Circa Waves: Liverpool's Young Chasers Grow Up Loud

Photo: DavidPMaynard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circa_Waves_at_2026_SXSW_London_07.jpg

Circa Waves owe their name to a rush job, and it suits them. According to Wikipedia's account of a July 2014 interview in Paris, guitarist Joe Falconer said frontman Kieran Shudall wrote the demo for "Young Chasers," recorded it and put it on SoundCloud in a single day. "As he was uploading it he needed a name and it was the first thing that came into his head in that split second." Over a decade later, the Liverpool four-piece's track "Be Your Drug" sits on U-Rock®'s WURN-dB Underground playlist.

Born at Sound City

Wikipedia and The Line of Best Fit say the band came together in 2013 around Liverpool Sound City, the city's annual music festival. Shudall met bassist Sam Rourke and original drummer Sian Plummer there through mutual friends. Not long after, at the same festival, he met Falconer, who was working as a stage manager. Shudall, Wikipedia notes, had decided to commit fully to music after years in a run of small garage bands.

Things moved fast. Over the summer and autumn of 2013 the band played several short UK tours, some of them secret shows. Wikipedia records that their debut single, the double A-side "Get Away/Good for Me," came out on 2 December 2013 on Transgressive Records, handled by Jen Long's Kissibility label. In February 2014, Zane Lowe played the second single, "Stuck in My Teeth," as his Hottest Record in the World.

A crowded 2014

By Wikipedia's count, 2014 was a whirlwind. Circa Waves opened the NME Awards Tour that March, on a bill with Temples, Interpol and Royal Blood. The Young Chasers EP came out on Virgin Records in the US that June, with a Japanese edition in July. They supported The 1975 around the UK and The Libertines in September. In between came a festival summer that took in Glastonbury, Latitude, T in the Park, Hurricane and Southside in Germany, Arenal Sound in Spain, Summer Sonic in Japan, Splendour in the Grass in Australia, and Reading and Leeds.

Albums and changes

The debut album Young Chasers followed on 30 March 2015. According to Wikipedia it reached No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified silver by the BPI, and that October the band played a sold-out date at Brixton Academy. Drummer Colin Jones joined in 2015, replacing Plummer.

Wikipedia describes 2017's Different Creatures as a move away from garage rock toward heavier alternative rock, with thicker, more distorted guitars. The Guardian, it notes, called the record "darker, denser." It peaked at No. 11. 2019's What's It Like Over There? swung back toward a more indie sound and reached No. 10. Then came Sad Happy, released in two halves in early 2020. The band said the concept "represents two sides of this tech-saturated, highly insecure age."

Fifth album Never Going Under arrived in January 2023 and, per Wikipedia, topped the UK Independent Albums Chart. That same year, Wikipedia and the NME report, Shudall needed emergency surgery for a blocked artery in his heart, and the band cancelled a number of shows. "I thought I might die before I made this record," he told the NME. The health scare, which YM Liverpool also covered, shaped what came next: Death & Love, Pt. 1, released on 31 January 2025, and the full Death & Love that October.

The line-up

Today Circa Waves are Kieran Shudall (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Joe Falconer (lead guitar, piano, backing vocals), Sam Rourke (bass, keyboard, backing vocals) and Colin Jones (drums).

Why it matters on U-Rock®

Circa Waves started with a song written, recorded and uploaded in one day, and they have kept that urgency through six albums and a health scare that could have ended everything. "Be Your Drug" is on the WURN-dB Underground playlist now. Turn it up.

U-Rock® play data: no plays logged in the BROADCAST or CORE histories (2026-07-02 to 2026-10-12). The band appears on the WURN-dB Underground Spotify playlist.

Sources 1. Wikipedia, "Circa Waves" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circa_Waves 2. Spotify, "WURN-dB Underground" playlist (embed) — https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0bZ0fCQCL7IkKfqcQycsMI 3. The Line of Best Fit, "The rise of Circa Waves" — https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/new-music/introducing/circa-waves-interview-149554 4. YM Liverpool, Circa Waves interview — https://ymliverpool.com/52834-2/52834 5. NME, "Circa Waves on 'Death & Love, Pt. 1'" — https://www.nme.com/news/music/circa-waves-on-death-love-pt-1-i-thought-i-might-die-before-i-made-this-record-3798433