A Blessing in Disguise: SOAP on Reinvention, Creative Authenticity and Pushing Boundaries

Ahead of the opening night of their headline UK tour, we caught up with SOAP (previously known as The Tyne) about the transition to their new identity, the evolution of their sound, and how they balance creative authenticity with fan expectations. From headlining tours to supporting major acts like Busted and The Vamps, SOAP opens up about their journey, influences, and what fans can expect next.  

Image courtesy of SOAP

Just two weeks after seeing SOAP open for The Vamps at the O2 Academy in Bristol, I was excited to see this young, energetic band perform in a smaller venue with a full set of their music. Like many, the band captured my attention, urging me not to dismiss them as yet another young, grassroots band without any direction, and I was curious to see how well they would adapt to the intimate and dim venue following major and sold-out crowds of  hundreds on the supporting tour. Before they took the stage at Exchange in Bristol for their tour's opening night, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with frontman Ryan  Lofthouse, brothers Josh (guitar) and Noah Lima (drums), and bassist Cooper Stout. 

Hello! It's so nice to see you guys again! Thank you so much for having CRESCENDO here tonight. 

To start off, the transition from The Tyne to SOAP marked a significant shift for you. How has the new name shaped your identity and the way people perceive your music? Does it feel like a fresh start or more of a natural evolution? 

Cooper: I think it was a bit of a fresh start; it was weird.  

Josh: Yeah, definitely, although it felt like both, really.  

Cooper: The music changed completely and dramatically, and it was an evolution from a  different band to what we are now. It was a natural evolution for us; it feels pretty different  if you look at it closely.  

Josh: Aesthetically and sonically, when you listen to our music, it is quite a dramatic shift,  but for us, it feels more natural.  

Cooper: But it was really weird. As soon as we started posting stuff as SOAP, things started  to go really well for us (band laughs), which was quite nice and felt like a blessing in  disguise. We didn't know how people would react, and as soon as we changed our name,  things went better than before.  

Josh: Changing the name was definitely a good shout. 

When you first started making music as The Tyne, did you envision the band going in the direction it did? Was the direction you went towards after the name change, and  how people perceived your music, something you expected? 

Cooper: I don't think we expected it.  

Josh: Oh no, not at all. To be honest, I was actually concerned that people, like the few  people that we did have, wouldn't know who we were. We had just completed an arena  tour with Busted at the time, and it was the biggest thing we've done. And, ideally, we would have changed the name, you know, before going on this tour 

Cooper: Yeah, everyone told us we were being idiots for changing our name right after  doing an arena tour, like what are you doing? You're silly.  

Josh: The biggest tour we have ever done...  

Cooper: Luckily, it has gone in our favour.  

Your lyrics often tackle themes like self-discovery, mental health, and navigating modern life. How important is it for you to represent and voice Gen Z struggles in your music, and how do you feel your message resonates with your audience?

Josh: We try to write as authentically to ourselves as we can, and then we hope that it will translate to other people like us.  

Ryan: As we are a part of that generation, I feel like it comes quite easily. 

Josh: To be fair, we've always written what we wanted to write, and we are just really happy to see that it connects with people. So, I don't think we've sat down and gone, "We need to try and get this Gen Z song".  

Cooper: It has all just been very organically “us”; some of it is really silly and fun, others dark, well (laughs) not so fun, and more personal. It's nice that it has resonated with other people.  

On the topic of writing, you've also experimented with various sonic textures, from pop-punk to more offbeat elements like piano and synths in a few of your songs. How do you decide when to push boundaries musically, and what's your process when blending such diverse influences? 

Cooper: That's a good point! I think we are very good at that, actually... When we play a live set, we consider which songs we have in the set, and if we see, for example, that we don't have enough fast songs, we will go and write four or five fast songs for the set. If we see we are playing too many fast songs, we know we need a mid-tempo anthem, and we will go ahead and write that. Then we may see no one's dancing at our shows and accommodate that, and the cycle continues. We are listening to new music and different artists all the time. So, when it comes up that we need to write a dance song, we are all already listening to, for example, George Benson, and there are 80s dance influences everywhere. Hence, it comes really naturally to us. Like, let's put a country guitar in the song, and it's fine because we love - 

Josh: - and we've been listening to country at that point. I think we listen to everything  between the four of us; you should hear our band playlist - the whiplash is insane, it's all  over the place! That translates, which is probably why everything comes out a bit differently with each song: we will just try new stuff every time.  

Ryan: On our band playlist, you will have the screamiest thing possible, and then it's Phoebe Bridgers afterwards, and then it goes into I Wanna Dance With Somebody or some Toto.  

Speaking of, you have covered iconic tracks like ABBA's SOS, reinventing and putting  your own spin on them. How do you approach blending classic elements of pop-punk, for example, with your modern twists and pushing its boundaries while keeping that unmistakable SOAP energy? 

