Lastelle: Creating Their Own Path

Short-form content is getting increasingly popular nowadays, driven by apps such as TikTok. It’s affecting a lot of different art forms, from books getting shorter and more simplified, to musicians focusing on creating songs that they hope will go viral instead of creating a cohesive body of work. But thankfully it’s not all doom and gloom. Some musicians and bands have found a middle ground, acknowledging the helpfulness of short-form content and social media, whilst also staying true to themselves.

One of these bands is LASTELLE, a post-hardcore quintet from Oxfordshire named after a minor character from the 1984 anime film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Born from the ashes of an old band, LASTELLE formed in 2018 and released their first song later that same year. They released a handful of songs and EPs before releasing their two-part EP, Exist in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

“It was very much a sign of the times,” guitarist Jonjo Williams, explains. “Everything seems to happen in a much more immediate way. Whilst I’m very much an album guy, the listening habits have moved away from that, so we decided to elongate the process to be able to get our music out to more people via a longer campaign and lean into the social media dominated listening sphere,” he laughs. He elaborates by saying that by splitting the EPs up, it allowed the band to combine both EPs onto the vinyl  release to be one long release.

“It worked out really nicely because the songs on Volume 1 and Volume 2 are a bit different as well. Volume 1 is a bit more accessible with bigger choruses and more standardly structured songs. Volume 2 is more ambient, with heavier stuff and LASTELLE doing LASTELLE a bit differently. I think they show something different on each of them, which is nice because it worked out for everybody doing it that way. We got to show a different side of the band, we got to promote the songs a lot more, and it was the most accessible way that you can do it these days.”

Creating the tracklist for both EPs was “kind of a puzzle piece once we had all the songs in place. It wasn’t so much of a conscious decision of songs being written for certain placements. The only one that was the song Pine, which was written to be the very first track on the first EP and the first track on the vinyl. The other songs were written as to what felt right at the time, and the order was thought about afterwards.”

The songs on the two EPs are varied in length of their runtime. However, as the short-form content-obsessed world is growing bigger, how do a band such as LASTELLE – a slower-paced, ambient, post-hardcore band – fit in?

“I don’t necessarily think that it influenced how we wrote the songs, but it definitely something we were aware of. We don’t tend to go fast-paced. We are a heavier band sometimes, but we have a lot of ambient builds and soundscape parts. It doesn’t work really well with the super impatient nature of a lot of listeners these days. If we removed our slow-pace, it’d take away the heart of LASTELLE, but maybe we’d grab people’s attention quicker. We’re aware of it, but we don’t want it to be something that dictates the art.”

Despite this, LASTELLE have had some really good success on social media. “It’s a tricky one,” Williams admits, before going on to explain how the band are managing to do what they’re doing because fans have found them on social media platform. But he adds that it’s a double-edged sword, as the band don’t want to water down their identity and branding for the sake of likes and the algorithm.

“It’s a weird thing, as there’s a negative connotation with being a ‘TikTok band’, which is a new thing, but it’s not much different to being a ‘MySpace band’ back in the day like BRING ME THE HORIZON and ENTER SHIKARI were, who are now staples of the music scene, especially in the UK. People are actively using social media platforms to find music, so why not put yourself out there for them to find you? It is a real tricky thing to try and create content of yourselves, and we struggled at the start as we were a really serious band, and a lot of the content online is superficial. We were posting on TikTok almost every day for a year and a half before we had any levels of views. but once we did, it started to snowball a bit.”

LASTELLE‘s lyrics are one of the key reasons why they resonate with fans. Tackling topics such as learning to live after losing a loved one, the hardships of falling out of love, and the journey to understand living with a neurodivergent mind, the band are shining lights on topics that aren’t talked about a lot. Writing songs is a collaborative effort between the band, starting with one member writing lyrics before explaining what the song and the message is about. Despite the subject matter being very personal, what is most important for the band is that they write in a way that is accessible to everyone. “When we write collaboratively, we talk more about the feeling that we’re trying to portray rather than an exact situation. From that, we look at the lyrics that have been written and structure it around that.”

The collaborative process shows how much care that LASTELLE put into their work. The results are two fantastic EPs that are raw. Most importantly, LASTELLE show that forging your own path results in genuine connection with others.

Exist – vol ii is out now via self-release. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS124 here:

For more information on LASTELLE like their official page on Facebook.