The indie scene has seen development in England recently. Record label eNGine Room has gathered a few bands and artists in the area and given them the resources to record proper studio material and market their fresh sounds to the world.
One of these groups is Don't Worry, I Have A Plan, an alternative rock trio consisting of vocalist and drummer Maxwell Osborne, vocalist and guitarist Bri Leal, and bassist Tom Smith.
With two singles under their belt and more music on the way, the three gave an exclusive interview with AudioPhix regarding the process and their inspirations, as well as chatting with the graphic designer who has collaborated with the band.
Don't Worry, I Have A Plan: Developing an audience through memorability
Max and Bri first formed DWIHAP on July 3rd, 2023, getting their name by picking random letters and turning them into a sensical acronym. The duo became known for their uniqueness between performances, with consistent night-by-night improvisations making each show special.
Bri notably appeared at the Hockley Hustle festival on October 15th, 2024, performing a solo acoustic set in the late afternoon. The band would then sign to eNGine Room in 2025, a not-for-profit label focused on supporting indie artists in the Nottingham area. From here, things started picking up.
They put out a demo CD on August 15th, 2025, given to attendees of their BBC Introducing performance in Nottingham. The two songs featured on it, "Trees" and "Regicide", would later be fully mastered and released as their first official output for the year.
"Trees" was first promoted through video snippets on social media in the weeks preceding release, becoming their debut single on October 3rd. "Regicide" was then released on November 28th, alongside the announcement of DWIHAP turning from a duo to a trio with the recruitment of Tom.
Before meeting with the band, I spoke to Marshall H., the graphic designer for Don't Worry, I Have A Plan. We discussed what it was like collaborating with them and how the experience has been.
How did you come across the role of providing artwork for the band's releases?
Marshall: I met Max in September 2023 and Bri in January 2024. We were all contributing to a Self tribute album at the time, and through that, they introduced me to their band. I officially became their cover artist in October, though I’d been making album art for years prior. My first DWIHAP artwork came from demos of "Slinky Girl". I made a cover within an hour for my own files, sent it to Max, and he kept me in mind.
Between now and then, how many ideas have you presented to the band?
Marshall: Probably around 100 ideas, maybe 20 being actual art concepts. My first contribution was actually demo critiques. I've been designated nitpicker ever since, it's cool. Art-wise, I pitched everything from serious ideas to jokes they liked anyway. One was a mug that just says "EMPTY SPACE" with a microscopic logo. They loved it, and I expect royalties.
What's been the process of going from a draft to the final product?
Marshall: Most ideas start as vague images from music or doomscrolling. I sketch sometimes, and do stuff last minute, gives me better ideas usually. If none come, then I'm screwed. I almost did the art for "Trees" but bailed after convincing myself my concepts were unusable and gory. The original "Regicide" art was also toned down for trying too hard. The final version was inspired by a Willamette Egg Farms truck I pass by often.
You're mentioned in their demo CD as being "more excited about this music" than they were. How does it feel to be collaborating with DWIHAP?
Marshall: Man, I don’t even like these guys! Kidding, it feels awesome! I've never interacted with real-life rock stars this close before. I saw Geordie Greep live in Portland last year, and it was incredible. If DWIHAP can make some poor sap feel like that, then it’s worth supporting them as hard as I do.
Any other thoughts about the band?
Marshall: They never told me Tom's real name. They only called him "The Graggle" and said he wasn’t real. I know what I saw. I’ve been running guerrilla marketing in the States, including Deltarune GIFs and whatever else I can get away with. That’s it from me. Go watch Girls' Last Tour and listen to Fluid Ounces & Cymbals, Toodeloo!
Discussing inspirations and material with Don't Worry, I Have A Plan
After some planning and scripting with the assistance of Marshall, I had the chance to talk for a couple hours with Max, Bri, and Tom of DWIHAP. The three gathered together in a place dubbed the DWIHouse, and we discussed university classes, influences, history, and what's next. You can read the full interview below.
Before this conversation, I heard you guys moved back down to Brighton. What sparked this move?