Cooper: SOS came about from just sitting with an acoustic guitar and going, "Wouldn't it  be fun if this song went like this?" and we blurted out the version within 2 minutes. We  immediately thought it could actually be something. Now, we just sit down and think about what we could do. Actually, today we are going to be doing another cover that we have "SOAP-ified", which is Katy Perry's Hot N' Cold. With the production, we approached it by  trying to make it sound as trashy and as "us" as possible whilst not losing the original. I think we added a certain level of fun to the SOS cover, which is very "us" because we always want it to be fun. Not to say that SOS by ABBA isn't fun or it's bad, no, no, it's quite... piano and anthemic (laughs), and we just wanted to make it lift, and luckily, it worked in our favour!  

Josh: I think with covers, we also don't overthink them. At the time of covering SOS, we were releasing a lot of our own music and wanted to keep the momentum of the originals,  but we ran out of songs (laughs). So, we needed something and quickly threw together that cover, and the same thing now for this Katy Perry cover. We decided at the end of The Vamps tour that we wanted to do it.  

Cooper: Yeah, we threw it together quickly. We were worried that the SOS cover was going to bomb, though. Like people were going to hate us, we were covering one of the best bands in the world, and we were so worried that we were going to do it wrong, or people would say, "This is nowhere near the original".

Yet, the whole point of covers is not to recreate identically; it is to add your own element and spin to it.  

Cooper: Exactly, so I think our anxiety went away quite quickly once it came out, just  before we were worried. 

You answered my following question already; I was going to ask if you could  reimagine another classic hit of any genre, what would it be?  

Cooper: Yup, Hot N' Cold by Katy Perry.  

Supporting Busted and The Vamps on arena tours must have been huge. How did playing to such large crowds influence your live performance style, and how does it compare to returning to more intimate venues for your headline tour?

Cooper: The arena tour was like the biggest shows we've ever played, and it was a big bucket list moment for me, and I think for most of us, as we played venues like The O2 Arena. It was an absolute dream. It's weird, though. The difference between that and this is that it was harder to connect with an audience when you couldn't see them all. It was absolutely amazing with The Vamps tour to see pretty much everybody in the crowd; it was  one big floor. But for both, the crowds have been brilliant and so up for it. They are two of the best bands in the world, and we are honestly so, so lucky to support them. The  upcoming headline shows will be good because they've now taken the people who really  liked us and put them all together in one small room. And we are also lucky that this tour has sold really well.  

Josh: We love the energy of small rooms too. Like Cooper said, half of the venues we got to play on these support tours have been true bucket list moments for us, and we loved  playing there. But what will be really special for the small shows is the connection with the crowd, where you can see everyone there and have fun with them.  

Cooper: We are so blessed to have such fun crowds. (Everyone nods in agreement.)  Everyone is always up for a great time.  

Ryan: For these, we just have to remember that these stages are a lot smaller. 

Cooper: Yes, haha, we are so used to running about and absolutely ramming into each other.  

Noah: Cooper will just step back and fall onto my kit.  

Cooper: I mean, when you haven't got that much space...  

The stage downstairs after the O2 Academy stage in Bristol is definitely...  something...  

Cooper: We will just have to jump on the spot, I guess (laughs). 

Noah: It is also incredibly hot in there (laughs). 

Do you have any favourite memories or lessons learned from these tours?

Ryan: A lesson for me was confidence. Over these past tours, my confidence has just shot up. I used to be really, really... like a plank of wood at one point. 

Cooper: It has been nice to see that your confidence has definitely gone up. 

Ryan: Awww, thanks Coop. 

Cooper: The Busted tour was around 26 shows; before then, we had never done anything  that long. Because of that, I always overthought every show, like, "Oh my God, what if I  mess up..." I don't overthink as much as I used to, and I am actually more excited now than I am nervous. Previously, it was the other way around, where I thought it would be the end of the world if I played the wrong bass note.  

Ryan: And now, with the practice we've got from playing these arenas and big crowds, I don't think I'll ever be scared to walk onto a small stage again, which will be great. We  played a lot of shows with these bands.  

Noah: I remember that first Busted show we played. I came offstage afterwards, and my head was just doing circles and stuff, but now I'm not, I guess, going crazy (laughs).  

With such a passionate and engaged fanbase who will now be coming to your headline  shows, whether they found you through the support tours or from before, how do you balance connecting online versus at the live shows? Do you ever feel pressure to stay constantly connected, and how do you maintain boundaries between your personal and professional lives? 

Ryan: The thing about keeping connected is that between us, we try to be as active on social media as we possibly can without encroaching on our own personal time. 

Cooper: We post a lot of work-related stuff, but it's also the fun stuff we're doing together. We'll do live streams occasionally and just talk to people and amongst ourselves. I think it is a really good way that has helped us stay connected to people.  

