In November 2025, London’s Abbey Road Studios became the base for War Child’s starry new ‘Help(2)’ compilation album, with some of alternative music’s biggest names decamping to the legendary studio complex for a week of collaboration and creativity. While Damon Albarn corralled a choir around Kae Tempest and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten in one studio and Jarvis Cocker flitted between recording room and star-studded cafeteria, three less sociable superstars shut themselves away from the A-list throng and knuckled down to the serious business of saving lives through song.
‘We’re not very social in the studio,” says Graham ‘G’ Hastings, one third of Edinburgh avant pop trio Young Fathers, tells NME three months later. “We didn’t even talk to each other, really. We’ve worked with other people in studios, and it’s half a communal, social thing, and half this place where you create. But for us, it has always been strictly work. Whenever we’re in a studio, we’re not much fun – you just want to get the song done.”
The original ‘Help’ album – released in 1995, featuring tracks by Paul McCartney, Blur, Oasis and Radiohead, among others, and raising over £1million for the charity that helps protect and support children in war zones – was made under strict conditions. Inspired by John Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma’ philosophy, it was recorded entirely in one day and released within a week. For ‘Help(2)’, producer and organiser James Ford loosened requirements a little – all 23 tracks, from artists as renowned as Arctic Monkeys, Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp and Depeche Mode, would be recorded at Abbey Road in just one week. It made for hectic scenes at the studio when Young Fathers – Graham, Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole – flew from Scotland to complete their track ‘Don’t Fight The Young’.
“It was a busy day,” Hastings recalls. “We were in one little room, and then in the bigger rooms they were doing the choir that I think Damon Albarn was putting together – we popped our head in.” With so many big names in the building at once, there was a lot of crossover between sessions, with the likes of Graham Coxon turning up on Rodrigo’s cover of The Magnetic Fields’ magnificent ‘The Book Of Love’ and Albarn and The Libertines’ Carl Barât dropping in on backing vocals for Pulp’s ‘Begging For Change’. Young Fathers had less luck. “We did try and nick a couple of people, but they were too busy doing something else,” Graham says. “We were trying to nick a bass player from somewhere, and we tried to nick some singers to sound like children.”
Unfortunately, even the children who were filming the recordings on hand-held cameras wouldn’t form a choir for them, but did give the track their dance-along approval. “There’s been a few times where we’ve played shows in front of children,” says Hastings. “We actually played a primary school once in Scotland, and the kids were crying in the front row [because] it was too noisy. But in the studio, it’s great to have that instant reaction, and kids will let you know. You can’t fool kids. The kids that were in [Abbey Road] were bopping about as soon as the beat started playing. And we were like, ‘Alright, this is happening then, we’ll just keep going with this one’.”
‘Don’t Fight The Young’ – a powerful, driving track chosen from a clutch of songs Young Fathers wrote for the project – clearly tackles the issue at hand head-on. “It felt like it was on the nose, but in the best kind of way,” Hastings says. “It’s an obvious title, but it felt like that’s what needs to be said from us at this time – don’t fight the young, don’t bomb children, don’t do the things that are happening – and we decided on [it] because of the momentum it felt like it had.”
“The world is a smaller place now. We can’t just put the blinkers on and plead ignorance is bliss”
For Young Fathers, there’s a real urgency to the War Child cause. Last month, when their track ‘Pals’ was used on an advert at the Super Bowl, they donated part of their fee to the charity. “They’re doing the job of what everyone’s responsibilities should be, to take care of children in the most dire situations,” Hastings explains. “Their work in war zones, whether it’s in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, [or] Ukraine, is vital. It’s a sad indictment for us as a species that children still live in such situations; it just shouldn’t happen.”
While he acknowledges that musicians can “only really do tiny, minuscule, little things in the grand scheme of things”, Hastings sees the value in any contribution. “You just want the energy of the whole thing clicking together, whether that’s people protesting, donating, getting active or writing to politicians, direct action – all these things are a wave, and you want to be that tiny little cog in the whole thing.” He reaches for a James Baldwin quote: “The children are always ours, wherever they are, or something along those lines.”
Being a part of a wave of protest is taking Young Fathers’ voice to the fight against the far-right in the US, too. Another portion of their Super Bowl money went to the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund in Minnesota, alongside a statement proclaiming “the USA is increasingly under attack from fascism”. Is it important for them to make such a stand at this time? “Of course. What’s happening in America, I think it’s important that people talk about it in that way – that it is fascism. It takes people talking about it for something to hold it back,” Hastings says.
“Nothing’s going to change overnight. All you have to do is hold things at bay. There’s the side of it where people make noise a bit, and the side where they get active and are directly trying to help people. For us, it’s important to recognise that they both need to work in tandem.”
Hastings is keen to emphasise the echoes of history reverberating through current events, such as ICE raids and killings. “It’s possibly worse, because everyone is actually seeing it, it’s almost in real time,” he reasons. “Whether it’s what’s happening in America or in Gaza or Sudan, it’s happening, and you’re seeing it. It’s impossible for anyone, really, to remove themselves from it, because everybody’s involved in it – whether it’s who you vote for or what you say or what you don’t say, everyone’s responsible. It’s that social responsibility that I think needs to be made a natural thing again. We all have it. The world is a smaller place now. We can’t just put the blinkers on and plead ignorance is bliss. We know. So it’s important to do whatever people can do.”
Outside of their charity work, Young Fathers also recently contributed the soundtrack to Danny Boyle’s celebrated 28 Years Later film – the ideal band, Hastings agrees, to accompany a gigantic zombie running around with his massive wang out. It was a “full circle” collaboration, considering the influence that the music of the earlier films had on the musician when he was younger.
“In the studio, it’s great to have that instant reaction, and kids will let you know. You can’t fool kids”
“28 Days Later was one of those flagpole films for me,” he says. “It had this magic about it, and a lot of it was to do with the needle drops in it and the music, the choices… Us and Danny Boyle, we like clashing things against each other – just try it, see what it does. There’s obviously certain chase moments where it needs to be exciting and loud and aggressive and all that. But a lot of the time, the things that won over Danny were the things where it’s not what you expected.”
There is also new music in the works, albeit of a more traditional tone than the raw spiritual intensity of 2023’s ‘Heavy Heavy’. “There’s a direction happening,” Hastings reveals. “There’s an idea…to write not how we typically have written. Most of our career has been based on inspiration in the moment – grab the mic, record it. That is the thing that usually ends up on the album.”
This time, the trio have “consciously” aimed to “be a bit more traditional singer-songwriter”. “It’s a mixture, but we’re trying to be a bit more considered in the arrangements and what the whole song is, and writing it in a slightly more traditional way with slightly more traditional instruments, maybe,” he explains. “[Although] we’re still trying to keep the quickness of ‘just do’ – rather than think about what it is, just do.”
‘Help(2)’ is out on March 6 via War Child Records.