shame Tickets

If you drank in Brixton’s Queen’s Head in the early 10s you might have heard history in the making. Then the favourite haunt of shame – as well as Fat White Family, King Krule and Childhood – South London’s new post-punk scene was built on a low plywood stage under a string of rope lights next to the bar.  

Comprising vocalist Charlie Steen, guitarists Sean Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green, bassist Josh Finerty, and drummer Charlie Forbes, shame formed at school in 2014 and started practising at the pub. Meeting Fat White Family and impressing them enough to bag a support slot – alongside the likes of The Garden and Slaves – shame honed their scrappy stomp punk on the road and on the stage of the burgeoning's scene spiritual home of Brixton's Windmill: angry, witty, politically engaged and cutting to the quick with their hard-driven sound.   

Releasing their first single The Lick/Gold Hole in 2016, shame signed to Dead Oceans for the release of their debut record Songs Of Praise in 2018. Also including singles Tasteless, Concrete and One Rizla, the album rose to No.32 on the official UK chart. In January 2020, the band revealed that they were working on their follow-up.

Later that year, shame unveiled new single Alphabet accompanied by a Tegen Williams-directed video. "Alphabet is a direct question, to the audience and the performer, on whether any of this will ever be enough to reach satisfaction," frontman Steen said when revealing the track. 

Second album Drunk Tank Pink (named after the calming colour painted on the walls of police cells) was released in January 2021 in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, making it to No.8 in the UK album chart. Lauded by critics, and quickly followed by a deluxe edition in November 2021, the record showed the world that shame were only just getting started.

In late 2022, shame announced they were returning with a new album Food For Worms, debuting the first single 'Fingers Of Steel' in November. Struggling to find a direction, the band were tasked by their management with playing two sets of completely new songs at The Windmill, forcing shame to construct a whole new record in three weeks. The result was an album that Steen described as "the Lamborghini of shame records".