Interview: Problem Patterns @ 2000trees
Problem Patterns by Joe Singh
Catching up with Problem Patterns at this year's Trees festival was an absolute delight. Fresh off their recent performance at Glastonbury, the band has had a whirlwind year filled with exciting gigs and new projects. Their energetic blend of punk, passion, and perspective has won them a devoted following, and it's easy to see why. From navigating the surprises of playing on a major stage to reflecting on their deeply personal songwriting process, Problem Patterns continue to carve out their unique space in the music world. And with new music on the horizon and a tight-knit community of like-minded bands by their side, it’s clear they’re just getting started.
So lovely to finally catch up, how is your Trees going?
Ciara:: Really lovely
Alanah: It's been fantastic. This has been one of my favourite festivals we've ever played.
Beth: Nice and chill. Very manageable, walking and nice food. Very
Alanah: Accessible.
Bev: Love it.
Beth: Stacked lineup too.
You’ve got a lot of festival this year, including just recently playing Glastonbury! How did it feel winning the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition?
Ciara: We didn't actually win, but we did participate in the competition. On the night of the final, they announced that everyone performing would get a slot at Glastonbury, which was really emotional.
Beth: We were cut down from like, 7000 entrants to, nine>
Ciara: Yeah, we were finalists.
Beth: We won in our hearts.
Kelly: That’s still a huge deal.
Beth: Yeah, it was awesome.
Ciara: Oh we cried our eyes out.
Beth: We were very sleep deprived, too.
Alanah: We didn't realise either that we would end up on a main stage, which was beyond what we could have dreamed.
Ciara: Yeah, the festival organisers laughed at us because they were like, 'You didn't ask us for anything.' And we were like, 'We don't know what to ask for.’ We don't play Glastonbury. We play 50-capacity punk venues! They just couldn't believe it.
Beth: They kept us a parking pass because we didn't ask for one.
Ciara: So they basically had to look after us. We don’t know what we’re doing here, but thanks for inviting us!
Bev: The Park Stage was a dream. It’s such a beautiful stage, with all the posters and artwork around it—it’s so cool. It was a really cute area to hang out in, even when we weren’t playing. So when we were performing, I was just thinking, even looking at pictures now, I’m like, 'This is us, tiny on that stage,' and the stage is huge.
That’s such a big moment. You’d had other big moments this year, like your recent single, "I Think You Should Leave," which is both a musical homage to Northern Ireland bands and a love letter to Belfast. Could you talk more about the inspiration behind it?
Ciara: I guess it started when we were asked to write a song about Antrim, the county where Belfast is. But we felt that we wouldn’t write it unless it felt authentic. So, we began thinking about how we truly feel about the place. A journalist had once asked us, ‘Why don’t you leave and move to England if things are so bad there?’ We thought, what a weird and ignorant thing to say to someone about leaving their home. That got us thinking, what does Antrim and Northern Ireland actually mean to us?
Even between us we all have different perspectives and things to say - because we’re from Belfast but also Ballymena, while Alanah moved to Belfast - which is why each of us sings a different verse. It was too difficult to encapsulate what it means to us all separately in just one voice.
For my verse, it’s about growing up there. I’ve always felt welcomed, but at the same time, I’ve felt that the country had turned its back on me in many ways. I’m an Irish language speaker and I’m queer, so it often felt like there were many things working against me. But it’s my home, and I want to stay and make it a better place. And it has become better in many ways since I grew up."
Beth: Yeah, and in the chorus, we say, ‘If everybody leaves, then nothing changes.’ That’s a real issue. Emigration from Ireland is massive; everyone moves away, and it’s understandable with the poor job market and housing situation. But if everyone leaves Northern Ireland, the only people left are the bigots and those who’ve run the country into the ground. If we want to make it better, we can’t do that from a distance. You have to be on the ground.
Alanah: My verse is from the perspective of an outsider. Like Ciara said, I moved to Belfast by choice. I didn’t have much prior knowledge of the city, and I’ve been learning ever since I moved there. A lot of that learning has come from being in this band—about the history, the Troubles. I grew up going to English schools, just across the water, but they didn’t teach us anything about it. Moving to Belfast, I’ve spent the past few years getting to know the stories and history, and I’ve come to appreciate what people have been doing to make it better. I feel privileged to witness that on the ground.
