Shirts muffle toms, while amps double as uncomfortable chairs. We hunch over our instruments to avoid the stacks of papers that rise to the ceilings of our dorms.  During the day, we study.  At night, we hunt for chances to play our music. As four college students strewn across the southern California landscape, we escape hectic schedules and revel in our music. First introduced to live music in our own backyard, The Coachella Music Festival spurred us forward and revealed to us the energy and vitality that lay beyond the insular environment of the desert cities. We carry these same ideals with us today as we create our music in dorm rooms and century old basements, braving the discomfort and cramped conditions to put the excitement and energy of live music into each note.  It’s this feeling of enthusiasm that pervades our playing, apparent both in our recordings and especially on-stage.

Our music has been described as having the punch of early Kings of Leon with a stomach kick from Modest Mouse, but with the vitality of the most recent Cold War Kids record.  Personally, we prefer to align our music with the sonic sincerity made by an eagle as it soars into the sunset, while still maintaining that explosive energy cheetahs produce launching after a gazelle on the African savanna. To foodies, we describe ourselves as a blackened wild salmon filet, served over a bed of al dente garden vegetables, and covered in a cayenne bourbon demi-glace. We soothe, we excite, and we fulfill.


sunshine plus rain divided by (geo + po)etry

Worhead available for pre-order NOW - http://found.ee/worhead

 Fusing classic British guitar pop with Motown and Stax grooves..the missing link between the Arctic Monkeys and the golden age of doo-wop – The Guardian

The world is theirs for the seducing – Evening Standard

A talent for ska-inflected, hook-filled rock ¬– Sunday Times hottest download

Various Cruelties is the musical alias of the prodigiously talented Liam O’Donnell – a teenage Strokes fan with a sweetly soulful voice and a head full of classic soul standards, equally in thrall to the ‘New York cool’ of Richard Hell, Percy Sledge and Orange Juice.
Born in London to a Scottish father and an Irish mother, and a distant relative of Oscar Wilde, O’Donnell moved to Leeds at an early age where he spent his teenage years following the well-trodden ‘indie’ path - summer bank holidays at the Leeds festival and a record collection full of Verve and Stone Roses albums. Yet and early taste for the soul-classics made him realise musically there existed a world beyond. 

Moving to London, it proved a struggle to escape the the ‘singer-songwriter’ tag.  A booking at a Communion night in Brighton proved to be a turning point – realising he had no desire to tread the well-worn ‘troubadour’ path and inspired by recently supporting the Villagers, Liam decided to do what he wanted; ditch performing under his own name and, inspired by an Ed Ruscha exhibition, start working under the Various Cruelties tag.


Nick Conner 4 is following