines are amazing. He's made me look at writing music a lot differently. We've always said we want to write music for the everyday person, like the guy driving his van to work at 6am, or whoever’s working in the coffee shop bored because no one’s turning up.
The Prodigy as well, which is a completely different end of the stick. They have almost miniature iconic poems. That’s where ‘Alligator’ came from. We wanted as few words that were hopefully going to sound as iconic as ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Omen’ and ‘Breathe’.
“As soon as you step out on stage you just take on a new persona.... I always thought that performing on stage was kind of like acting in a way. Obviously I’m being myself, but it’s an emphasised version of me.”
Me and Connor write the lyrics and then Spence does all the production. We've definitely cracked down now. When we put something out, that's the only version everyone else is going to hear. It can't just be a throwaway lyric because it's not gonna travel or do what we want it to do. Sometimes you do need to really hone in on like, does that make sense with the previous lyric? Does that mean something to me? I've never been a metaphorical writer, I just like to be straight up.
There are so many ways people describe your sound. How do you describe it?
Cody: It's been hard to narrow it, but I think moshpit rave has been one that's stuck with us, because it's like electronic music and we've definitely brought influences from The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim. It covers both areas of alternative rock music and electronic rave music.
That’s something we’ve always kind of struggled with growing the band. Not to pigeonhole ourselves, but in some ways it is kind of nice to do that, because if you're an indie band, you can tour with indie bands, you can play indie festivals, you grow in a scene. Whereas we've always been on our own, so it's like, where do we sit? Which can be a blessing and a curse.
This year, you've been releasing singles rather than EPs or bigger bodies of work. What was your reasoning behind that?
Cody: We wrote a lot of music last year and start of this year, and we were like, we just want to bang out all these singles. If one of them connects more, then maybe we'll take a pause and put a bit more heat on that song. But what is the point of them sitting on our Dropbox and SoundCloud, of us writing this music, if our fans aren't going to hear it? And to be honest, everything's a bit more lapsed, now, it is a singles game.
Obviously, an album when you start a band is such a dream and bucketless thing to do. So, we will probably package these songs as an album. But I think we're just like, why not? Let's just spit it out, quick time. Let's write a banger and put it out. You don't know what is a hit, essentially, so you might as well just buy more tickets for the lottery and see what connects.’
Looking forward to 2026, what are your manifestations? What do you want to do as a band?
Cody: I just want to play shows and release music. I'd obviously love one of our songs to boot off and do the rounds on TikTok. Because that is just music now. Though we won't get into that.
We can if you want to?
Cody: It just is what it is, isn't it? I'm a lover and a hater of TikTok, because I'm trying to use it to better my career. Hate’s a strong word. I don't hate it. I just find it tough. We've all reached a level in this band where we just want to whack out the music we're writing, not overthink it and have fun. Because that's why I started playing the guitar when I was 10, not to worry about how many numbers we're getting, just play shows and have parties.
“We’ve always been fascinated with the mundaneness in lyricism. We did do music full time for a bit... but I had nothing to write about, I wasn’t experiencing normal life. We like to find the beauty in the mundane.”
I'd love to tour the world and be able to have financial freedom doing it. But I feel like that's such a weird thing to hope for. That is not why I got into music. It was for escapism. And when I'm on stage, I don't think about anything else.
Obviously getting some money from music is a massive bonus, but if you aim for that, it's almost like you're set to be disappointed. Because how much is enough, as well? For sure, to do music full time would be wicked. But then also we did do music full time for a bit, which was amazing. But I had nothing to write about, I wasn't experiencing normal life. We like to find the beauty in the mundane.
I feel like you need to have those normal everyday, living experiences, meeting random people. Then you want it more as well. You don't take for granted doing a tour or a show.
In ‘I Wish I Was…’, you say, ‘I wish I was a popstar… I wish I had brown hair sometimes to fit within the guidelines’. Do you still wish that?
Cody: Yeah, I mean, sometimes (laughing). But that song was kind of more about social media, it does just rot your brain, all these expectations. It is really normal to just be a normal person, that's not boring or mundane at all. You know, ‘I wish I could just stop wishing, cause I've been wishing my life away.’ I think I do that every day. I think everyone does that. It’s very hard to find pure contentment in your 20s.
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Take a look at all the pics from NOISY’s ‘highlight’ London show last month.