Culture & Arts 2 min read 6h ago · Updated August 24, 2026 at 23:51 UTC

Westside Cowboy on Their Rapid Rise and the Pressure That Came With It

Westside Cowboy won Glastonbury's emerging talent competition and signed to a major label within two years of forming.
The Manchester band appeared on Later… With Jools Holland, where Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon offered pre-show advice that vocalist Reuben Haycocks says did not practically help.
Guitarist Jimmy Bradbury acknowledges the band feel pressure from their rapid rise, though both members suggest they are managing it at their own pace.

Within two years of forming, Manchester indie-pop band Westside Cowboy had won Glastonbury's emerging talent competition, toured alongside Geese on what was widely regarded as one of the year's most talked-about indie outings, and signed to a major label. The pace of their ascent, the band acknowledge, has not been without its pressures.

A Fast Education

"We'd be lying if we said there wasn't a little bit of pressure," says vocalist and guitarist Jimmy Bradbury. For a group still finding their feet, the milestones have accumulated with an urgency that has left little room to pause. Vocalist and guitarist Reuben Haycocks is candid about the learning curve. "We're not hermits," he says, though the demands of sudden visibility have clearly required adjustment.

Le Bon's Advice Falls Flat

An appearance on Later… With Jools Holland earlier this year brought an unexpected encounter with Duran Duran, who offered the band some words of encouragement. "Nerves are just your mind telling you that you're about to do something extraordinary," Simon Le Bon told them, as the Manchester four-piece were, in Haycocks's own description, "cacking their pants". The counsel, however well-intentioned, did not quite land. "I was hoping for some real advice," Haycocks says, laughing. "Like, where do I look?" The anecdote captures something of the band's wider situation: navigating an industry that moves fast, armed largely with instinct and a willingness to admit what they do not yet know.

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For a band still only a couple of years old, the challenge now is sustaining momentum on their own terms — something that, by their own admission, they are still working out. As other artists have found, managing the relationship between public expectation and creative autonomy is rarely straightforward. Whether Westside Cowboy's approach to that balance will prove as distinctive as their early run of success remains to be seen.

##WestsideCowboy ##IndieMusic ##Glastonbury

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