Interview: Getting to Know Bela Fool

17/09/2026 Carl Fisher 11 min read

Brighton rock trio Bela Fool release their new single and video, ‘Up To Me’, on Friday 25th September, followed by their debut EP, ‘Fool Me Once’, on Friday 2nd October. The releases introduce BELA FOOL’s world of sharp contrasts, loud guitars, and human contradictions. In this interview we get to know them better.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Hi! Thank you so much for having us, we’re really happy to be here! Name’s BELA FOOL, we’re from good ol’ sunny Brighton. The band formed last year in 2025, at a marital arts gym in Kemptown, Brighton. It was a slow process, and the band was born almost by case! We kicked each other in the face before talking to each other. Then things gradually evolved, changing-room talks, competitions, it all eventually brought a sense of belonging. Nothing happened for quite a long time, and then it was just the right moment: the band Sye (Guitar) was running split up, leaving him free to pursue other projects; at that point Jordan (vocals, guitar) came to me and asked if I was free for a little jam. Turned out that he had a gig booked that night, and after a couple of months the core of what would become Bela Fool was born. We did see a hint of something special in that performance that night, and since we’re trying to bring this project to the best level we can and working hard to put that sparkle in front of everyone.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

There’s lots of different influences in our music, it’s kinda hard to describe it in a few words! To keep it short, I’d definitely say grunge, punk, cockney vocals and flying guitar solos.

There’s definitely a lot of ‘90s rock that goes into our music. Grunge is definitely a big influence, bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney. On the other side of the ocean, Jordan is also a big britpop fan, which comes out in the songwriting process. Jonas (bass) is a big punk fan, bringing in sounds from. Bands like Toy Dolls, Snuff and The Clash. Finally, Sye was originally a hard rock/metal kid, which you can hear in some heavier parts and definitely in the solos. Collectively, BELA FOOL is a big classic rock fan as well, listening to bands ie Zeppelin and Pink Floyd regularly.

It almost feels like it’s too many things at once, but in the writing room it feels like all of this is just filtered through our own selves and BELA FOOL comes out. And it makes us proud of what we’re able to come up with.

3. What’s currently keeping you busy? A new album/EP/single release? A new video? Playing live, or planning ahead?

All of it! At the moment, what keeps us busy is our debut EP “Fool Me Once” which comes out on Oct 2nd! It was a lot of work, but it’s all ready to go! “Up To Me’ will be the preceding single, out on Sept 25th. We just finished shooting its music video, and we’re getting the promotion in place. We’ve been putting together a tour to promote the release, and we’ll be around the south of England and Ireland this October, with more dates coming early 2027! We aim for 2027 to be ‘the year’, where we’ll be able to cover bigger stages, play all around the country and aim to start building a team around us. We believe BELA FOOL deserves to be listened to, and we feel this will be the way.

4. What is about this current period that is particularly exciting for you?

We guess that the most exciting thing for now is to see everything starting to move. All of the hard work, all of that we’ve put in this is starting to slowly make things roll and we’re excited for when it’s gonna roll at full speed. It’s weird in a way, when you read the story of a successful band it’s almost like as if they always knew everything was going to turn out in the best way; for us is the other way round, all of this feels like a big gamble… so when something that you put so much work in starts to go well, that’s where the excitement is.

It’s all gone so fast! Last year at this time we didn’t know if we could break even from the venue hire of a single local gig. Now we’ll be playing abroad and a record will come out! Next year we want to look back and feel the same by whatever we’ll be doing.

5. Tell me about the work that has gone into making it a reality and what it means to you.

So much work! We wish we had a full on dedicated team that takes care of everything while we’re retreating on the mountains with papyrus ink and quill to only focus to write the opus magnus that will live on through the centuries, but reality is that we’re not there yet and we have to take care of mostly everything ourselves! We’re very lucky to work with some amazing people like SaN, Salvation Studios and Six Point Media, but still we spend most of our days just coordinating with each other and working hard to book gigs, make them a tour, advertise, record, shoot photos, shoot videos, and all of it. Love when applying to a festival and they ask “what role do you have in the band”, reply could easily be guitarist/songwriter/manager/booking agent/treasurer/media editor/carbonara cook/etc. Lots of sacrifices in personal life too. Sustaining a band costs a lot, and we’ve all taken 12h shifts and lost a lot of sleep for it. But we found more than just the music in this, we got each other’s backs and we’re like a family now. And this means way more to us than just wanting to perform on big stages or wanting to be rich and recognised.

