"We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends, and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music"
About this Quote
Naming NME as “one enemy” is doing double duty. It personalizes what could be a banal complaint about coverage, and it casts the magazine as a recurring antagonist in the band’s story. That turns critique into conflict, and conflict into mythology. If you’re already inclined to like the band, the implication is that the press didn’t just dislike the work; they disliked the people.
The sharpest subtext is in the accusation that NME “never ever written about the music.” That’s less an empirical claim than an indictment of a certain kind of music journalism: scene-policing, taste-making, personality-driven takes where narrative outruns sound. Hawkins is arguing that the band was reviewed as a cultural object - haircuts, class signals, perceived sincerity - rather than as songs. It’s a grievance, but also a bid to reclaim the terms of judgment: stop grading us on the vibes, start listening.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hawkins, Dan. (2026, January 16). We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends, and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-real-people-and-were-a-band-thats-been-139173/
Chicago Style
Hawkins, Dan. "We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends, and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-real-people-and-were-a-band-thats-been-139173/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends, and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-real-people-and-were-a-band-thats-been-139173/. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.
