And Also the Trees emerged from the wooded seclusion of rural Worcestershire at the tail end of the 1970s. Founded by brothers Simon and Justin Jones, the group has maintained a continuous presence for over four decades, evolving through various line-ups while preserving a singular creative vision. Across sixteen studio albums, they have mapped a topography of the British landscape that peers beneath its pastoral surface to find a dark, filmic undercurrent of folklore and historical imagery. Their sound—defined by Justin’s mandolin-like guitar work and a rhythmic gravity often described as dark jazz—has moved far beyond its post-punk origins while maintaining total autonomy.

Title: The Devil’s Door
Artist: and also the trees
Release Date: 2026-02-27
Genres: Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Gothic Rock, Post-punk
Label: self-release
Description: And Also the Trees discuss their new album The Devil’s Door, their DIY post-punk origins, and four decades of creative kinship with The Cure.

A long-standing association with The Cure began in the early 1980s when Robert Smith handpicked the group for tour support, a connection that persists as they prepare for guest appearances at the Festival de Nîmes in 2026. The band’s recent output completes a trilogy involving The Bone Carver (2023), Mother-of-pearl-Moon (2024), and the latest record, The Devil’s Door. In the following conversation, the band discusses their DIY beginnings, the persistence of their relationship with the mainstream fringe, and the impulsive process of creating their most recent works.

And Also The Trees’ official website | Bancamp

How did the two sets of brothers meet and decide to start a band together?

We were living in a very small village, a hamlet actually, in Worcestershire, and there was a neighbouring village up the road which had a primary school. Justin, my brother and guitarist, was at primary school with Nick Havas, who became the drummer, so they were kids of nine, ten years old, and they became our friends. When you were living in the entertainment, which usually meant playing football or wishing that you could be in a rock band, it happened that we were all really into music. When punk rock came around and it became apparent that you didn’t have to be a musician to join a band, we started teaching ourselves how to play, and this took a while. We had to save up and buy the equipment and find somewhere to play, like any young kids, and it was mainly Justin who started.

He had an acoustic guitar and he taught himself to play a few chords, and then I decided that I could be the singer because I was the oldest, and the other two were going to be the bass, the rhythm section with bass and drums. We just taught ourselves how to play very basic songs, and then when punk sort of died in the end of the 70s, we made some demo tapes and started playing live.

What were your first challenges starting out at the end of the 70s?

Finding concerts, actually. We went driving around to different villages and towns trying to find pubs that had a stage. We even made our own equipment. We made our own PA, we made our own speaker cabinets, so we could just turn up at a pub if they had a room and play, but this was quite challenging. The strange thing is that after we’d actually done three shows in very small places around by us, we sent a demo tape to The Cure, who were out asking for support bands, and they chose us as one of the support bands on their tour. After that, we toured with them and things went on to a very different level very quickly.

What makes your relationship with The Cure so enduring after four decades?

I think it’s because Robert Smith has always followed our progress, and he’s kept in touch with Justin through emails. Maybe a year will pass and they won’t communicate, but then something will come up. We’ll release an album and send it to Robert, and he might have already bought it, actually, on a few occasions. He’ll say thanks, but I already bought it online. We’ve never hassled him, we’ve never been a pain in the ass, and we’ve been respectful, and I think that counts for a lot.

What was the atmosphere like in the music scene back then, and do you have a standout memory from those days?

I’m writing back in 2020, when it was our 40th anniversary as a band. In the years of Covid, we couldn’t do any shows, so one day I decided I have to do something, and I was going to write. I put a photograph of us as kids, the original format of the band, and I wrote a few lines about when the band started on Facebook. People liked it a lot, so I did another one, quite brief, and the more I did this, the more I looked back at my old diaries and my old notes, and I started to realise that actually our history is quite unique in the respect that we come from the countryside, which is unusual for a band, and that we formed as kids and taught ourselves. Of course, we’re still going 40-odd years later, but I think it was our environment and this strangeness of suddenly being in touch with The Cure, who weren’t a massive band back then, they were just like a popular alternative band.

We got to meet people like Siouxsie Sioux of the Banshees and Steven Severin, so I was writing about it, and the more I wrote, the more care I took, and everyone started saying, “oh, you must make this a book,” so now I’m probably going to. I would like it to be a book one day. The trouble is, it’s now six years later, and I’m still in 1986, so I don’t know how long I’m going to take doing this.

Is the trilogy aspect of the last three albums something you planned or discovered?

No, we didn’t plan it at all. It’s just something we became aware of when we finished this album. The trilogy is mainly because the three albums came in a very short space of time for us; we were normally taking four years or more to write an album, but we’ve managed to write three albums in the space of something like six years, which is quick for us.

So there’s the time element, the element that it’s the same musicians on the three albums, and the element that there’s the clarinet, which threads through each album and ties them together sonically as a sound. The clarinet is new to us in our history. Also, Justin was telling me he had a lot of ideas; all the ideas come from Justin and his guitars, and ideas morphed and changed into different ideas, one idea could change into two and it splits. We had a lot of ideas all together at this time, but now there are no ideas left, so we don’t have any new ideas to work on. He is saying if we ever write another album, it will be in a long time, but we’ll see.

Why do you choose the title The Devil’s Door for this chapter?

It was just a good title, simply. We like the sound of it. It’s an evocative title rather than provocative. I think it’s nothing deeper than that.

Is there a specific newsreel or historical event that inspired the lyrics of the album?

No, this is all pretty much stuff in my head, although I do get heavily influenced by the novels that I’m reading, but generally speaking, it’s not real events. They might provoke something without me realising it, but generally speaking, with me, lyrics and vocals are very spontaneous. They are impulsive; not deeply thought out or taken from other stories.

What draws you to folklore as a source of contemporary inspiration?

I suppose it’s the story element and the fact that folk tales seem to go through history. We’ve always liked the idea of moving through time with our music and my lyrics, so even in the same song, it’s quite nice sometimes to feel as if you’re talking about maybe the 16th century, and then suddenly there’s a mention of an automobile. Folk tales have that element to them. They’re ancient, but sometimes they’re still apparent in today’s life.

Did you use any vintage or unusual gear to achieve the soundtrack feel?

Colin Ozanne was using an accordion, which is quite new for us. I think he was using some old synthesizers, and Justin and he might have experimented with those. Of course, we’ve got the violin, Catherine Graindorge‘s violin, which is probably very old as well.

How much of the album was recorded live in the room versus layered?

The drums and bass were all recorded together. Justin was orchestrating this, so they were playing to his guitar, rather than the guitar being recorded at the same time. But the drums and bass were together, just that. The rest of it was done separately.

What was the inspiration behind the cover art for this record?

This was one of my photographs, or two of my photographs. Justin, again, is the designer; we worked together on that. He asks me if I’ve got any photographs that I could suggest for covers. I still use film, black and white film, actually. I sent him ideas of my photographs, and then we discuss it, we look at the title, and we think, does the title, The Devil’s Door, work with this photograph? Yeah, it could do. Then he colorized it using the computer, which was a new thing to do and kind of outrageous for us, but we did it because it looked nice.

Now that the trilogy is complete, where do And Also the Trees go next, beside the tour?

This is a good question, because we don’t know. As I said, Justin doesn’t have any ideas. He’s not feeling particularly confident at the moment about creating new ideas. I think probably what he needs to do is to have a little bit of time to let things settle, let time pass, and then hopefully when he goes back to trying to be creative again, he has some good ideas. If he doesn’t, then that’s the end.

Photos courtesy of And Also the Trees

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others