Photo by Romy Caton-Jones
While the music of A THOUSAND MAD THINGS may evoke feelings of nostalgia, William Barradale is no tribute act or one for novelty or pastiche.
Emerging as the best new act of 2025, the debut EP ‘Cry & Dance’ was an impressive statement. Growing up gay and vulnerable in suburban England, William Barradale found he could relate to the voices and music of classic acts like BRONSKI BEAT, SOFT CELL and ASSOCIATES as a tortured outsider navigating young manhood.
Augmented for gigs by James Foulsham-Rogers on synths, A THOUSAND MAD THINGS are a compelling live act with William Barradale tidily dressed and expressing himself physically in a manner recalling Ian Curtis, Andy McCluskey and James New of MIRRORS while delivering his emotionally rich vocals.
Co-produced by Mike Peden who first made his name as a member of THE CHIMES, the new single ‘Promises’ comes ahead of the second EP from A THOUSAND MAD THINGS due out later in 2026 to continue Barradale’s shadowy journey through adolescent memories, doomed romances and loneliness. He kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about his creative approaches…
You only have one chance to make a first impression and you did it well. What does ‘Cry & Dance’ mean to you personally, was making the EP cathartic at all?
‘Cry & Dance’ will always be special for me. I feel when making music, it’s important to encourage yourself into a vulnerable place, and feel that the best music is honest. I went into the writing process with my producer wanting to create music that was raw and upfront about what it was. ‘Cry & Dance’ does what it says on the tin in that respect. It’s obvious where it comes from musically and I didn’t want to hide away from that. The songs will always hold deep meaning because they come from a place of such vulnerability. But balancing that pain with pleasure is what it’s all about. As a first body of work, I’m happy.
How did you become immersed in classic synthpop, was it something introduced to you by your parents or was it the teenager thing of discovering a passion of your own?
My dad brought me up on TEARS FOR FEARS, more than any of the other 80s bands. ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ was absolutely huge for me and no-one else was listening to that music when I was a kid. And I remember how uniform and predictable pop music could be when I was at school of course with a few exceptions (we’re talking 2010-15 when I was in secondary school). I was quite a depressive kid but found solace in that genre and time period. Something about the performances and the social commentary liberated me from boredom and hurt and they always do. I think of songs like ‘The Downtown Lights’ by THE BLUE NILE, ‘The Working Hour’ by TEARS FOR FEARS and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by BRONSKI BEAT, which growing up a gay boy I didn’t even figure out the context of until later on in my teenage years but the message penetrated nonetheless.
Photo by Romy Caton-Jones
You’ve talked about nostalgia on a few occasions, some say today’s pop music is not as good as in the past, do you see any argument for that? What is the attraction of the past?
I think in a world determined to accelerate forward at such a relentless pace, it is important to have things to look back to, even if it’s predicated on a fantasy vintage zeitgeist. To me, the future is absolutely terrifying and seemingly more out of our hands than we even know. I don’t like to use the word naive because I know how considered and detailed the producers and artists were back in the 80s synthpop-era but there is something about the direct approach to sounds and performances that always resonated with me, I feel no-one was hiding behind anything. The rawness, honesty and weirdness in some of the records and shown in the wider culture is remarkable. It’s human. And stuff being more ‘human’ is about to be a bigger virtue than anyone realises.
What was the genesis of ‘Wide Awake’? You really get to play with your vocal range there, do you have any favourite singers?
My favourite singers are Sarah Vaughan and Billy MacKenzie. On ‘Wide Awake’ in particular, Billy’s approach to range was a huge inspiration, it’s a f*cking nightmare to sing and I love it. I wanna hear someone cover it.
In a time when the darkwave sub-genre has become prevalent in alternative electronic music but lacking in quality on the song, vocal and production front, what stands out about ‘Cry & Dance’ is your songwriting, how did you nurture your craft, what sort of bands had you been in before?