Bev: I’m so proud of the song because everyone put their own perspectives into it. I feel like it’s something we can all say, ‘Yeah, this is how we feel about where we’re from.’ A large part of our identity is being a punk band from Belfast, especially when we go to places outside Belfast where people may not understand where we’re coming from.
Ciara: It’s kind of like when someone slobbers about your mate, and you’re like, ‘No, only I’m allowed to talk about my mate like that. They might annoy me, but if you say anything, I’ll get really angry.’ That’s how I feel about Belfast.
Bev: That's perfect. We were asked by RTE…
Alanah: Which is an Irish channel, it's an Irish radio.
Beth: Like the Irish BBC.
Bev: They were doing a radio programme where each episode focused on a different county in Ireland, and they commissioned a different artist to create a song about each one.
Ciara: But they left it open-ended, saying we could say whatever we wanted. That’s why we took our time with it; we didn’t want to write a song unless it was something that truly reflected what we would say.
That’s so cool. So you’re known for switching roles on stage when playing live. It sounds like that dynamic might carry over into your songwriting process as well?
Alanah: Yeah, whoever is singing on a particular song is usually the one who brought the idea for it. They’re the ones who write the lyrics. It’s just how it naturally happens. If someone comes up with an idea, I’m not going to take their song away and be like, 'Nah, I’m singing this one actually…Bethany, I’m going to sing one about lesbian experiences thanks’.
Ciara: It’s not even a conscious decision; it’s just something we wouldn’t even consider. If you’re the one saying the words, you’re going to sing the song.
Alanah: You've got to have full accountability for what you're saying.
Ciara: The rest of it just comes down to boredom, I think. Sometimes I don’t really feel like playing bass, so I’ll switch it up and play something else. It keeps things interesting. Maybe I haven’t played guitar in a while. Then the rest of it’s kind of somewhere between a joke - like it’d be funny if I played this riff like this, or funny if I played drums or whatever - and then it becomes more serious when you’re doing it at gigs and you realise the jokes gone much further than the practice room.
Beth: Oh, shit, we have to do this live.
Bev: More serious, but also less serious. We're all about playing around and having fun with it.
Beth: Yeah, it keeps it fun. And if a song’s not working, it’s an easy fix for someone to swap and play something else. It’s like having fresh eyes on it.
Alanah: Exactly, the fresh eyes thing. There have been times where a song wasn’t working, and we literally just swapped instruments and realised aah!
Beth: This is what it needed.
Bev: It’s a weird dichotomy—serious topics being addressed in the lyrics, but then just having fun with the process of crafting the song.
Alanah: And because I do sing quite a lot of the songs, just because I’m always coming in with a bunch of lyrics, it’s really helpful when we’re performing and I genuinely need a vocal break to be able to pass it off for a minute. Fantastic.
Kelly: Because your vocals are….they're not soft.
Alanah: I go a bit too hard.
Bev: I go a bit too hard, energetically wise, so I feel like me having one song per set is perfect, perfect amount. The rest of the time I'm happy to sit behind a guitar, bass, cool.
Your debut album came out last year, and we do hate to ask "What’s next?"—but you’ve got so much going on this year with some really exciting projects. So, what’s on the horizon for you?
Ciara: We’re in the writing process right now. We had a little Zoom chat the other night and decided to carve out some time to focus on writing. We’re definitely working on new material, but we can’t really say when we’ll release anything yet—not because we’re keeping it from you, but because we genuinely don’t know. Some songs are nearly done, while others need to be reworked, and there will probably be some brand new stuff too. So, we’re writing, and hopefully, we’ll bring something out next year.
Bev: At the minute, it’s like gig after gig after gig. So, we’re trying to say no to a few things to make time for writing, so we can get some new music out there.
Well, we did just chat with Other Half and asked them when the split EP is coming out? Wink wink!
Alanah: Honestly…
Beth: I dream…
Alanah: As soon as possible.
