The Softer Side of Indie Sleaze
With Rebecca Thomas
Remembering the noughties often brings to mind a familiar image of brightly lit and in-your-face digital photography of young people up to no good. Rebecca Thomas' shots of London in the mid-2000s offer a new perspective of the time, one that may be more familiar to the teens growing up in the era, of friends lying in the scorched grass in some East London park dressed in your favorite band shirt, ripped denim shorts with lots and lots of accessories.
Bringing Rebecca's archive back to the public almost 20 years on is her debut zine We Are Your Friends features shots from the infamous Underage Festival. The place to be for 13-17-year-olds in the summer holidays with big lineups and no adults about, while the photos feature young people from a very recent youth culture, the festival concept feels like a distant memory today. This is just a snapshot of Rebecca's archive which spans through the music, pubs and fashions of the hedonistic time.
Interview by Esta Maffrett | 03.10.23
How did you get into photography?
I really got into it probably as a pre teen. I was a bit Wednesday Adams, goth, that kind of vibe. I really think part of the reason I wanted to get into photography was seeing Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice always taking photos. I took my dads camera and started taking pictures of my siblings and my parents helped me set up a darkroom with second hand equipment, I had one teachers that was really supportive, I knew a couple of professional photographers that were friends of my parents and through seeing them do it I knew it was an option.
So was Goth the subculture you most identified with growing up?
I wasn’t a full blown Goth but I was definitely on the moody side of things. The first band t-shirt I had was The Cure. When I was a bit older, maybe 13 or 14, I was always reading about Studio 54 and wishing I had been around in the late seventies. The nightclubs, disco music and glamour was such a big influence on me. Both Goth and Disco are quite theatrical subcultures, they’re out there and camp, both have gender fluid elements. Lots of freedom.
So this led you to becoming a music photographer and living in Shoreditch during the Indie Sleaze years?
I moved to Shoreditch in the mid 2000s and people had already begun taking the piss out of Hoxton even back then. I kind of resisted moving to East London because I thought it was what everyone who was trying to be cool was doing but in the end I went. I met the editor of ID Magazine after they put Lady Sovereign, who my friend represented, on the front cover. ID was the first magazine that commissioned me when I was in London so that’s kind of how that happened. My friend was also looking after The Horrors who were such an East London music game changer at the time, I think you can see their influence in the photos.
When you’re a teenager you are constantly being ranked and tested. All the time. Teenagers have to work so hard at school and there’s not a lot of opportunity to have fun. I feel like Sam really created spaces for teenagers to have that without having adult expectations of them in the mix
What was the mood and atmosphere at the time with a movement that was new and exciting but also being joked about?
It was definitely being critiqued but in a way it didn’t matter. Anyone who lives in East London at the moment will know the instagram account Real Housewives of Clapton and understand the context of it. We’re all obsessed with it. It’s so funny to go back and watch episodes of Nathan Barley from when I moved to East London because what was satirical or pastiche back then is basically just normal now.
There was definitely a lot of hedonism which has good and bad aspects. London felt different in the mid 2000s, it felt like there was more of a community vibe, especially in the nightlife because there were less places to go. There were small pockets or pubs that you could walk into and probably always see a few people you knew. But part of that community was bonded through hedonism.
East London had no expensive fashion shops, I was living there in 2007 when Shoreditch House opened which was one of the first super glamorous things to happen. Obviously it’s right next to the city so it’s always had a lot of rich people living there but you could walk into a pub and it would feel open to more than one type of person. I feel like that’s changed quite a lot recently.
What was your experience of shooting the Underage Club & Underage Festival? And could we benefit from more spaces like this today?
I recently got in touch with Sam Kilcoyne who started the Underage Club and Festival for a quote to put in the zine. He spoke about how he didn’t know if it could happen now but that young people need a home. That’s not the exact quote but that young people need a space where it’s not just about having fun but also not to be constantly tested. I hadn’t thought about it like that but when you’re a teenager you are constantly being ranked and tested. All the time. Teenagers have to work so hard at school and there’s not a lot of opportunity to have fun. I feel like Sam really created spaces for teenagers to have that without having adults expectations of them in the mix.
Just thinking about festivals today, places like Glastonbury where not only do they cost hundreds of pounds but the headliners are like Cat Stevens, Paul McCartney, Guns and Roses. It’s much more suited to your dads music taste than what young people want. But even more medium sized festivals are now entirely unaffordable to most people in their late teens or early twenties. So maybe we do need smaller and niche ones. Underage Festival had amazing lineups and managed to stay affordable at the same time.
Your photos really struck me from the softness in them, it’s so different to a lot of the way that scene and those years were captured, which resonated a lot more with my own memories of the time. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this such as you shooting on film at a time when everything went digital and also the work being shot from a woman's gaze. How do you think your work was styled by these intentions?
I had a lot of ideas about what I did and didn’t want to do when I was in my twenties which I suppose is normal. I really wanted my photography to be as authentic as possible and a part of that was shooting on film, using only natural light or camera flash and not really using models. I also think quite a lot of what I wanted to do was photograph women in a way that wasn’t sexualised, especially when it comes to teenagers who might have less control over how they’re being represented. Teenage girls have to go through a lot across the board and how they’re looked at is a big part of that. There were a lot of Terry Richardson style photographers around in the mid 2000s who were portraying teenagers as overly sexualised. When you’re a teeangers you want freedom and you want excitement but there are always going to be predatory people who will take advantage of that. The last thing I want to do is approach photography in a sleazy and predatory way.
What do you think was so influential and interesting about this time that we saw the Indie Sleaze revival?
I’m definitely not an ambassador for Indie Sleaze but I understood the culturally and musically big moments, from The Strokes first album to Amy Winehouse, the witnessing of the return of the guitar and the band. London always goes back to being a hedonistic place and I suppose it’s a youth culture that wasn’t predominantly based on money as well. It’s quite easy to access that look, a band t shirt with cut off denim shorts and a denim jacket, it’s the cheaper end of vintage. That time was able to thrive though because it was pre instagram, people could have fun on a night out without worrying about being recorded, there was less to worry about doing something embarrassing.
If you could put one object into the Museum of Youth Culture what would it be and why?
It would be my Angelyne t-shirt. Angelyne was a woman from LA in the 80s and she was one of the first people that wanted to be famous for being famous. She created this billboard of her in a pink bikini, sort of like an overblown Barbie Doll look, she got on the Simpsons and she had a pink sports car. She had a pink studio, everything's pink, and she sold her own merch. I love merch that’s niche but done as seriously as though it was really mainstream. It’s interesting.
We Are Your Friends collects Rebecca's photos and contributed stories about Underage Festival in her debut zine. Photos from the zine will be on display through October 2023 at Allpress, Dalston along with copies of the zine on sale.
You can follow Rebecca Thomas here.
