May Contain Nuts are a Punk Rock band from the mean streets of Cardiff. They’ve been going for a few years now and have recently signed to a small label.

We feature two of their tracks on our podcasts, check them out.
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So who are you? – We’re May Contain Nuts. We lie somewhere between Punk Rock and South Park. They call me Handsome Ad – embarrassingly. I play guitar and attempt backing vocals. That’s Dr Ryan on the phone. If we’re lucky he might stop using it long enough to play his Bass and possibly shout a bit. I think Nurse has gone to the bar. He plays the drums. That just Leaves Rev. We call him that because he’s an internet ordained ‘man of the cloth’. He leads this whole fiasco with a mic in his hand and top hat on his head.

What’s the story behind the name? – It went something like this:
“How about May Contain Nuts?”
“Why not”
The name was agreed upon over a number of equally awful names including ‘Alfie and the Hens’ and ‘The Darkness’ but that was before The Darkness we all know.

How did you get together and when? – MCN as it is now has been going for three years but originally formed six years ago. The band started when our drummer Nurse met our former guitarist Dave in a pub and decided they’d both like to start a band. Dave said he knew a guy who was thinking of buying a Bass and a another guy who could rap so could presumably sing. since that point a lot of childish songs have been written – and some good ones – along with many many changes of guitarist. I think I’m number 12.

Influences? – Fast punk and funny television. We tend to slip back and forth between songs that make us laugh such as Oddballs and Mr Caveman and more serious songs of a political nature such as The Way and The Bogeyman.

You’ve got some great tracks – are you signed to a label yet? – Actually this summer we signed to a small Devon based label called SYWP Records. It’s an independent label set up mainly to help bands with distribution and promotion. I suppose we haven’t been signed to a ‘real’ label because what we do isn’t really considered cool at the moment. There’s not much punk or even pop punk around right now and music fans tend to me more clicky than ever.

How long have you been gigging? – Been gigging pretty much continuously for close to six years now and it only gets more fun. We got to open for The Misfits last month, a band who have influenced us a hell of a lot so that was great.

Can you choose your two favourite MCN tracks and tell us about them – Firstly there’s ‘The Way’. We all love that one. It’s full of the energy of bands Like Bad Religion and The Offspring and the lyrics are jammed in there like a rap song. Rev has the background of being an MC so he tends to structure his lyrics in that style. Then we speed it all up and he has nowhere to breathe. The song’s all about how people unite over a common enemy – hate breeds love etc. For example there was a big sense of patriotism in Britain during world war II.

Next we have Five Things. This song has a story. About a year and a half ago Dr Ryan and Rev were walking the streets of Cardiff when they saw a newspaper on the floor with a headline reading ‘345 foods that will give you cancer’. “Oh no!” said Ryan! “What will we eat?”. It seems that every other day the media is reporting on yet another food, chemical or inanimate object that gives you cancer; So we did a little cancer research of our own and found five things that definitely won’t give you cancer.

Check them out at their MySpace pages.