6. Making music and being creative can be a very positive experience and can be very good for the mind. In what way has making music had a positive impact on your mental health?

Being creative is probably the most important aspect of human beings since the dawn of time! For us music is life, we can’t really be ourselves without it. It’s that kind of itch that if you haven’t played in a few days you start to feel like you can’t keep still til you have a guitar in your hand. I remember in high school studying about some philosopher saying that music is like speaking without words or language. It’s always quite stuck with me, as when there’s something I can’t say with words I try to play it out, and usually the best songs come out from it. When something is true and meaningful, eventually someone will listen to it and feel the same thing or relate it with their own thing, regardless of place, time and language.

7. It can also be incredibly challenging, more so in the modern times. What have been some challenging aspects of making music and how have you overcome them?

We never really had a challenge in terms of songwriting or expressing ourselves, I’d say the two really big challenges in trying to break through are money and a really big lack of care. Money is really tough as there’s not really a way out of expenses and most of the time you won’t recover the investment you make. Recording, promotion, video and photos costs, equipment, touring, petrol, accommodation, merch, etc they all cost quite a bit and that unfortunately advantages artists from some social contexts or ones with labels on their back. We’re very working class musicians, so more than always takes many hours of extra time to be able to afford a degree of what’s needed, but at the same time having this limitation pushes us to get creative to find alternative ways to get to that result!

Lack of care is a bit harder to face, but we take on that positively too. It feels that everybody wants you to have a name, but really rarely they offer you the chance to make yourself one. Promoters ignore you, venues leave you on read, management always has better artists in front of you, labels won’t consider you unless you already got 60k followers. Like if one needed a label if they gathered 60k fan on their own. But once again, we don’t let it dishearten us. We start from the bottom, build relationships with people we can rely on and always aim to get Bela Fool in front of the widest audience possible. We believe that the music speaks to people’s emotions and bit by bit we’ll build our tribe.

8. How do you handle the online aspects of being in a band? Having to put out content constantly, promoting across several different social media platforms, and having your success measured in likes and follows?

This I would say is one of the most stressful and anticlimactic parts of this game. What really makes us feel alive is making music and perform it, none of us enjoys being a content creator or has ever cared about trying to be an influencer. Having to have a social media presence that is constantly present is kind of a pain in the … But it has to be done this way in this day and age and most of our legendary predecessors would have had to do it the same way if social media was about in the 60s to 90s. Unfortunately this is just how it is these days so you gotta bite the bullet and work hard in every aspect.

9. How do you make this part of things enjoyable, and fulfilling, for yourself?

Probably by trying to not do it ourselves. We’re all easy-going, genuine people and we’re at our best when we can just be ourselves, hang out, make jokes and all in the most natural way possible, and that is the moment the best of Bela Fool comes out! On the other hand, when things are too staged and impersonal they just end up really unnatural and clunky. And this not just for social media, but I’m songwriting and stage presence too. The ideal for us is to have someone in the room with us filming while we’re ourselves, instead of one of us holding a phone and another having to learn what the script of the latest trend is.

10. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support you?

Make noise! Talk about us with your peers, share our stuff, even have a laugh and mock some stuff, the power of the word is key! At the end of the day, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make noise?

Then of course see you at gigs! You won’t regret the good time. Then of course stream our music, show your support on socials and if you really want to help us then buy some merch! Running a band costs so much that any bit of merch sold is a token towards improving the band. If you buy some merch and then you see something cool we do, you played a part in it!

11. Outside of music, what do you like to do to relax?

Outside of music, you can probably find us in the gym, with friends, family, having a good time and clearing our minds. We’re all very lucky to be living in Brighton and Hove so a good relax on the beach, swimming or paddle boarding. We all love cooking good food, a pint at the pub and on a good night staying out partying til morning.

12. Where can people find you?

Well luckily there’s not a lot of Bela Fool around, so if you type Bela Fool and you’re looking for Bela Fool chances are you will find Bela Fool. Yes it’s spelt B E L A followed by F O O L, just in case.

We’re on Instagram and YouTube mainly, but also Facebook, TikTok and SoundCloud.

We’re coming soon on Spotify, releasing our first single Up To Me on September 25th and the rest of our debut EP Fool Me Once on Oct 2nd. Definitely recommend pre-saving both!

Links

Author

Carl Fisher