Milton Keynes/North London pop-punk quintet Autumn Fires - winners of Kerrang! Radio’s ‘The Deal’ competition - today share their energetically angsty anthem ‘Gone By June’ ahead of the release of their upcoming EP "BLOOM.", out 25th February via Marshall Records.
Inspired by the songwriting style of State Champs - one of their favourite bands - ‘Gone By June’ details the aftermath of a sordid relationship through infectious, high-energy hooks and feisty lyricisms. “For ‘Gone By June’, we wanted to write a song that got every fan up on their feet jumping and moving. The vision in our head was our fans crowd-surfing and moshing.” The band states. “If you’ve had an ex who promised you a million things and then left you feeling completely empty the next day, this song is for you”.
The band continues, gleefully sharing that they “recorded about a million different voice notes for the drop (“*cough*… is this thing on?” which is our bassist Neil talking). However, we’re all a bit immature sometimes; all the recordings were so funny and dumb, and we were pissing ourselves laughing SO much that what should have taken us 10 minutes to record literally took us hours!”
‘Gone By June’ is a pristine slice of modern pop-punk - biting, emotive, punchy and brimming with zest and vigour; a track yearning to soundtrack the summer.
About Autumn Fires:
Autumn Fires want to give something back to the scene that raised them. For each of them, alternative culture gave them a space to belong, to have fun and find community – and now, they’re building a community of their own. “When we were growing up, going to shows and meeting people and singing along with them to our favourite songs was so important to all of us,” says bassist Neil Dowd. “That is something that we really, really want to create within our band - that kind of feeling of belonging, and that no matter who you are, you're accepted”.
The quintet came together during the pandemic, after vocalist Charlotte Haimes parted ways with her old band. She and guitarist Callum Skea then assembled the rest of their new project in a myriad of ways – Neil auditioned after they released their debut single ‘Under Starlight’, while Charlotte knew guitarist Luca Testa from college. Callum then brought in his online friend Daryl Humphries, who was looking to get back into playing drums. Unable to socialise in person, they bonded through online gaming. Even with screens and social distancing between them, they knew they’d unearthed a golden connection. Fortunately, when the world opened up again, they’d already got a springboard to jump on.
Autumn Fires’ style of pop-punk refashions the magic of the music they loved, from The Story So Far and Tonight Alive to Knuckle Puck, into something all their own, embracing a sunshine-and-showers duality that combines uplifting energy and moments of moodiness. Having each spent years gigging in pubs and clubs, they’ve amalgamated their years of experience into a project that’s the ultimate version of what they aspired to, with the clearest possible vision behind it, not to mention buckets of confidence. “A lot of us have similar writing styles, but they’re also slightly different, so then that's all gelled together to make what Autumn Fires sounds like now" explains Luca.
It's all tied together with Charlotte’s emotive yet imaginative lyricism. “I really do like to lean heavily into a lot of metaphorical language. I tend to write lyrics that are more on the poetic side as opposed to the literal,” she says. “I do think obviously that music is completely subjective. So even if I write a song about a friend who screwed me over or an ex-boyfriend, if somebody else is going through it and it relates to how they feel, it’s still written for them. The beauty of it is even if I've written it with an ex in mind, it’s still the listener’s song”.
As winners of Kerrang! Radio’s ‘The Deal’ competition in 2025, the band earned the chance to open the Fresh Blood stage at Download Festival 2025, record an EP at The Marshall Studio with Grammy and Mercury award-nominated producer-engineer Romesh Dodangoda (Bring Me The Horizon, Nova Twins, Funeral for a Friend), and release the final works on Marshall Records.
The band’s new EP BLOOM. will be released via Marshall Records on 25 Feb 2026 - pre-save HERE.