MAID OF ACE on supporting Green Day at Wembley – Interview

MAID OF ACE on supporting Green Day in the UK – Interview

How did an ‘unsigned’ DIY UK punk band Maid of Ace come to play stadium gigs with Green Day – the stadium pop-punk millionaires that punk purists love to hate?  Ged Babey finds out how Punk Rock Dreams can come true and why people should stop slagging off Green Day. 

Every five minutes, somewhere in the world, a 65 year old or a 16 year old ‘punk’ on social media will comment about how Green Day are ‘shit’, ‘suck’ or are ‘not punk’. They are simultaneously the most slated and most successful of all bands labelled punk.

Like it or not they went from 924 Gilman Street to Broadway due to great songs and hard work. On their recent UK stadium tour they were joined by Maid of Ace.

Maid of Ace are four sisters from Hastings who since 2012 have released three albums independently and toured their skinny asses off and have become an absolutely unbeatable live band who just happen to be female. Many people consider them to be the best ‘new’ punk band around – in terms of Ramones / Motorhead rock’n’roll without banner-waving, fighting the culture wars or getting provocative (see Lambrini Girls, Soap Girls etc etc)

Eight whole years on from the second album Maid in England supporting Green Day was the culmination of twelve years of hard-gigging, and following the death of their dad last year, vindication that their hard-work had paid off and their talent getting noticed by more than just Vive Le Rock readers and Rebellion punks.

It’s hugely gratifying to see a band who sang about the minimum wage being treated well by one of the biggest rock-bands in the world who get a billion streams

Here’s their reel from Wembley and one put up by the Italian Green Day insta  where Ali helps Billy Joe open a bottle of fizz.

I spoke to her a few days after the tour had ended and she was still buzzing.

So, so pleased to see that you played Wembley with Green Day – must be like a dream come true?

Yeah a surreal moment. Our teenage-selves minds were blown. As for Wembley, We only just released a football song last year too so that was another WTF moment we are so grateful for.

Green Day get slagged off, by old gits mainly for being too pop – but they seem like decent geezers – what were your impressions of them – as a band and as people?

Always had a sense that they’re good, humble, family people, I mean they started just as we did – teens at school and they’re still the same 3 guys in the band. They also just asked an unsigned band from Hastings to join their tour, that’s gotta mean something?!..  Yeah, they came across just as we imagined, Sound and down to earth. Haters gonna hate no matter what you do. Just do you!

How did you get the gig – hustling, bribery or did GD know about MOA and invited you?

Billy Joe started following us on Instagram about a year prior… Then an email came outta the blue from their management saying the band is asking if we wanna play these shows. Awfully we’d actually missed the email as it went into junk mail and luckily saw an instagram message from their team nudging us about it before “they would have to ask someone else”. So THANK FUCK FOR THAT hahaha! Imagine finding that email months later!!!

That video of you doing Nostalgia and dedicating it to you dad is beautiful – and will bring a tear to the eye of every punk rock dad – tell me about him. I guess he was your biggest fan & road manager – was he in rock n roll bands before starting a family?

Thank you, It meant a lot. He passed away just before these shows got announced, he would’ve been gobsmacked, as he would remember us into Green Day when we first started the band back in our school days. He wasn’t in a band or our manager just a proud dad supporting his kids doing something they loved. He used to drive us to gigs in the early days before any of us could drive. He was an engineer, a bloody good drinker but always there when we needed him, a bit of grit in the Vaseline and not someone to just go with the herd.

What next for Maid Of Ace? Tour, album, America? 

We’ve been working on an album on and off this past year, so we’ll be dropping a single soon, KEEP YOUR EARS PRICKED! Yeah we have our eye on America again so we’ll see what comes up there… in the meantime we have a couple UK shows and EU tour in August… the no-tour blues be kicking in so can’t wait to get back out there and fuck shit up!

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Vive the Maids.  Probably the most unpretentious, kickass rock’n’roll band in England – talking of which, THAT is a great football anthem.

And Green Day are fuckin’ cool you hater scum! They could’ve picked any old band – there must’ve been a massive queue of me-me-me’s, but they chose the best!

Buy Hooligan Heart on Bandcamp

Maid of Ace Tour Dates basically Rebellion is the only UK date then Germany/Europe throughout August.

Maid of Ace Website

All words  Ged Babey,  photos  Mark Richards  video -with thanks to Kristian Koci