Introducing The Unglamorous Music Project, A Punk Group For Older Women

The Unglamorous Music Project, a punk collective for older women in Leicester in the UK, has received amazing coverage in The Guardian and Positive News, with a television spot on Channel 5 on the way.

Unglamorous was started last year by Ruth Miller, who's 61 years old. The project arrives with the focus of these women forming all-female bands who write their own music and create a new punk scene.

Last month, the story of Unglamorous was featured by Positive News. "We’ve created a whole new approach to music," Miller told the publication. She added, "It’s kind of a hobby for us, but we’re actually producing great art rock, and that’s not been done before by ordinary women from our age group. We’re proof that you don’t have to be young or the typical student type to start a band."

While she and many other women always wanted to start bands, some of the women Miller met had never played their chosen instruments. So she taught them, and the Unglamorous project was born. 

Workshops were set up, and seven new all-female punk bands of older women are currently rocking up and down the British countryside. Miller's band, The Verinos, and other new bands, performed their first shows on International Women's Day last year, after forming just two months beforehand.

Miller told The Guardian in a feature published yesterday: "Most bands are young, white men aged 19 to 23 and their lyrics are about their experiences. But put together women whose ages range from late 20s to early 70s, and their experience of life, their humour, their anger – these songs are absolutely brilliant."

Other women interviewed are 48, 60 and 70 years old, who have found a "second life" through the Unglamorous project, where they work regular day jobs by day and rehearse and play punk shows by night.

To find out more about Unglamorous, check out the website.

We loved speaking with @tonylivesey and @claremcdonnell1 on @bbc5live today. And they want The Verinos song 'Up Yours' to go to number one! Get over it! Or maybe I'll get it on Spotify. Cheers! https://t.co/knE179iydr

— Unglamorous Music - Leicester (@unglamorous2022) February 7, 2023