It’s the first day of the 2025 edition of Primavera Sound Porto. High Vis have just come off a fiery run through Spain: a 1:20 a.m. Primavera Barcelona slot, a stop in the Basque Country where they played with a post-punk band singing in Basque and a chaotic Madrid crowd singing their riffs back at them as if they were sporting chants. “Mental”, as frontman Graham Sayle describes it. He’s not wrong. Despite being up against headliner Charli xcx, High Vis' first-ever performance in Portugal turns out to be one of the festival’s secret highlights: a set buzzing with urgency, heart and the unshakable, almost stubborn defiance that shapes them. Sayle, shirtless and electric, tackles the spotlight like someone trying to exorcise a hundred years of pain. It’s where purging meets performance and hunger is made magnetic, transforming pent-up crowd energy into something inherently communal.
They’re down-to-earth in a way that’s instantly disarming. The themes that run through Guided Tour, their third and most sonically expansive album yet, start surfacing: working-class anxiety, the equal hope and rage that comes from simply trying to survive. There are pinpoints to other influences, but the record still heavily relies on their punk and hardcore roots to dive into what’s truly important: the idea of trying to break free from a world that's constantly numbing you. The band members mention growing up in Liverpool and Dublin, playing harder onstage regardless of the context surrounding them and, above all, the working-class ethos that makes punk about community, more than anything else. That’s part of what makes High Vis one of the most vital punk bands working today. Their presence is sincere but never performative, and their music not only speaks to today’s disaffection, but fully embodies it in each and every artistic cornerstone. And as our conversation moves along, everything becomes obvious: High Vis aren’t trying to be anything else than themselves. And that’s what makes them matter.
Where did you grow up? Was music a big part of your upbringing? How did you step into the world of hardcore and punk?
Graham Sayle: My parents were both bikers, so they were both into guitar music. I was always around that when I was a kid. They were always playing rock and metal. I kind of rebelled against that around that time and got into techno. I was just conflicted between everything growing up. Then I got into hardcore when I was about 14 or 15. We started going to shows in Liverpool.
Martin MacNamara: With me, my parents were pretty much just into country music. I'm from Ireland, so people there tend to gravitate towards anything that isn't english [laughs]. I think my parents were never able to afford to play music growing up, but always wanted to, so as soon as they came forward for us to do it, they just forced it upon us. Then I started playing guitar when I was about 12 and probably discovered punk around the same time. It all just lined up nicely.
Were there any specific acts that you gravitated towards?
Martin MacNamara: We've probably talked about this before, but with him being from Liverpool and me being from Dublin, the scenes there are not like London, where you can go and see specifically one type of music, all the bands are going play that type of music and everyone there is going to be there for that type of music. In order to get a line-up sufficient enough to actually play, pretty much every band has to be a different style. Because of that, I was exposed to everything at the same time, from hardcore and oil, crusty stuff to metal, doom, stone. The lineups were all just extreme music in general.
Graham Sayle: It was so varied growing up. I'd go and see Crutch, and then this band called Blue Demon, who were a fucking rockabilly band. I knew everyone would play together and get along really, so I only learned more about the solid aesthetic boundaries later on, which was quite nice.
Martin MacNamara: You'd maybe get like one out of every 15 American touring bands coming up to the islands. It was only when I went to the UK for the first time to see a hardcore gig and notice everyone wearing hardcore merch that I realized how fucking massive it is. Nowadays, it's obviously just ten times what it was then.
That's also the same scenario here. The crowds that go to hardcore and punk gigs, since we have few opportunities to check out international bands outside of festivals, are almost always mental. Everyone's wearing the merch as well. You also get totally different experiences though. Militarie Gun, who you toured with in the US, played here on the main stage last year and, since people were already lining up for SZA, the crowds were a bit alien and indifferent to what was happening, except for a few small moshpits of people that were already into them. We get it both ways honestly.
Graham Sayle: Are people open to stuff here? Does it feel closed off in any way?
I can’t compare it to how it was 10 or 15 years ago, but it feels like the community is still very much alive and growing. It might not be as massive as in other countries, but the people at gigs are fully living out the experience, making the most out of the opportunities you get to see your favorite bands. One thing I love about the scene in general is how tight-knit it is: bands and fans, bands supporting each other. Do you think the closeness that comes from the scene’s working-class roots, that shared sense of identity and struggle between all parts, still contributes to its success today? Hardcore is a social phenomenon after all.
Graham Sayle: I think the type of people who are attracted to hardcore, especially in its raw form (like a DIY, small and autonomous space), are the type who come to shows and will essentially self-harm at every show, throw themselves into something, not expecting anything back or to be owed anything. I think it's more of a mentality that brings those people together.
Martin MacNamara: I suppose in order to get that fully into it, when you go and get the shit kicked out of yourself and show it to other people, there's probably something you're trying to deal with. Whether it's a class or disfranchisement kind of thing, I don't know, but it’s certainly an outsider element. Maybe that's class in some way as well.
Graham Sayle: I think having to build it for yourself and knowing it's yours is a pretty important thing, being able to claim ownership for it. You can't just be a consumer, you have to contribute and play your part as well, whether that's bringing energy to a show, diving on people or whatever it is.
There has to be some authenticity.
