Westside Cowboy

A Manchester four-piece with three lead singers who call their country-tinged indie rock Britainicana, and whose 2026 debut album went Top 5 in the UK.

Origin
Manchester, England
Years active
2023-present
Genres
indie rock, alternative rock, Americana, alternative country
Labels
Nice Swan, Heist or Hit, Adventure Recordings, Island
Also known as
WSCB

Johnny Roadhouse

Westside Cowboy's members grew up in places from Coventry to rural Britain and came together after moving to Manchester. Paddy Murphy, Aoife Anson O'Connell and Reuben Haycocks met during Freshers' Week at the Royal Northern College of Music, while Jimmy Bradbury worked at the city's guitar shop Johnny Roadhouse Music. In August 2023, with the students on a break, Bradbury asked Murphy and Haycocks in the shop whether they wanted to start a band called Westside Cowboy. Anson O'Connell joined soon after. Haycocks and Murphy had played in the noise-pop group DieKaiDie, and Murphy and Bradbury in the surf-punk trio Katz.

The name comes from the West Side Cowboys of New York, riders who went ahead of trains on street-level track to warn people out of the way. The band has no single frontperson: Bradbury, Haycocks and Anson O'Connell share lead vocals, with the two men on guitar, Anson O'Connell on bass and Murphy on drums. They started out playing skiffle covers in a bedroom, and their first gig was a short set at ASAP Coffee in Manchester on 15 October 2023. They have said perfectionism made writing hard at first, so the cowboy became a persona: a bad song was his fault, not theirs.

Singles and Glastonbury

The debut single, I've Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You), came out on Nice Swan on 7 November 2024, produced by Lewis Whiting of English Teacher. Two London industry shows in January 2025, at the Sebright Arms and The Social, set off a rush of major-label interest, and in March the single reached number 9 on the Official Vinyl Singles Chart.

On 27 April 2025 they won Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition, judged by Michael and Emily Eavis among others, ahead of Nat Oaks and Mali Hâf. The prize was a place on the Woodsies stage and £5,000 from the PRS Foundation. Shells followed two days later, and on 29 June they opened the Woodsies stage at 11:15 on the Sunday. Their debut EP, This Better Be Something Great, came out on 8 August 2025 through Heist or Hit and Nice Swan. It gathered both singles with Alright Alright Alright, which the band called the first original song they ever played together, a punk song about a cowboy.

Island and Britainicana

That August they signed to Adventure Recordings, a new Island Records imprint. Murphy said the interest was never engineered, just a case of right place, right time. They played more than 90 shows in 2025, including three weeks supporting Black Country, New Road and dates with Blondshell and English Teacher. Stereogum named them one of its best new artists of the year, and they made the NME 100 and DIY's Class of 2026. The second EP, So Much Country 'Till We Get There, followed on 16 January 2026. In the spring they supported Geese across the UK, Ireland and Europe, and Haycocks said the tour gave the band a hard push forward.

Their own word for what they do is Britainicana. NME glossed it as country-tinged American indie paired with droll British lyrics. Murphy describes it as growing up in Britain surrounded by American culture and failing to live up to it, and Anson O'Connell points to the TV series The End of the Fucking World as the clearest example. Influences they have named include Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Elvis, Lankum, The Strokes, Divorce and Geese's 3D Country.

It Goes On

The debut album was announced in May 2026 with Kick Stones (The Boys). After cutting a rough version with the producer Loren Humphrey at The Diamond Mine in New York, the band decided the record should be made in England, and Humphrey came to Greenmount Studios in Leeds. They said they wanted to make an album for their younger selves, quick, concise and honest, and to keep a bigger record with horns and strings for later. Pin Up Boys and Dobro followed as singles, and It Goes On came out on Island on 21 August 2026. It reached number 5 on the Official Albums Chart and number 1 on the Record Store Chart. Rolling Stone UK gave it five stars, and Stereogum made it Album of the Week.

After a run of record-store shows and a homecoming at New Century Hall in Manchester on 6 September, they began their first North American tour in October. On 8 October they made their US television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, playing Pin Up Boys. A UK and European headline tour is set to end at Manchester's Albert Hall on 5 December, with further dates running to May 2027.

Members

Records

Songs

English Teacher, Geese, Black Country, New Road, The Velvet Underground

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Westside Cowboy, Wikipedia
  2. Westside Cowboy interview, NME (2025-06)
  3. The rise of Britainicana, Dazed (2026-01)
  4. Signing Stories: Westside Cowboy, Music Connection (2026-03)
  5. Westside Cowboy win 2025 Emerging Talent Competition, Glastonbury Festival (2025-04)
  6. Something Great This Way Comes, Clash (2025-08)
  7. Westside Cowboy, Official Charts