From viral lockdown covers to headlining sold-out tours, Punk Rock Factory has taken the music world by storm with their high-energy punk rock reinventions of pop classics. With their latest album, All Hands On Deck, the band dives into the biggest hits of the ’90s, transforming nostalgic anthems into fast-paced, hard-hitting punk bangers. As they gear up for an in-store tour, festival performances, and international shows, we caught up with the band to talk about their journey, the art of covering iconic songs, and what’s next for Punk Rock Factory.
Punk Rock Factory started as a viral sensation during lockdown. How did the band come together, and did you ever expect to achieve this level of success?
The band actually formed in 2014. We were a group of friends who had played in bands (together, and separately) in the past and weren’t doing a lot musically at the time, so we put it together as a bit of a hobby, a bit of fun.
It was during the pandemic and lockdown that things really started to take off. We uploaded our version of “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” from The Lion King to TikTok and it got hundreds of thousands of views. It was from this point we kind of pivoted from just covering hit songs, to covering Disney. It blew us away a bit. What started out as a bit of fun had suddenly become this thing that was attracting a lot of attention, so we leaned into it. Was it expected? Probably not!
You’ve gained a massive following on TikTok and played to 30,000 people on your last UK tour. How has the journey from lockdown covers to headlining major tours been for you?
It’s been an adventure for sure, as well as a steep learning curve. For the longest time, it was always just the four of us, so we were doing everything ourselves. Posting merch, recording music, filming videos, promotion, everything. It’s only in recent times we’ve had help in the form of management, merch distribution, agents and the like that it’s become more functional and streamlined in each aspect.
We also employ an incredible crew on the road so headlining major tours is made easy for us to be honest, the people around us are absolute workhorses and make the shows what they are.
Your music often bridges the gap between pop and punk. What inspired you to start covering pop hits in a punk rock style?
In our teens and into our twenties we all listened to bands like Green Day, Nirvana, Blink-182, NOFX, Lagwagon and everything in between. So the style that the band would adopt ultimately became the sound of that era, which we try to encapsulate as much as possible while still trying to maintain what makes us “us”.
The gap does feel like it’s been bridged a lot. A lot of the feedback we get from our fans is that they are parents who have been able to connect better with their kids, because the kids love Disney and the parents love punk rock. That brings us immense joy and pride.
Your new album, **’All Hands On Deck’**, features punk covers of iconic pop songs. How do you decide which songs to cover, and what was the thought process behind this album?
Every album that we do, apart from the first one, follows a theme. We’ve done Disney twice, kids cartoons, musicals, and the 2000s music scene to this point. So when discussing a new album we went through many ideas and even asked the fans. The most popular choice seemed to be the 90s, so we ran with it.
Choosing the songs for an album is kind of a no brainer sometimes. We go with the biggest songs of that genre, theme or era. With the 90s, we chose the biggest songs that we remembered from that time, while also throwing a couple of curveballs in there for good measure. As with any album we do, there are sometimes songs that don’t work, or don’t come out the way we’d hoped when we record demos of them, so they get left behind.
We feel we’ve chosen a good mix of the era on this one, and while we love every song on the record, there are a few on there we can’t wait for people to hear.
The album includes a punk version of S Club 7’s ‘Bring It All Back’. Why did you choose this particular song, and how did you approach putting your own spin on it?
S Club are just one of those quintessential groups that we remember from that point in time, and they had many big hits. We knew we wanted to do one of them but we just had to choose the right one. We tried a couple, but Bring It All Back was the standout from them, and we think we’ve made it into an absolutely ferocious punk rock assault with only a few moments to breathe. The demo version was just 100mph all the way through, but when it came to recording with our producer Phil Gornell, he suggested some changes to it which gave it more character, and more moments to appreciate in between the chaos. We love it.
You’ve already released covers of B*Witched’s ‘C’est La Vie’, Take That’s ‘Back For Good’, and The Backstreet Boys’ ‘Larger Than Life’. Which cover was the most challenging to rework, and why?
Those four were actually pretty straightforward, to be honest. When the songs are simple at their core, it allows us to really supercharge them while still maintaining what made them a hit in the first place. The most challenging one of the four was probably “Larger Than Life” because it has that iconic riff running through a lot of it. So we had to figure out how we could keep that there without it sounding too similar and while also making it sound like a PRF rework. We’re stoked with how it came out, it’s one of the most different sounding tracks on the album.