Bri: Well, we live here. We attend university down here, and we head back up for the holidays. Brighton feels more like home at this point.
Max: For knowledge consumption! I mean, if you're speaking specifically on why we moved in the first place, for me and Bri it was an amazingly appealing next step for university. We knew that making musical connections down in the south of the country would be much easier than where we were in the East Midlands, which already has a decently common pre-cultivated status of being an generally difficult place to do so.
Sounds like the perfect chance to really grow the band. Have you been taking music classes at the university, or are you all majoring in different things?
Bri: Yeah, we're all studying music at BIMM right now. I'm studying bass and songwriting at the moment. BIMM, for reference, is a music university. They have campuses all over the place, but it was quite difficult to resist the pull of Brighton, and the community we've found down here is exceptionally welcoming. It's a lovely place to be!
Max: All three of us are largely taking the same classes (performance, songwriting, creative industries etc.), but we're naturally focusing on different instruments.
Tom: I'm doing drums and songwriting. I'm focusing my amateur Max Osborne impersonations in my personal time.
Does it feel like what you've learned has been employed in the songs you've written together?
Max: Yes, yes! I think I can say for all of us that songwriting in particular is obviously unleashing some newfound creativity amongst the band.
Bri: Absolutely! In fact, a presently unreleased song of ours is directly based on a prompt given to us by a BIMM lecturer. Absolutely what Max said.
Tom: I think so, I've definitely taken inspiration for some classes we've taken. We spent one part of a lesson dissecting a Beyoncé song and that led to a song that I'm really quite proud of.
Very cool to learn like that! Tom, as a new addition to the band, how did the idea of you as their bass player come up?
Tom: Me and Bri started another band in around October, where I'm the guitarist. We had a few rehearsals, and it was really cool, and at one point, Max and Bri decided that DWIHAP should probably have a bassist, and I was more than happy to immediately say yes.
Have you done any lyrical writing with them yet, or is your expertise primarily composing?
Tom: I'm always writing down ideas for lyrics that pop into my head. If I think it'll fit, I'll stick it in the DWIHAP folder. I've been in bands before where I was the lyricist as well as playing an instrument, but I've taken kind of a backseat whilst writing new instrumentals recently.
Max: With DWIHAP specifically, we maintain the philosophy that there exists no true 'main' member of the band. With this in mind, for the question specifically, it allows us all to completely write independent of one another and just...demonstrate to each other what we've created! There's no rules to follow, no particular member to look for approval from, anything counts!
Promoting equality in a band truly is vital for it to thrive. Do the three of you plan on eventually recruiting other members such as a keyboardist, or have you not encountered a need to add that component to your style?
Bri: We haven't needed anyone else yet, though I suspect we're more likely to hire touring members than full members. I'd love to write with a horn section sometime.
Max: I've personally always had this in mind...maybe if only for live performances with session musicians specifically. I'd love to bring in a keyboardist, especially! Lord knows BIMM is running short on them, though. I mean, if it really comes to it and we decide to write a song that includes an instrument we don't currently main, we'll probably end up playing said instrument ourselves.
Bri: Oh yeah, that's a good point. Tom plays every instrument ever made, so we have options there.
Tom: Me and Max could always trade drums.
Max: Exactly! Being a multi-instrumentalist works out great in this case.
When “Trees” came out, the associated post said it took two years to develop. Are there any even older songs in the backlog, such as material written before the band formed?
Max: Oh, yes, absolutely. One of our existing demos we've been consistently chipping away at currently stems from a song I made as a short instrumental through the online compositional tool 'Beepbox' in mid-2022.
Around 2 years later, we decided to cannibalise it for the band - it's come out the other end almost an entirely new track from its source material, but the base elements of the original still keep the song afloat. I expect that we'll most likely do this again someday for future material.
On the other end of things, have there been cases where songs were written extremely quickly, such as a one week timeframe?
Bri: We've started and finished songs in a day before! More often than not, the majority of an idea will come together quite fast and then be expanded further down the line (in some cases, much further down the line...)
