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Brit post-hardcore unit Mercers will unveil their debut EP, The Liminal Tapes, on Friday, 17th July. The band have also just released their new single and video, New Stockholm. Mercers drummer Richard Titheradge talks us through everything that you need to know about the band:
What are the origins of the band? How long have you been playing together?
As a band, Mercers has only been a thing since last year, but the actual origin of it goes all the way back to the early 2000’s. Olly and Phil were in a pretty well-established band called Fony back then, and last year they decided that they wanted to re-record a couple of their old songs because they weren’t particularly happy with the final result. As it was just those two that were going to be involved from the original band, they needed some other people to jump in. Phil and I have known each other for a decent while, and as he knew I was a big fan of Fony back in the day, he reached out to me about playing drums on the re-recordings. They also had some ideas for some new material which came up in the process of them working on the older songs, so we spent some time on those and added Simon on guitar shortly after. I’ve been in various bands with him for years at this point, and it was a perfect fit all round!
What should people expect when they check out the band? How would you describe Mercers?
The sound of the band is definitely rooted in 2000’s Post Hardcore for sure. All of us grew up on stuff like Glassjaw, Deftones, Poison The Well, Incubus, etc., so those influences are very prevalent. Obviously being that we also re-recorded some Fony songs, those are also a big influence on the new material too. But we haven’t explicitly tried to recreate that original sound 1:1. There’s a lot of room for experimentation, and I think the new songs do feel like a familiar but fresh take on what Olly and Phil had done previously.
How did you feel performing your first gig as a band, and how was it?!
We haven’t actually played any shows as of yet. We’re currently working on a few things, though, so hopefully we’ll have some stuff to announce soon in that regard. It’s the thing that all of us are looking forward to the most with this project overall, so we can’t wait to get this on the road.
What are you working on at the minute that people can check out?
Things are still relatively new in terms of us being out in the world. We put out our first single “Cleanse/Reapeat” about a month ago, we actually just shot the video for our next single, which is going to be out on 10th July, just ahead of our E.P on the 17th. We’re really excited about that one. Overall, we’re still getting the ball rolling with the project, really, so there’s not a ton of stuff as of yet, but we have some pretty cool ideas in the pipeline for things we want to do next.
Regarding a similar audience, which band do you feel that you would be best suited to open for?
The two easy ones that come to mind would be either Glassjaw or Poison The Well. As I mentioned previously both those bands have a pretty big influence on our music, so whilst we don’t sound directly like either one, I think we’d probably sit pretty nicely on the same bill as either.
Excluding yourself, which new band would you like to see break out and become a success?
I think my favourite smaller/newer band at the moment is a band from Canada called ‘A Mourning Star’. I actually caught them in London very recently, and it was one of the best small shows I’d been to in a long time. If you’re a fan of stuff like Misery Signals, Counterparts, Killswitch Engage, etc, then I’d highly recommend checking them out.
What frustrates you about the music business?
I’d actually been on a pretty big break from playing music until the opportunity to join Mercers arrived, so I’m still very much learning how to navigate how it works now. I think my main frustration with it now is the focus/push on content and views/likes, etc. It feels like bands have to basically be expert content creators to get noticed. Which is fine to a certain point when it’s meaningful and relates to the music, etc. But when I see bands jumping on TikTok trends/making videos that have entirely nothing to do with their music to try and get people to listen, it always makes it feel less genuine to me and does put me off. Those people have probably put a lot of time and effort into creating art that means a lot to them, so it feels like it gets cheapened a little when it’s then paired with the same video that a million other people are doing to get views.
It is, unfortunately, the product of a broken industry that has been impacted by things like social media being involved in every aspect of our lives, alongside a lot of small venue closures, etc, so it’s not a case of writing songs and jumping in a van playing every show possible; that’s just not something that can be done easily anymore. That being said, in certain scenes I do feel like I’m seeing more DIY festivals etc. cropping up again as well as a bit of shift with some bands going back to making actual tour documentaries/studio vlogs etc. which is awesome as it still exposes people to new music but also gives such good insight in the life of a band and I think will do more to encourage more kids to pick up instruments than a 15 second clip ever will.
What are your first musical memories? And what lightbulb moment made you say “I want to do that”?
Funnily enough, I have to go back to the first question on this one! Going to local shows in my early teens definitely laid the foundation for a lifetime obsession with music for me. And being that I grew up in the same area a few years behind them, Fony were on a bunch of those shows, and as they grew, they brought bigger bands to the local area. So all my early experiences of larger-scale shows before I started venturing to London was through them. It was those shows that got me hooked on going to as many as possible and definitely made me want to be in bands myself. So being in this band and getting to play some of those songs is definitely a bit of a full-circle moment for me.
What was the last gig that you attended as a fan?
I went and saw I Killed The Prom Queen and Eternal Lord at The Dome in London last weekend, which was awesome. I’d not seen Prom Queen with the original singer, and Eternal Lord were one of my favourite bands in the Myspace era, so it was great to see both of those bands again.
What current social issues are you particularly passionate about?
I mean, the world is in a very sorry state at the moment and seems to only get progressively worse on a seemingly day-to-day basis. You can’t open social media or put on the TV without seeing some sort of misjustice of some description. And sadly, so much of it comes from people simply trying to benefit themselves and being unwilling to help others. There are people in this world who have access to more resources than anyone could ever need, yet actively do things that only continue to benefit themselves when they could change the lives of so many without the slightest inconvenience to their own existence. There could be any number of issues that we could dive into here, but I think the fundamental (maybe oversimplified) problem with the modern world is just a bit of a disconnect from humanity in general. People forget how easy it can be to make a difference with small/simple interactions and just by being kinder, thoughtful, and present.
What album do you have in your album collection/Spotify playlist that would surprise most people?
I actually really like Grime, to be honest! I guess because it can be aggressive so has some parallels to heavy music. I think a lot of it also comes from an authentic/honest place, which is something it shares with hardcore and resonates with me a bit. So yeah, artists like Kano, P Money, and Devlin all see regular plays if I’m not listening to heavier/guitar driven stuff.
Everybody is a fan of something. Who or what are you a fan of?
Outside of music, video games are my other big passion. Very much like music, it offers me a form of escapism, and I love immersing myself in the stories. I’ll spend so much time outside the main game path exploring the worlds that these studios have created. So much thought and detail goes into building every inch of them, and that’s absolutely amazing to me.
What new music have you enjoyed so far this year?
Both the new Static Dress and Car Underwater records have been on heavy rotation for me since they came out a few weeks ago; both of them are really interesting takes on their respective genres. But in general, it’s been an awesome year for music so far. There are a lot of bands bringing back the early 2000’s metalcore sound as well now, which is great as I never really moved on from it too much. So to have new music in that vein after such a long time has been awesome. Hardcore and Metalcore is in the best place it’s been for a very long time, which excites me a lot.
What does the rest of 2026 hold for Mercers?
So our E.P “The Liminal Tapes” is out on 17th July, we’ll be looking to play some shows throughout the rest of the year, and we’ve started throwing some ideas around for some newer material, so I hope we’ll be back in the studio before the end of the year and have some more music out. Though it’s very early days, the form it takes is unclear at the moment.
How active are you on social media, and where can people connect with you?
We probably need to be better at it, but you can find us in all the usual spots, really!
https://www.instagram.com/mercersband