The album title, ‘All Hands On Deck’, suggests a collective effort. What does this title mean to the band, and how does it reflect the album’s theme?
The phrase “all hands on deck” is generally from seafaring. Getting all the crew to the deck of the ship to help out with something. However, our spin on the title actually relates to the word “deck”. Most of, if not all the songs on the album were probably released on cassette tape at the time. Where do those tapes go? In your tape deck. It’s the reason the album art is themed around cassette tapes, it’s an homage to an (almost) dead format where these songs lived and breathed at the time. We can’t wait for you all to get your hands on it (see what we did there?).
When covering such iconic pop songs, how do you balance staying true to the original while adding your own punk rock flair?
We always, always try and stay as true as possible to the original songs where possible. The nuances, pronunciation, everything. Sometimes this makes things incredibly difficult but it’s the little things in songs that a lot of people remember, and if you leave them out or change it too much, it can be incredibly jarring. Sometimes it’s a risk worth taking but more often than not, it isn’t.
It’s hard to explain how we add our flair, we all just kind of hear how we want it to sound in our heads and demo it out. We know certain parts need to be fast, other parts need to slow down. We know some parts need to be made interesting to differentiate from the original. We know that the random part in the background of the song would make a solid lead guitar line. This all comes out in the creative flow of remaking the songs and it’s what makes this as fun as it (hopefully) sounds! We really pick apart the originals and try to recreate the parts.
S Club 7’s Jo O’Meara praised your cover of ‘Bring It All Back’. What was it like to receive such positive feedback from the original artists?
It’s really, really cool and we massively appreciate it. We try to show the utmost respect with these artists’ work so getting compliments is a great feeling. We want them to be impressed and to feel like we’ve done a good job with something that means so much to them.
We had similar feedback from B*Witched and that was amazing too. These songs were and are absolute hits and we are grateful to the artists that they exist so we can put our own spin on them.
You’ve mentioned that the lyrics of ‘Bring It All Back’ resonate with your own story. Can you elaborate on how the band’s journey reflects the message of the song?
We have always been the underdog. Although we never expected the success we’ve achieved so far, we don’t think anyone else did either. In all honesty it’s hard to be taken seriously in the music scene when you’re a “cover” band. So our ethos has always been to just keep chipping away. Keep doing the things we’re doing that are working and we’ll get there. It certainly feels like there has been a shift in the perception of the band more recently. We feel more accepted and we sometimes say “you don’t get it til you see it”, and that certainly rings true a lot of the time. If you come to one of our shows and have no voice from singing along the next day, you get it. We’re more than a cover band, we are a nostalgia trip and probably the best singalong night in the world!
Your February in-store tour is almost sold out. What can fans expect from these intimate shows, and how do they differ from your larger headline tours?
These shows will certainly be intimate. We won’t sugarcoat it, they will likely be more acoustic than full show, mainly due to the technical limitations at some of the venues. We want everyone to have the same experience so we’ve got to pivot a little from what we would normally do live. On our major tours we have a huge crew of people, props, vast amounts of programmed lighting and all sorts of other wacky stuff, but in these small venues which are ultimately record stores, we aren’t able to pull all that off unfortunately.
However, you can expect singalongs, laughs, nostalgia and a fun time all the same. We can’t wait!
You’re set to play at major festivals like Download, Bloodstock, and Slam Dunk. How do you prepare for festival performances compared to your own headline shows?
Festivals are a blessing and a curse and the preparation certainly differs. For our own shows, we have time to plan a long set, interludes, lights, costume changes etc. We have multiple crew members who make all this happen. Festivals are awesome for exposure, that amazing feeling of walking out to tens of thousands of people. Many of which won’t have heard of us or heard anything by us. We gain lots of new fans this way and it’s great. However, sometimes they can be challenging on a technical level. They aren’t our shows so we have to adapt to the situation and turn around setting our gear up and getting on stage in a short space of time, which does unfortunately mean things can go wrong. Don’t get us wrong though, we are honoured and privileged to be invited to play such festivals and appreciate every single one we get to do.
You’ll be touring Germany and the Netherlands in March. How do international audiences react to your music compared to UK fans?
