Their fifth album, Interceptor, will have arrived by the time you read this, and I implore you to give it a listen, for the latest Fury album is without doubt their best work so far. Before they played a strikingly fast set at the second Hella Rock Festival in Coventry, I caught up with founder member Julian Jenkins and drummer Tom Fenn backstage at the HMV Empire.
There are a couple of changes that I am leaving the band to announce, so we are straight into our chat about the new album. Interceptor follows 2022’s Born To Sin and it’s the first to see singer Nyah Ifill taking the lead on songs.
Like most bands, work on the next album started even before their current record had been released. In the case of Born To Sin, Julian explains that because the band were unable to gig due to the pandemic, work on it had started even before the previous album, The Grand Prize, had been released.
“There are always a few ideas knocking about,” he said. “But we didn’t start working on this album until Tom [Atkinson] joined, which was about a year after Born To Sin came out.”
The big change of course is that Fury is now signed to the label Mighty Music. The album was ready before they joined the label. “That’s what we wanted to do,” says Julian. “The album could have come out March or April time.”
“We knew if it was off our own backs, this could have been out this time last year,” Tom adds, “but the idea was get it ready, and then we’ll tout it out a bit.”
Fury had completed the album, “all mastered and everything,” such that it was the complete product, “especially audio-wise.” Then it went out to some record labels.
“We got a few good responses,” Tom says, “and Mighty Music got back to us. They were interested, and what they wanted to do aligned with what we wanted. Similar goals. It was a good connection. A sort of Danish connection, Becky with Mercyful Fate, and Nyah did some work for a festival in Denmark called Epic Fest, which we are playing at next year. So yes, all roads point to Denmark.”
Fury have released four singles so far, the latest being On The Town, which was shared this morning.
The band’s third single, Don’t Lie To Me, was a bit of a change in that it was a more politically charged statement than one might usually expect from them.
Prompted by the state of the world, Julian explains more. “In the past, it’s always been a bit more about a kind of escapism, songs about space and all sorts. But then it gets to a point where things are so bad that, especially when you feel like you have a bit of a platform to say something, there’s that responsibility to say something.
“The poverty and the cost-of-living crisis, the rich elite and corporations getting away without paying any tax, and at the same time they’ve got the media in their pockets spreading xenophobia, racism.
“I guess the sad thing is when I wrote the song, about a year ago, for the lyrics, part of me was thinking by the time the song comes out, it will be obsolete. It’ll be in the past, right? But what a stupid thing to think, right?
“Because now, the homeless crisis, poverty crisis, cost of living, it’s worse than ever. I say it in the song. Fourteen million people in the UK live below the poverty line, in the sixth biggest economy in the world. That’s what gets me with this whole business recently, about people putting up the flag or whatever.
“I’m not proud of a country where this is happening and where the elite and the corporate will get away with not paying any tax when the average person is struggling to live. So yeah, it’s more relevant than ever.”
As musicians and artists, I wonder if Fury feel that they have a responsibility to draw attention to these issues. “As an artist, you write about things that affect you,” Julian says. “Even when you are doing the more fantasy stuff, the more escapism about space or driving fast cars, whatever. There’s something about that in you.
“I’m very much a working-class person. I’m struggling to pay the rent each month, all the sort of stuff. So, this is a situation that very much affects me, and I think you write about what you know. It’s difficult. If someone said, I don’t want to sing about it in my music I wouldn’t chastise them for it. But for me, I feel compelled to say something, and yeah, it’s got the point of crisis, hasn’t it?”
Tom is keen to add a point. “You know, it’s one of those things. People don’t have to sing about politics in music, but when people say politics shouldn’t be in music, that’s the red flag.”
As Julian says, “politics, culture and music are all the same. Politics affects culture, which affects music.”
It’s a fact that touring musicians, and Fury have played in Europe a fair bit in the past few years, are more affected than ever by politics. Fury recently announced that they were unable to send merchandise to the United States, and they are not the first band to do that.
“It’s all intertwined and there are very obvious things, but I mean, you look at governments, especially like in America, regressing laws on being Trans. I’m sure I don’t know much about American politics, but I’m sure it will not be long before gay marriage, all these sorts of things, will start regressing, and that affects people.
