A 5-piece collective turning heads and exciting ears as they burst onto the Leeds music scene.
By Bailey Devereux
19th February 2026
Shortly following Oxford Comma’s first incredible headline show at the wonderful Oporto venue in Leeds, I got the privilege to sit down with singer, Albert Hacker and guitarist, Jethro Holmes to discuss the past, present and future of the band. Oxford Comma have recently shown Leeds what they’re truly made of with a sold-out headline show and received incredible response from their debut single ‘Fake Fancy Shoes’. It seems the only way is up for these newcomers as they come out of the gates swinging with a bright and prosperous future ahead of them.
The band have been hard at work since they formed in October of 2023, with a slightly different line-up of members and an unclear vision of the future, they seemed to be going nowhere. After a handful of gigs and a member of the band taking interest in other projects, the band decide that Jethro Holmes (lead guitar) would be the perfect replacement to the recent departure.
“We sort of floated the idea towards him and saw what he thought and then that really changed everything because Jeth came in with a slightly different musical direction. The sound and things completely changed. When we had Rich involved, we were doing things that were reminiscent of the things that we were listening to at the time, and then Jethro came in and swirled things up and got us listening to new stuff and changed the whole direction.” Says Albert Hacker (lead singer), who says he considers the true beginning of the band to be when Jethro got involved in September 2024.
Taking influence from bands such as Inhaler, Wolf Alice and Radiohead, Oxford Comma have managed to create a sound that is reminiscent of their influences yet still bring something new to the scene. Jethro told, “In the band we all like very different things, if you were to get our twenty favourite songs from each person there would be very little overlap of artists. Which is quite unusual, I think a lot of bands are like ‘oh you like the same stuff as I do, let’s make a band’ but because of that weird melting pot of different influences from everyone it kind of creates something that we all have a little part in but it something that’s hopefully actually new but still has different elements of our influences”.
When it comes to making contributions to songwriting and big decisions, the band tackles all as a collective. Five humble and intelligent individuals putting their all into making something of themselves, their commitment to success is second to none. The boys spoke very highly of Millie Clothier (left), being the main lyricist and backbone of the band. After asking them about their songwriting process, Jethro had this to say. “Somebody might come up with a concept and then Millie expands that in a really beautiful way. She has that kind of direction”. Albert followed with “Honestly I’ll be sat there listening to her sing it and I’m like it doesn’t make any sense how that’s been stressed but it sounds so good. Like she is literally a genius at knowing where to put words to get across feeling, it’s actually nuts how good she is at that.”
‘Fake Fancy Shoes’ is the band’s debut single, amassing over 18 thousand streams on Spotify since its release in November of 2025. Releasing the song independently and doing little in terms of promotion, Oxford Comma have shown that hard work and good music can still prevail in such a saturated market. Producing the song in house with friend Nate Tozer-Loft, and mixed and mastered by Jethro himself, the single’s numbers speak for themselves. A true testament to their professionalism and clear view of what they want from the industry.
“We were working around with a tune and then we ended up with fake fancy shoes as a tag line and the main sort of section for the chorus. It all sort of clicked in. It was good because me and Millie worked off of shared experience. Because I’ve known Millie for so long, like I’ve known Millie for years, even before uni. In terms of us writing about things that are personal and stuff like that is so easy because we already know everything about each other.” Albert told.
With an upcoming EP this May, and future headline shows already planned, Oxford Comma seems to be on an upward trajectory. Being noticed by a representative at AWAL and working with great promoters, the band is in great stead to become very successful, very quickly. “We want to get to the point where people are like ‘well this is the one time we’re going to be able to see them, we have to go and see them’ rather than being like ‘oh we can see them anytime, we’ll skip that’.” – Albert on how they plan to structure their gigs this year, keeping it few and far between rather than an abundance of shows.