Largely the same! The great thing about the music we play is it’s totally universal. Sure, there may be versions of the songs in their respective languages but the spine of the songs doesn’t change. We do tend to find that European audiences are a bit crazier than the UK, but in the best way. They are just out to have fun and enjoy themselves and they always look out for each other. Some of the best times we’ve had on the road have been in places like Germany and the Netherlands and we can’t wait to get back to them this year.
With ‘All Hands On Deck’ set to release on February 14th, what are your hopes for the album, and how do you think it will be received by fans and critics?
Classic Rock magazine gave us 1 star for a previous album we released. So anything better than that would be a bonus! We hope ultimately that it’s another trip down memory lane for people. We want people to listen to these songs that they know and are familiar with and enjoy what we’ve done with them. Our fans are always very respectful of our work, they love hearing how we’ve adapted the songs and we get great feedback. As for critics.. It’s anyone’s guess. We realise we can be quite polarising but sometimes that’s a good thing. If someone says it’s bad, sometimes people want to know why and will go check it out. If someone says it’s good, they will go check it out to see if they’re right! We have worked very hard on this album and campaign though, so it would be nice to get some positive feedback from critics but we are realists and know that you can’t please everyone! We are very proud of the album.
You’ve already achieved so much, from viral fame to sold-out tours. What’s next for Punk Rock Factory? Are there any original songs in the works, or will you continue to focus on covers?
We recently recorded a song that isn’t a cover. We compiled a bunch of negative comments we received into a song, and then recorded that song and made a video. That’s the closest thing to an original you’ll get from us at the moment. We have a very “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality when it comes to our band and what we put out there. We wouldn’t want to muddy the waters by releasing original music. Are they a cover band? Are they an original band? It could get confusing and of course there’s always the concern in the back of our minds that if we release original music, will people hate it? It comes up a lot and we get asked this question a lot but for the time being at least, we’re staying firmly in our lane!
You’ve got a busy schedule ahead, including shows with Elvana and a performance at Cardiff Castle. What are you most looking forward to in 2025?
The Elvana show at Brixton Academy is going to be awesome. Brixton Academy is one of those bucket list venues for us and it was very kind of Elvana to invite us to be special guests at the show. We feel like our band and theirs align a little bit in that they play covers, but that’s simplifying it far too much. They are more than that. They’re an experience. It’s going to be a great night full of singalongs and good vibes.
Cardiff Castle is another bucket list venue. Kob and Benj were both born in Cardiff and lived there for much of their lives so it’s a special place for them. We can’t wait for that one, a full Welsh lineup in the capital’s castle. Hell yeah!
If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Ahhh, there’s just so many to name, our musical tastes vary so much across the board, I mean you got your Freddy’s and your Kurts but then there’s Billie Joe and Mr Grohl that could mix it up with us or we could go full Turtle Neck and Chain and get Michael Bolton on a track, we are down for anything!
18. If you could cover any song that you haven’t tackled yet, what would it be and how would you punk it up?
Well, we’re not done just yet so we still have every song that’s ever been written at our disposal so nothing is off limits. Toto’s Africa is one that has been on the list but so has Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors so who knows what we’ll churn out next. Expect the unexpected.
19. You’ve covered everything from Pokémon theme songs to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What’s the most unexpected song you’ve ever been asked to cover?
I mean, we are usually at the front of the queue when it comes to the ridiculous so we can’t really pass the blame on to anyone else for our outrageous cover ideas but seeing as we’re going there, I think doing the Milky Way Advert or the theme tune from The Bill have got to be up there for the unexpected. You just don’t wake up in the morning thinking this is how your day is going to go but it does and we go there all the time.
20. What’s the most memorable fan interaction you’ve had during your career so far?
The fact that we have fans that queue up to see us, buy a VIP Meet and Greet or stay behind after a show to get stuff signed is always pretty mind-blowing and humbling. There’s certainly been some awkward moments but we won’t go there. I’d have to say just hearing the impact that we have had on people especially right after covid. It’s always shocking to hear how hard some people had it during that time and for them to say that we helped get them through some dark times in their lives is all we could ever ask for. We just want to project as much fun and energy out there as we can and hopefully, people harness that and it helps them get past any obstacles they feel they have. If we can achieve that then we’re winning.
