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Backing on to a public housing estate on a quiet residential street in Brixton, a shabby-looking pub thrums with the droning sound of bass guitar. A group of twenty-somethings huddle under the south London pub’s sign — “The Windmill” — painted in green on chipped wood panelling.
Inside, there’s a stage at the far end, backed with silver ribbons dangling from the ceiling and surrounded by a large sound system. Posters lining the walls promote bands with lurid and unfamiliar names such as Mould, Prostitute and Blood Wizard.
Despite the venue’s appearance, it’s not just home to obscure underground acts; The Windmill has become the nucleus for one of British indie music’s most exciting scenes — one that includes acclaimed groups such as Black Country, New Road and The Last Dinner Party. And it attracts musicians of a different stripe too: last month, composer Jerskin Fendrix, an Oscar-nominee for Poor Things, wheeled a grand piano into the pub for his set. Amid a crisis among grassroots music venues in the UK — more than 150 have been permanently shuttered since the beginning of 2023 — The Windmill has bucked the trend.
The origins of the scene go back to 2017, with experimental London rockers Black Midi and Fat White Family among its pioneers. Soon, new bands from outside the capital caught wind and began to travel to The Windmill to play to lairy crowds, Cambridge sextet Black Country, New Road emerging as one of the most popular.
“I’d never felt that way at a gig before. It was the chaotic beauty of it,” said Dan Carney, founder of record label Speedy Wunderground, in 2019. It was there that he discovered Black Midi, whose hit 2019 album Schlagenheim he produced. The scene’s sound is often characterised by a blend of genres — everything from punk to emo to jazz — often with operatic melodies, and anarchic, multifarious instrumentation.
By 2020, the venue was attracting a dedicated following and the bands encircling it had begun to flower. In December of that year, as the Covid pandemic threatened the existence of the UK’s pubs and music venues, Black Country, New Road and Black Midi put on a one-off fundraiser gig “Black Midi, New Road”, in support of The Windmill. The livestreamed event was a huge success, drawing eyes from around the world — “Sweden, Kenya, some town in Michigan I’d never heard of”, the venue’s booker Tim Perry tells me when we meet in the dingy smoking area.
As the pub’s profile grew, fans began squabbling over what is considered a true “Windmill band” and musicians started treating The Windmill as a kind of Mecca. The Last Dinner Party, whose debut single “Nothing Matters” propelled them to stardom in 2023, played there several times in their early days, saying in 2024: “It was such a holy grail, a beacon, when we moved to London — and then it was our second show. It was like: ‘Well, we’ve done it. Nowhere up from here!’”
On the evening I visit, old rockers and young hipsters wearing tiny earrings talk excitedly about the next band on. Sleaze have a post-punk sound but describe themselves as glam rockers — a paradox typical of this eclectic scene.
A group of Greek international students sitting around a wonky picnic table recount at length every Windmill gig they’ve attended or missed. The trio tell me that when they moved to London, they didn’t know much about the city but knew a lot about The Windmill. “It was the first time we got to see Geese play,” says one, referring to the fast-rising New York indie-rock band. “That’s the thing, you’re not quite sure if you’re about to see the next big thing or just another band. That’s what makes it exciting.”
Perry struggles to pinpoint why the venue has cultivated such a loyal fan base, but economic factors may be a part of the answer. Despite the shifting musical landscape, little has changed for him since he began putting on gigs in 2001 with his former collaborator Piers Hawkins, initially in disordered fashion. “I remember our first gig was £2, and we made fools of ourselves,” he recalls. And, despite rampant inflation, prices have increased only marginally since, to £5 and sometimes up to £15.
This is in line with Perry’s uncommercial ethos. “I try to be a bit of an industry outsider,” he says when I ask whether there has been interest from large promoters and major labels. (He mentions an artist coming up who has 18mn listeners a month on Spotify but declines to name names.) Instead he favours cultivating strong relationships with artists, and an ear for novel, unconventional bands; otherwise, he warns, “all you get is this sanitised crap”.
Perry prefers not to define the “Windmill sound”, pointing instead to the natural waxing and waning of genres. “When we started, we were running country and hip-hop nights, because that’s what we were listening to at the time,” Perry says. “Everybody knows how hard it is to find a sound and make money out of it. A lot of bands want to have The Windmill as a badge of honour, but music fans just want to hear some bonkers shit.”
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