12/09/2025
C**k Sparrer UK in SPIN Magazine!
Read Brendan Hay's interview with the punk legends conducted in the aftermath of their epic 2-night stand at The Hollywood Palladium with Dillinger Four Official & Home Front!
Link in comments!
You know your band’s legacy is secure when the sold-out crowd at your show can sing two full verses of your song before you even play a single note.
Not that the U.K. Oi! punk originators C**k Sparrer were remotely worried about how they’ll be remembered during their two recent sold-out shows at the Hollywood Palladium (their first L.A. show in 25 years). They were fully in the moment, conducting the crowd as if they were a fist-pumping, chorus-shouting Oi!-chestra. It built to the point that—during lead singer Colin McFaull’s favorite Sparrer song “Because You’re Young”—the audience held the climactic note longer and louder than even he thought possible. “Good thing we’re not coming back to L.A.,” joked McFaull, “because that’s the loudest version of that song ever.”
That is why I went into these shows with “legacy” looming in my mind. These Palladium gigs were billed as the band’s “final L.A. performances ever,” following their 2024 album Hand on Heart being the band’s “final studio album.” We assumed that after five decades of playing fast, raw, working-class anthems with full hearts, the street-punk legends had decided to rest.
We were wrong. C**k Sparrer is NOT retiring. Not exactly.
“We’ve always said we will keep going as long as we’ve got our health, we’re enjoying it, and we’re not embarrassing ourselves,” explains guitarist Daryl Smith. The two Palladium concerts show the band is very much checking those boxes, and McFaull shares that the band currently has gigs booked through 2026 and into 2027, largely across the U.K. and Europe.
So why the recent “final” distinctions? Read the full interview at the link in the comments.