Ciara: I would do a split EP with Other Half in two seconds. Even a split single.
Alanah: I would write a song right now to get it out tomorrow.
Ciara: Let Other Half know that we’re down.
Beth: We're actually obsessed with each other.
Yeah, your recent tour together looked like you had a lot of fun.
Beth: We went on Swan boats, it's
Ciara: It’s gorgeous.
Beth: And got ice cream and went to the model village.
Ciara: We just fell in love with them. It was kind of embarrassing for both of us. I think both bands were like, ‘I kind of love them more than I love anything.’ We tried to hold our cool in and then one of the nights, we were just like…
Beth: Do you want to be best friends forever? So we made a group chat on WhatsApp.
Ciara: Still have an active group chat with Other Half.
Beth: We saw Cal and Sophie Glastonbury, and it was just so lovely. They were watching us, and Cal had his big cheesy grin when we were playing and stuff. It was really nice.
Alanah: And they absolutely killed it here yesterday, and we got to join them on stage, which was very fun.
Ciara: Did a stage invasion for each other.
Kelly: It’s really nice to see friends, making friends, supporting friends.
Beth: Yeah because it's hard! It's hard touring, touring’s really difficult. You're away from your family, you're dirty, and it was really nice to meet another band that are so passionate about stuff the same way we are, and have the same kind of ideas about things. And also are just really, really good crack and really weird little guys.
Ciara: They're not a political band, but their hearts are very political. They care about all the right things. And I think for us, obviously we’re mouthpieces about everything so when we're touring with someone there's always that fear that they're not going to be sound. But there was one instance of a wee wee bit of dodginess at one of our last gigs and Other Half really stepped in. They had camaraderie with us. They're just, they're very good people. And you can't do this industry without good people around.
Agree, we think they’re so cool. Who else are you looking forward to seeing at Trees while we’re here?
Ciara: We just saw Michael Sarah Palin, and that was amazing.
Bev: They were incredible. Like, buds.
Beth: We saw Buds yesterday. They were amazing. I got full goosebumps at their last song, when the crowd was singing back. Because they played with us on the Other Half tour.
Ciara: Yeah, you’se were there.
Beth: Oh yeah you’se were there haha. And we watched Bob Vylan. We love Bob Vylan. The Chats…and I went to see Turnover. They're my…I'm very much not into men playing music, but they're one of my exceptions. Me and my brother are absolutely obsessed with them. So I got to see a couple of their songs, which is really nice. And…what else, we saw a little bit of Thumpasaurus and Loose Articles. Obviously, they're amazing. But they didn't play “Sinead Loves Bitcoin”, so I'm a bit raging with them.
Ciara: Give them a break.
Of a similar vein, who have you been listening to lately?
Beth: I've been non stop listening to the new Mannequin Pussy album. It's just incredible. We clashed with them at Glastonbury and I'm so devastated I didn't get to see them.
Ciara: I honestly think I just listened to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, and that's it. I don't think I listened to anything else.
Bev: Yeah, I've been listening to a lot of Chappell Roan. But also, look, I gotta just say, I've been listening to a lot of Meryl Streek. I'm very excited about the new album.
Ciara: Yeah, Bev loves Meryl Streek. Can you put ‘Bev hearts Meryl Streek’ at the bottom of this interview?
Alanah: I have been listening to Come Back Kid, Iron Deficiency, Chappell Roan, Other Half, American Nightmare. And also, I've been listening to a lot of nostalgic early 2000s Canadian hip hop.
That’s all we’ve got, unless..anything we didn’t ask that we should have asked?
Bev: Yes
Ciara: Do you want to be friends?
Alanah: Do you like Bev's shirt? Yeah,
Bev: My shirt says I work hard all day, and still, the planet keeps getting hotter. It's not fair.
Ciara: She made it herself.
Bev: I just really don't like how I work hard all day, and yet climate change keeps happening.
Kelly: It just happens and I just sit at a computer all day.
Bev: You absolutely get it.
Thank you so much Problem Patterns for taking the time to chat with us! We didn’t answer in the moment, but yes, let’s be friends. And one last note—Bev hearts Meryl Streek.