Max: Recently, we set ourselves the challenge of writing micro-songs, usually under or just exceeding a minute or so in duration, sort of as a nod to TMBG's dial-a-song service. Cannot say I've ever written and completed a song in a matter of minutes beforehand (I think it took me about 20-30 mins specifically?), but it was a great exercise!
So far, Beyoncé and They Might Be Giants have been mentioned pertaining to specific exercises. What are some inspirations each of you have had for writing music?
Bri: Self, massively. I pull a lot of my songwriting inspiration from Windmill scene bands (black midi (RIP Matt), BC,NR) & post-hardcore bands (Faraquet, Q and Not U). I've been really digging TMBG at the minute too, as you mentioned. The band 12 Rods as well!
Tom: I listen to a lot of prog rock and metal, so a lot of the theory aspects of those influence my songwriting, especially bands like Dream Theater.
Max: Subconsciously, for me specifically, I think I just naturally channel what I grew up with - listening to a wide variety of pop-punk bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, whilst also rotating through a lot of UK bands like Biffy Clyro and A. When it comes to drumming specifically, I'm always trying to channel the complexity, improvisation, and rhythmically unusual drumlines of Ben Johnston (Biffy Clyro), Stewart Copeland (the Police), Morgan Simpson (Black Midi), and Claude Coleman (Ween).
That's not to say I'm not always finding new inspiration to channel as well, though. Self and moreover, Matt Mahaffey have been VITAL for compositional inspiration in the last few years during the forming of DWIHAP.
On the topic of Self, there’s a tribute album for the band potentially releasing this year, which features DWIHAP performing a cover of "Out with a Bang". How did the production of that go?
Bri: That project is still in the works - me and Max worked on this one sans Tom (we started this pre-Tom joining). It was a fun challenge trying to recreate the specifics of Self's monumental production style in such a specific soundfont. Coming to a YouTube near you soon!
I look forward to hearing that when it comes out! You also recently surveyed that your fanbase is interested in purchasing a CD single of your music. Hypothetically, would this be for last year’s singles, or perhaps new material?
Bri: Last year's singles, though who's to say we won't throw in the odd bonus?
Max: Yeaaah, to justify any sort of pricepoint for those songs alongside the cost of ordering said CD's, we've gotta put some bonus material on there. Just makes sense!
Have there been plans to produce music videos for any of the songs?
Max: Technically, yes! We've recorded snippets of video for Trees' promotional material, but I don't think we be a modern day band without imagining what our sound might appear as to a video director. We have friends who would more than likely take us up on a video-filming offer if we really felt like getting something out nice and independently.
Tom: We made a mini mockumentary to announce my joining, I think there are definitely skills we learnt whilst doing that that we could absolutely apply to possibly making music videos in the future.
Is the Mii project that was announced in your community related to this by any chance?
Bri: The Mii project's more general, though the general late 00's aesthetic of the Wii has been brought up as music video insipration before. The mii project is related to our website - you'll see the results of that soon.
What’s the schedule for this year like? Any upcoming shows?
Tom: Let's hope so!
Bri: Should be doing more live stuff this year as a focus. Plenty of opportunities around Brighton for that type of thing, so you'll be seeing us soon!
Max: Last year, given that we were in a new location, scouting for areas to perform was a goal at the top of our lists. I think we're now probably as prepared as ever to go out on the road in Brighton. But we'd never say no to performing anywhere else in the country!
Bri: Schedule-wise, we're looking to write more stuff and seek out whatever opportunities to release it come to us, though we're all naturally also focusing on our university work. Hopefully a big year for DWIHAP upcoming.
Max: New music, much more consistently and at a greater quantity. Hopefully.
Anything else you want to tell to all the DWIHAP fans out there?
Tom: Stay in school.
Bri: Kick gum and chew ass, go listen to some Self.
Tom: And DWIHAP.
Max: Stop smoking and take up arts and crafts as a side hustle. Huge money. I'm talking dollars.
You can find Don't Worry, I Have a Plan's music and social media centralized on their Linktree page, as well as connect with them through their official Discord server.