Meet Vegas Water Taxi, the London band skewering pop culture with alt-country hits

‘Brat Summer’, the new single from London-based alt-country band Vegas Water Taxi, is the perfect encapsulation of their sideways, doomscroll-influenced look at life in 2026.

“It imagines a world where people who had not participated in brat summer were being rounded up by the police,” bandleader Ben Hambro explains of the song, a country rock gem that taps into the absurdity of the current moment through a surreal prism.

It’s joined on Vegas Water Taxi’s new album long time caller, first time listener, bringing together the two EPs that give it its name, by the likes of ‘jamie xx’, a breakup song set in the sterile environment of a corporate London day festival.

In his former project, Bristol band Lazarus Kane, Hambro took on characters to distance himself from the music; here, he uses the screen of 2020s online culture to confront more personal issues, all achieved through earthy, warm alt-country music.

With long time caller, first time listener out on Friday (February 6) via PNKSLM, we spoke to him about finding meaning beyond the screen.

Read our Play Next interview with Vegas Water Taxi and listen to his music via our Play Next playlist on Spotify below.

Why did the two EPs come together on an album? What makes them fit together well?

The first half is a breakup [record], and the second half is much more of a macro social commentary. There’s definitely cross-pollination in terms of lyrics though.

You reference so much of online culture and trends – are you doing it to try and find something of greater substance beneath it?

I’m 30 years old, so old enough to remember life before this stuff. Things like Instagram Stories, it’s just a panopticon of knowing what everyone’s doing. I don’t think the human brain was ever designed to process that. It’s strange to think that there are people who I haven’t spoken to for years who know everything about my life. Having no direct communication [with those people] is such a strange feeling. I’m trying to get that across – just quite how absurd life has become, and quite how absurd the ways in which we communicate have become. I don’t have a manifesto to be like, ‘Social media is shit’, because we obviously all know that, and I don’t want to be the old guy in the corner being like, ‘Back in my day, it was so much better’, but it’s trying to hold a mirror up to the situation and be like, ‘This is insane’. It’s like something out of science fiction dystopia in there.

And it’s music that really connects especially if you’re in these deep, weird corners of the internet…

Someone wrote something about a track of mine the other day, saying it’s “music for people who are chronically online”. I wouldn’t describe myself as that, but it’s funny how that hits. The lyrics seem to be hitting that nerve with people who are aware of how much time they spend online. My biggest fear at the minute – and there are a lot of fears – is lying on my deathbed and thinking about how much time I spent on my phone, and how much time I wasted on my phone.

I don’t think people are recognising that that’s going to be a thing. For the first time in history, it’s going to be like, ‘Oh my God, my biggest regret is not the opportunities I didn’t take, or the people I didn’t say I love you to, it’s the fucking amount of time I spent on my phone’. That’s the most tragic thing, and it will start happening within the next 10 years.

What do you think exists in this music for people who might not – mercifully – be so chronically online?

I actually think about this a lot, [but] you’re the first person to ask me about it. I like super specific references in songs. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Do you not think you’re excluding listeners who don’t get those references?’ But that’s kind of the point of the instrumental, right?  It’s a juxtaposition. The thing that’s interesting to me is, can I write the most depressing lyrics about a stagnant relationship and people breaking up at a day festival in east London to the most beautiful country instrumental possible?

What is it about that specificity that appeals to you?

I always love artists who are really good at writing about where they’re from. I just think that’s the most incredible skill. I know I’m certainly not the first person to write about London and I won’t be the last. I love Wednesday and [singer] Karly Hartzman. I feel like I’ve been to North Carolina when I listen to her, and I just feel it so deeply – they paint a picture of it. That’s what I’m always trying to do as well, create that sense of a world. It’s world building at the end of the day.

And what are you trying to say about London, or life, in 2026?

I’ve been trying to remember, when I was 15, why I started going to gigs. That’s what I’m always trying to think about: why did I get into this in the first place? I think now, because of the way people consume culture, you don’t have to commit to anything anymore, in terms of buying things. You don’t have to build a record collection around what you love, and make it your personality. It’s a very frictionless way of building your identity. Physical art, like paintings, are one of the few things left. The art you have in your house and the clothes that you put on your body are things you have to buy, right? Until they introduce streaming frames for paintings or whatever. I remember going to see Parquet Courts and just being completely blown away, and being around other people who had bought those records and built their identity around that.

I’d like to see that again – groups of people who are deeply, deeply committed to whatever it is, instead of people frictionlessly moving through life culturally, being told that this thing is the next cool thing, and half committing to it. If that happened and it was the ideal, I wouldn’t have anything to write about though. So I still need people to put stupid shit on the internet for me to write about!