We sat down with our good friend Joe Cabrera from Leeds band BEAUTY SCHOOL, where we talked about their debut album ‘Happiness’ turning one, Joe’s struggles with touring and how he has overcome them, and also what 2024 holds for the band.

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Your debut album ‘Happiness’ turned one year old this month, how does it feel?

Joe: It’s crazy really, the album is a year old to everyone else but to us it’s over two years old. We wrote the album in lockdown, and then pitched it to labels during that time. We got signed off the back of the demo version and then went into the studio in 2021. It almost feels refreshing in a way that the cycle of ‘Happiness’ is over in a weird way. It has been amazing and it’s about moving forward now. Between the albums being released to now, it has been insane. The opportunities we have had and the growth of the band has been amazing. It is pretty wild to think it has only been a year.

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Did lockdown help Beauty School in any way?

Joe: I don’t think we would have been looked at it if it wasn’t for the lockdown. It opened doors for so many bands in way because live gigs weren’t happening, so labels and the music industry as a whole needed to find things to do. We used that time to write an album and also the labels were looking for new acts so it worked out perfectly.

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You mentioned that the band have been given opportunities,  those being a support slot on UK tours with the likes of The Dangerous Summer and The Wonder Years. How was it being able to tour with bands that shaped the modern genre?

Joe: It was a blessing and a curse in many ways. We were so new to the game in terms of big tours. We were so excited about it coming off the back of the album’s release. The tour we did with The Dangerous Summer was a real shellshock, we has such a good time on the tour but the logistics side of it we didn’t prepare for it correctly. Four days into that tour I completely lost my voice, and it was purely because I didn’t warm up properly. I think I over did it in Leeds as well with it being a hometown show. I reached out to Olli Appleyard from Static Dress and he recommended to eat raw ginger, and it’s unbelievable how much that helped me and I was pretty much back to normal. On The Wonder Years tour we were much more prepared, the rooms were bigger so we were all on a massive high from that, and those guys were so readily available to offer us advise and help us along the way.

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BEAUTY SCHOOL have two tours coming up, a short UK run supporting The Bottom Line, and a co-headline tour with Arm’s Length, how excited are you to be heading back out on the road?

Joe: We’re really excited. Now we have got that experience under our belt, even with shows we have done in Europe this year it feels like each moment is so different even though you are essentially doing the same thing. The Bottom Line tour is going to be a great with it being small rooms, and the co-headline with Arm’s Length who are killing it by the way. It’s not just about the shows, it’s about being with your friends, the fans and it makes you appreciate being away from home more.

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Before Beauty School, you were a band called Calls Landing, who was essentially a less known band. How have you adapted to the growth over the years?

Joe: We’re still adapting. Every time something comes a long we get so excited about it and it’s that feeling of moving forward all the time. After starting Calls Landing back in 2011, we never really got out of Yorkshire during that time, and when that came to an end, we couldn’t switch off musically so that is how Beauty School came about. I like to think of it as 5-a-side football, it’s something you do with your mates for a bit of fun, and then it all happened at once. We’re all in full time jobs, some of us are married so there is sacrifices we have to make more now than we did back when we was in university.

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Now that the band has formed a fan base and you are getting on these big tours, what is the craziest fan experience you have had so far?

Joe: We did our headline tour in February 2023, we didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to know how the tickets sales were going as I wanted to go into it completely blind. We did really well on that tour but there were four people from the Netherlands who came to see us, and they came to every show on the tour. The thought of that to this day is crazy, the fact somebody has listened to my band and decided to travel to another country, and then follow the tour is just wild to me. That’s something Justin Bieber fans do. Other than that, I was in the Morrisons getting some food from the counter and the guy who was working there said “You sing in Beauty School don’t you” and he said he was coming to see us on the upcoming tours, but didn’t give me a discount, so I wasn’t happy about that.

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How do you like to use your free time when touring?

Joe: It depends on the route and where we are on the bill really. During The Wonder Years tour we had some nice accommodation to relax in the day time so I played a lot of Nintendo Switch, and we were doing some demoing as well. When I lost my voice on tour, it really scared me about it happening again, so I take each day as it comes, see how I am feeling and go from there really. The boys like to go out and grab food before a show, but I never eat before I play. I get nervous before playing a show so I like to have a drink before I go on to calm me.

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You mentioned you have been demoing for your next release, will the sound be similar to ‘Happiness’ or something different?

Joe: We’re still figuring it out, but it still has that Beauty School sound. We want it to sound a bit more crisp and cleaner. A lot of it will come down to the producer and the engineer when we finally go into the studio.

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Do you have any goals you want to achieve going into 2024?

Joe: I don’t to be honest. As we didn’t expect the year we’ve had to happen, everything feels like a bonus. I don’t want to set an expectation, I like to ride the wave as that it what got us in this position in the first place.

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If you had to pick your perfect rider, what would it be?

Joe: Our current headline rider has a bottle of tequila on it, so I will keep that. I saw Mark Hoppus posted that on their tour he has a hard case with a built in screen and console station, I’d like one of those, and if I’m being honest, spag bol. I’ve got some brewing now actually but if you could get me spag bol on a rider *chefs kiss*.

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A huge thank you to Joe for sitting down for a chat, we look forward to seeing Beauty School on the road again very soon.

Tickets for their tours with The Bottom Line and Arm’s Length are on sale now.