Josh: We spend so much time together as a band, and we used to be really bad at it, but we are trying more and more to document what we are up to because, apparently, people are interested in that. So, we are definitely trying to get ourselves more out there - 

Cooper: While still having time for us. Mornings and evenings are usually our time, other than this evening, of course, but yeah, most mornings and evenings are our time, and then during the day, is it time to... shine? (everyone laughs). 

What advice would you give emerging artists on balancing these challenges?

Ryan: Don't overthink it. That's a big one, I think. We've been guilty of that quite a lot. 

Noah: Oh, I overthink it a lot.  

Ryan: Yeah, you especially.  

Josh: But yeah, don't overthink it. We used to, especially during and post lockdown, everything we did would have logic to it, and we would have fully thought it through, whereas now, we put out stuff we like, and we make the music when we want to make music, we release it when we want to, we post without deepening it too much beforehand. And that has actually gotten us the best results. The more authentic it is to you, the less exhausting it will be because it's just you. 

2024 was a massive year for you, with independent releases and touring. What excites you most about the next chapter for SOAP? Any upcoming collaborations, experimental directions, or projects you can share? 

Ryan: Bigger and better songs!  

Cooper: The only thing we can promise right now is new music. We are going to try and do what we did this year and put out as much music as we can at the beginning of next year. Once this tour ends, we are going straight back to the studio. It's hard to think what it'll be  like... We've written a lot of songs, and now we just need to figure out exactly production wise what direction we want them to go. Funeral is a good starting point for where this sound will be, production-wise, especially since it's pretty trashy and big. It sounds like it was recorded in a basement studio... which it was... (laughs).  

Ryan: Yeah, we just want to release loads of music. That's the plan.  

Cooper: And figure out what it will sound like!  

If that's okay, we will do rapid-fire individual responses to the following few questions.

Cooper: Alright, let's do it! 

What's on your bucket list as a band? Whether it's a specific venue to play, a dream collaboration, or something completely unrelated? 

Cooper: Headline Reading Festival with the band.  

Ryan: Ooh, good one. I want to sell out Alexandra Palace.  

Josh: Sell out an arena or even a world tour.  

Noah: This one is a bit of a weird one, but the Coliseum in Italy. I recently found out it's a venue where they build stages above all the artefacts, and it would be so cool to play there.  

If each of you could describe SOAP using just one word, what would that be?

Cooper: Fun  

Josh: Ugh, that's what I wanted to say.  

Ryan: Mental  

Noah: Lovely (everyone laughs). It's my favourite word.  

Josh: Chaotic  

What's one thing about each of you that fans would be surprised to know? It could be a hidden talent, weird hobby, or unusual guilty pleasure. 

Cooper: I eat the whole apple—the core, all the pits, and sometimes the stick if I'm feeling really lazy and I don't want to throw it away or there's no bin anywhere. 

Noah: I feel like you guys would be able to pick it out for me. 

Ryan: You want us to pick one for you?  

Cooper: Noah has no idea what he is doing any of the time, and yet he does it all very well. 

Josh: I pretty much survive on Huel while on tour; I drink a lot of Huel. 

Ryan: I have absolutely no idea. Do you have anything in mind for me? We might have to move on to the next question.  

Unfortunately, it is the last question for today. If you weren't making music, what do you think you'd each be doing right now? Do you have any secret passions or alternate career paths? 

Ryan: If I hadn't done music, I would have wanted to do forensic science, which would've been fun.  

Josh: I would love to, and I still want to write a book one day. I love writing. 

Cooper: I am terrible at English, that's the thing, but I would love to write something like a TV show. So, anything creative.  

Ryan: What would you write your book about though, Josh? Like an autobiography? 

Josh: No, no, haha. I don't know, maybe like film scripts and stuff like that, but, I mean, books, right?  

Noah: I think architecture. I love buildings.  

Ryan: That's so you! Now, that's a quote. "I love buildings".  

Well, thank you so much for your time. We wish you all the best tonight and for the rest of the tour! We can't wait to see what's next! 

If opening night was any indication of what SOAP are like as headliners, this tour and the future of this young band is incredibly bright. Excitement and confidence exuded from all band members the second they came up on stage, and Ryan's energy was contagious for the entire audience. Clearly, this stage was too small for the band – they shine on bigger stages with larger audiences, feeding off the excitement and energy and giving everyone a  show to remember. Nonetheless, the performance they put on was nothing short of phenomenal, and it was so wonderful to see that their captivating presence from big support stages translated to the intimate headline shows. SOAP is unmistakably fun and fresh, providing so much nostalgia for many who grew up with bands like 5 Seconds of Summer, Waterparks, My Chemical Romance and more. I am beyond excited to see what new heights this young band will reach, and couldn’t encourage you more to have a listen!