“The idea that politics and culture and music are devoid of each other, it’s bullshit. We were in the Netherlands a couple of months ago, and we got off stage and someone was like, ‘You’re a really good band, but you shouldn’t bring politics into music.’ The thing is, my guitar has got a Palestinian flag on it and a Black Lives Matter fist on it. But they weren’t talking about that.
“They were talking about… before we played Rock Lives, I say about sexism in music, and don’t be sexist, don’t be a misogynist, don’t be a racist, just treat everyone kindly and with respect. That’s what she took issue with. I mean, you go back, and you listen to Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, all these bands, they were all singing about politics.”
The Lightning Dream came out in 2014, and Fury had been in existence for a few years before that, with a couple of EPs, so they are well into 15 years of their musical journey. Did Julian have any vision about where the band would be, ten/eleven years after the debut was released?
Tom is quick to make us laugh when he says “Coventry!” before Julian continues. “Obviously, I was a lot younger back then, and I’m sure we thought, put this album out and then we’ll go on tour with Iron Maiden!”
We explore how the band has diversified from those earlier days when they were more Speed/Power Metal. With a female singer now firmly on board, that attracts a different lens and more exposure in certain areas, whether you agree with it or not. Did the band / Julian envision the current direction?
“No, not all,” Julian says. “When we first started out, that first album is heavily Maiden influenced and very Classic Metal, which I think there’s still some of that in there. But more things have been thrown in over time.
“But if you’d said to me then, in ten years’ time there will be dual vocalists, female/male vocals, and all these different influences…. because I think you grow musically with time. First of all, it’s like, no, we need to sound like Iron Maiden or Metallica, and for me, my musical journey has more variation.
“I want to throw a bit of Phil Collins in there, or you know, I wanna throw this or that. Now it feels great because I never quite know what’s next. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still going to be rock ‘n’ roll, because that’s what we do, right?
“But we are looking at what else we can combine with it to make it a bit different, and I think that, especially with this album, this is what we’ve pretty much done that. We’ve still got the core of what Fury is.
“The song Interceptor embodies that. But then it’s almost like, okay, that’s it. That’s the starting position. Let’s go down all these other tangents from that position and see where we end up, and I think that is, for me, as a songwriter, very exciting. The things we can do. We’ve always tried to go, okay, here’s a curveball. Here’s the stuff you expect, and then there’s something you didn’t expect.”
As Fury head into their autumn touring cycle, we laugh about a 30-minute slot, six albums of material and a new album to promote. With hardcore fans and those seeing Fury for the first time, how do they choose what to play?
“It does get difficult,” admits Julian. “It’s a combination of, you want to give people what they want in terms of like, not that we have hits, but yeah, the hits and the more popular songs. You also want to appeal to people who haven’t seen you perform, but you don’t become too predictable, and then fit it all into half an hour. You are trying not to disappoint anyone.
“Tonight, it’s been quite easy because it gets almost like the best of the last two or three years. We’re starting off with Interceptor, a new song, and we are in a good position now, because [this week] we start a new tour, and a lot of the set will be new stuff.
“That’s a bit more difficult because that’s like, what do we keep in. There are some obvious ones, especially with the headline sets like, okay, that’s gotta stay in there. But what we’ve actually done, we’ve been rehearsing a regular set, and then we’ve got a few extras as well, so we can sort of swap them around throughout the tour.”
If you’ve heard the lead single and title track, it sounds like a great one to play live. “It is real good fun to play,” says Julian. “You’ve got to play it fast”.
Tom agrees. “It’s the proper thrashy one to play,” he laughs.
As Julian tells me, it’s really a song that is Fury through and through and later in the evening they proved that with a high intensity delivery that I can’t wait to hear live again soon. “It’s a song that kind of really embodies what we do. Yeah. A fun song about driving fast.”
As Nyah joins us for the last minute, we discuss the tour and the fact that she will have to do a few songs on her own. “It’s a 50:50 balance,” she tells me, which will bring a new dimension to the band and, as we discuss in the closing seconds, may help take a little pressure off Julian at times during the shows.
Of course, the best way to find out how it works will be to get to a show over the next few months. Plenty of dates across the UK, and with a full headline show, the opportunity to see one of the UK’s best bands in action.
Fury release Interceptor on Friday, 5 September 2025 and will be available from mightymusic.dk/releases/fury-interceptor/ and all the usual streaming services.