Graham Sayle: Yeah, exactly.
And I feel like between the people in the community, either fans or bands, it's almost like a chosen family: shared values, anger and care. Do you think that aspect goes hand in hand with the way you perform on stage and the emotions you show through the music?
Graham Sayle: I like to think most of the people we fuck with in bands all have a similar energy. You can smell careerists out of this. Most of the people, especially those who are having some sort of success as we have now, they're able to do this in a manner where they're paying the bills at home or the rent. These are people we've probably known for 20 years.
Martin MacNamara: It's interesting, because a lot of the bands that are doing well, outside of hardcore for example, are people that either you or me or someone has known in some way for a long period of time. It's not the young heads necessarily, but people who’ve been doing this for a while. That doesn't mean they're any less deserving of it or anything like that, and it doesn't count for everybody, but it's really paying off for people who have been at it for a long time.
Graham Sayle: It's not even people who have adapted. I guess some people have, a lot of people have grown with their sounds. We've been doing this shit for years, making obnoxious, difficult music, but that's also having such a moment that people are actually able to pay the rent. It's a mad thing to be able to do through music, because all of us have done this for no other reason other than to do it for years.
Your lyrics often explore everyday struggle - wage work, escapism, anxiety - while trying to balance between rage and love. What’s changed the most in your lyrical approach on Guided Tour compared to earlier records? Was there something new you felt ready to express?
Graham Sayle: I think it's never that coherent for us really. Everything, from my perspective, just comes from writing notes on my phone around the time of recording, about whatever was going on. And I don't think anything's ever really changed. We haven't got any better or more professional at it.
Martin MacNamara: You'll just say to me like: “I want to write a song about this”. And then a few weeks later, the lyrics to a song that's about that will just arrive in my phone. There's never been an overarching narrative to what we’re trying to do.
Graham Sayle: It's just stuff at the time, really. Wherever you go, things keep changing and nothing ever stays the same.
It's cool in a way, because then the albums are kind of like time capsules.
Graham Sayle: Yeah, but you also try not to spend too much time in the past. You just get stuck in cycles, you repeat them, so we’re always trying to move forward.
High Vis leans into a range of different influences - mainly hardcore and post-punk, but it goes beyond that on this newest album. "Mind’s a Lie" always comes to mind as a good example of that. How much did your own, evolving musical tastes, either from when you were growing up or from now, shape what ended up being explored and represented on this record?
Graham Sayle: I think it's just feeling free to fuck around with stuff, not limiting the idea of what the band is or can be. All of us like electronic music, for example. You listen to something at the time and then feel vaguely inspired by it. A lot of that sort of stuff, obviously, is just experimenting with samples and played around with stuff.
Martin MacNamara: I think that’s the end result of something we do a lot when we're writing. It's the same for "Talk For Hours" and Blending (the album before Guided Tour). Songs that are kind of hypnotic, the same thing going on again and again, not really changing, coming in and out, here and there. It’s essentially the same kind of shit that happens in electronic music. There's a much purer version of "Mind’s a Lie", but creating that kind of freedom is something that we’ve put into a lot of the tunes.
It's probably hard to tell for you, with the variety of shows you've played, but do most people that come to your shows discover the band through the hardcore roots or are they outsiders to some degree? Does that shift from audience to audience, depending on age, background, etc.?
Graham Sayle: It's a bit of everything. We'll play punk shows, hardcore shows, massive commercial festivals. I personally wanted to play anything, because I want to try and do everything that's uncomfortable really. That's where you can challenge yourself. There's a lot of people who probably found us through Radio 6 Music in the UK or the algorithm.
Martin MacNamara: I automatically assume everybody has found us through hardcore, so when they don’t, it just blows my fucking mind every time. And we’re seeing that more and more. You don’t judge a book by its cover, but you can tell when someone probably doesn’t listen to hardcore [laughs]. But that also means it’s reaching different types of people, which is nice.
Graham Sayle: We approach playing every show like it’s going to be our last, basically. That's how I always try to think about it. By doing that, people get to enjoy the things we all enjoy about hardcore, the explosive looseness of it.
Do you like that detachment, or do you still feel most connected when the people who see you are already in that circle?
Graham Sayle: I personally like having to work harder. If there's people who haven't seen it before, you can sense it and it makes me want to play harder. What you can do is play your best in these situations, so you might as well put effort into it and hopefully make people feed off of that.
I agree, and playing a festival gig is very different from playing a club show. The atmosphere varies a lot. You're basically adapting to each and every audience that you find.
Graham Sayle: Yeah, and there's a big distance between you and the crowd, which is a weird thing. Having military security in between you and the crowd makes it difficult to connect with people, I think. You have to work double odds.
Is there something you’re still trying to figure out about your sound, your message or your place as a band in the broader world?
Graham Sayle: I don't know, no one has a fucking clue what I'm doing. [laughs]
Martin MacNamara: We're definitely just learning as we go along, I think. I only joined after the first album, so I was only involved in writing the second and the third.
Graham Sayle: You didn't miss anything. [laughs]
Martin MacNamara: That's not true. [laughs] I feel like I'm getting better, I feel like we're all getting better as songwriters, learning how to work with each other. I'm excited to start properly writing again.