I’ve always been a solo artist even though I always thought being in a band was cool. And I always felt very without a home genre / scene. Even now, I think it’s convenient to categorise my music as darkwave synthpop but I think it goes deeper than that. Sometimes I long to just play the piano, I love listening to jazz and classical music. Sometimes I don’t even like listening to music at all. My outlook on writing is that a good song is sort of universal and can translate across genre and setup so my aspiration is to always just to try and nail the song and make good pop music. Then as we produce it, that’s where you often find the colour and the scene and the genre. Not saying I don’t have sounds and references I like and rely on, but sometimes I’ll write a song and the demo will be completely different to the finished piece. Lyrically and contextually, my writing almost always comes from personal experience, I love stories but I’ve always been crap at writing them, it gets too weird.
You posted a selfie on your socials next to an ARP 2600, Roland SH2 and a Dave Smith Prophet, are they yours? Where do you stand on the hardware versus software debate?
They are unfortunately not mine. I use a lot of software just cos I can’t afford the proper synths right now, but I have a list and will one day build a studio full of my favourites. I think it depends on the application, especially for bass parts something like the Pro-One is just impossible to recreate digitally and have it as good. I find it incredible how close developers have gotten when making recreations though, some of them are great. I also use Serum by Xfer Records a lot and I think that thing sounds fantastic.
Was ‘Local Guys’ autobiographical? Do you hope your music may help those navigating adulthood in the way acts like SOFT CELL and BRONSKI BEAT did?
Yes it is. If my music could make another person feel the way BRONSKI BEAT made me feel as a teenage boy I’d die happy.
You have mentioned that one of your favourite bands is RADIOHEAD, is there anything in their approach that influences the way you make music with synths?
I think in general the musicality and emotional nature of RADIOHEAD just really resonates with me. ‘In Rainbows’ is my favourite album.
‘My Car’ has this emotive expression of longing and appears to be about unrequited love, what’s the furthest you have ever driven for someone?
The worst journey I can think of is driving across Central London in rush hour. I have only done that for people I really love.
The new single ‘Promises’ heralds a new EP coming in 2026 and has more of rhythmic bounce compared with what was on ‘Cry & Dance’, where are you taking your sound next?
Although all these songs were made at a similar time, EP2 has more energy in its production and tone. I picked the songs I felt had more to say for themselves to go second. ‘Cry & Dance’ was about establishing the project and EP2 feels more expressive and darker in tone. I have a whole concept about what it is to be a flawed person and each song represents a different part of that person (the thoughts, the feelings, the body, the needs etc). I wanted to hold back these songs for EP2 because I wanted to wait until I had some attention to share them. The sound is similar though and it’s a lot of the same synths and production style.
Do you have a title for the second EP and are there any of the songs you would like to talk about?
The title will be ‘Hate It’, I’ve taken that name from the 5th track of the EP.
What are your plans for playing live in 2026?
Hopefully we will play as much as possible, UK and EU. We’re playing with PIXEL GRIP in February for a few nights in London, Bristol and Manchester and I think that’s going to be fantastic. Myself and Jim have developed the show over the new year so I’m excited to show people new material and a bigger and bolder set than we’ve done before. I love to travel and play so I hope to see as many cities as possible and a few festivals in summer would put the cherry on top.
What are your hopes and fears as A THOUSAND MAD THINGS gains momentum?
I don’t really have fears except creative stagnation. My hopes are to be an artist people find refreshing and unique but also make songs they find infectious. Selling out a headline show is my personal target for this year.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to A THOUSAND MAD THINGS
Special thanks to James Crosley at Nettwerk Music Group
A THOUSAND MAD THINGS 2026 live dates opening for PIXEL GRIP include:
London The Lexington (12th February), Bristol The Croft (13th February), Manchester YES Basement (14th February)
The single ‘Promises’ and the ‘Cry & Dance’ EP are available via the usual online platforms including https://athousandmadthings.bandcamp.com/
https://athousandmadthings.ffm.to/bio
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574810537242
https://www.instagram.com/athousandmadthings/
https://www.tiktok.com/@athousandmadthings
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiH0XGmfKMWzM_VsizMgP8A
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7pcAieoVahaJkAvKzWG2xS
Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
26th January 2026
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