Fat White Family have entered the ring of the warring British post-punk bands calling out both IDLES and Sleaford Mods in a Facebook post promoting their UK and European tour. The comments come following Sleaford Mods’ frontman Jason Williamson accusing IDLES of appropriating a working class voice in a Q&A on The Guardian website. Fat White Family have not been involved in the feud so far, and their comments deriding both bands have seemingly come out of the blue.
The post starts with Fat White Family agreeing with Williamson’s views,”I’m 100% with Jason Williamson on that band Idles”, before the band then reveals why they think so, “the last thing our increasingly puritanical culture needs right now is a bunch of self neutering middle class boobs telling us to be nice to immigrants”. This harkens back to Williamson’s statement about the Bristol band, “there were lines like “Tarquin” that would insinuate that they were knocking the middle classes, but it turns out they’re not working class”.
The post continues, “you might call that art, I call it sententious pedantry”. However, the band, in typical Fat White Family fashion, went on to lampoon Sleaford Mods stating, “That being said how long are Sleaford Mods going to keep banging on about shit wages and kebabs? There’s only two of them and they have NO BACKLINE!$$$$$$$$$$$$$££!!!!”.
In the comments many Facebook users accused Fat White Family of also being middle class, to which they replied sarcastically with a picture of the famous photograph Migrant Mother, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, which has become a symbol of the Great Depression.
The picture was accompanied with the following words, “Enough is truly enough as far as the dreaded accusations of being middle class are concerned! I didn’t want to share this as it was a very difficult time for me and my family, but below is a photograph of me and my brother Nathan huddling our mother for warmth in 1992. It should be obvious from the look in her eyes that she has never even seen a Waitrose!! CASE CLOSED!!”.
It is unclear whether IDLES or Sleaford Mods will reply to the comments, or if Fat White Family are using the dispute to promote their tour supporting their new album ‘Serfs Up!’, which is released on April 19th. However, with three bands now being involved it would not be surprising if the beef escalates.
Fat White Family’s tour begins in May. A full list of the UK and European tour dates is provided below.
1/5/19 – The 1865 – Southampton
2/5 – Concorde 2 – Brighton – SOLD OUT
3/5 – O2 Academy – Bristol
4/5 – O2 Ritz – Manchester
7/5 – SWG3 TV – Glasgow
8/5 – Button Factory – Dublin
9/5 – Leadmill – Sheffield
10/5 – Rock City – Nottingham
12/5 – Gold Sounds Festival – Leeds
14/5 – Waterfront – Norwich
15/5 – O2 Kentish Town Forum – London
31/5 – La Laiterie – Strasbourg
2/6 – Molotow – Hamburg
3/6 – Bi Nuu – Berlin
12/6 – Botanique Rotonde – Brussels
13/6 – Elysee Montmatre – Paris
