SXSW Artist Spotlight: The Family Battenberg
SXSW 2026 kicks off March 12 in Austin, Texas. 360°Sound is excited to spotlight some of the killer artists that will be performing at this year’s festival. We had the pleasure of a chat with Ethan James Duck, the guitarist and songwriter for Welsh garage rockers The Family Battenberg. The band also includes Elliot Jones on lead vocals and guitar, and Jess & Billy are the rhythm section.
Editor’s Note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Scroll to the bottom to view the full video on our YouTube channel, @360degreesound.
360°Sound: On band camp, you announce that you’re the biggest band ever, and you’re going around telling music journalists that The Family Battenberg’s latest EP, Spider Rock Forever has topped the charts. So, just who do you guys think you are?
Ethan: We’re the biggest chart-topping band in the world. No, none of that is true, but it’s just funny to say that we did. It’s all manifestation.
You actually call your sound ‘spider rock.’ What’s the key ingredient in your fuzz-tasm? Did J Mascis loan you his Big Muff?
No, we’re actually extremely anti Big Muff. It goes against everything that a guitar should sound like, in our opinion. We’re big Death by Audio [guitar pedal company out of Brooklyn] fans. So I run a Fuzz War. Elliot’s more of a JHS person. He runs a Colour Box, which is like a crazy preamp thing. I think the key is just turning them up a lot, until it sounds bad. Then if you commit to the bad sound, enough people go like, ‘That’s cool.’ Even though everyone’s like, ‘This sounds like shit.’ There’s something about this cacophony of noise that really appeals to people, especially live.
The band chose the name Battenberg, which is the German origin of the name of the current royal family in Britain [they anglicized Battenberg to Mountbatten]. Can you unpack that a bit for me?
I always find this question really, really funny. Are you familiar with The Great British Bake Off? There’s a cake over here called a Battenberg cake. It’s just the cake! Me and Elliot were watching Great British Bake Off, and they were making Battenbergs. And Elliot said that when he was a child, his brother just wouldn’t stop saying, ‘Somebody stole the family Battenberg.’ Like, it means nothing. After he said ‘the family Battenberg,’ I was like, it’s a pretty cool band name. We were really into ‘70s stuff, like Wings and The Who, ‘Family Battenberg’ felt like a very ‘70s classic rock name – still does. Stupidest thing we could think of. But it’s so stupid that it gives us free license.
Allegedly your 2025 single “Anteater” was written in a day. Is that typical of the way the band works?
We usually stew on [songs] for weeks. But “Anteater” just flew out. We used real guitar amps, which we never normally do, and we just wrote it on the spot. It never really changed from that day, which was really, really fun.
Sometimes a deadline breeds creativity.
It does. Our manager likes to use the term positive pressure – which is just pressure, really. And now our new record’s done, and I have no idea how to [write a song] anymore, because there’s no pressure.
Your older stuff is more psychedelic, less garage; it’s not as fuzzy. One I especially like is “Feed Yer (Nganga).” That groove just kills me. When did you pick up more of a fuzzy sound?
“Nganga” was our first go at, ‘Let’s just be a bit weird.’ Elliot’s got a bit of a penchant for weird stuff, and the premise of “Nganga” is innately very weird. “Fuzzy Features” [early single] we were trying to do, like, King Gizzard or a Super Furry Animals thing. We were listening to loads of Ty Segall and American rock that just dials it up all the time, like the Stooges. “Runny Hunny” [another early single] was more like a ’60s psych track, really drenched in reverb. By the end of 2023 when we put out “Rocket Dustbin,” we started working on the EP, and we wanted to get a bit heavier with it.
“Gwyllgi” is a great track. It refers to this mythological Welsh hound of hell, and it’s considered a harbinger of death, bad luck, or misfortune. Pretty cool.
That song is basically about… It sounds stupid when you put it like this…
Is it about cake, Ethan?
It’s not about cake! It’s about spending your life with someone, and then one day they turn into a dog from a curse. It’s like skin walker mythology and stuff. And a big part of it is like turning into different animals. That does not sound very cool; I feel I’ve exposed myself.
How’d you find yourself heading with FOCUS: Wales to Austin this year?
Well, we’ve been meaning to go for a couple of years. But this year it makes sense, with the EP. We’ve got some team behind us in the UK now, so it just felt like the right time to make the move. And a massive record label with millions and millions of dollars for us – that would be nice.
Well, you’ve got a great resume, being the biggest band ever. What can we expect from The Family’s live show in Austin?
It’s non stop. It’s like eight songs in half an hour. We’re not going to do much chatting. We’ve only got a select opportunity to play these songs in America. So, we’ll play as many of them as we can. [SXSW] sounds like chaos – I can’t wait. Then back to work on Monday.
Thanks a lot for for this, Ethan. Good luck. Safe travels.
I’ll see you across the pond.
Catch the whole interview with Ethan on our YouTube channel, @360degreesound:
The Family Battenberg will be performing in several showcases at SXSW 2026:
Friday, March 13th – 12:20PM @ Valhalla – Planetary Presents Day Show
Sunday, March 15th – 8:00PM @ Swan Dive – FOCUS: Wales Official Showcase
Monday, March 16th – 2:00PM @ Palm Doors – British Music Embassy Showcase
Check out the band’s Bandcamp page and buy some of their stuff
