There’s a fine art to making punk music that makes you laugh, think, and possibly crave a chocolate biscuit. Few bands nail that trifecta quite like Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies. Now six albums in, the Liverpool collective return with Art, Religion & Chocolate Biscuits, a gloriously off-kilter yet deeply personal record that mixes absurdist punk theatre with an unexpectedly tender dive into mental health, Catholic guilt, and the surreal poetry of everyday life, that is now available via 9×9 Records. Art, Religion & Chocolate Biscuits isn’t just a surrealist slogan. It’s a direct nod to Pete’s upbringing on a council estate in Widnes, where art felt like a world away from ‘people like us’, religion loomed large (and terrifying), and chocolate biscuits, particularly orange Clubs, were spiritual currency.

“It’s more personal than the previous ones, but not in a heavy way, more like Mortimer & Whitehouse than The Bell Jar. These are all elements of my childhood. I was the only person in my extended family to ever do anything artistic, unless you count my cousin playing David Essex on Stars In Their Eyes. My parents, understandably, talked me out of going to art school. There was always this feeling of ‘art is shit, you’ll never make a living from that.’ But I did in the end.” (frontman Pete Bentham)

The record kicks off with the brilliantly bratty Art Is Shit, an ode to Andy Warhol’s defiant optimism in the face of middle-class gatekeeping. This is no empty tribute, for Bentham, it’s a manifesto. Everything about the Dinner Ladies drips with DIY spirit. That fusion of parody and poignancy runs through every song on Art, Religion & Chocolate Biscuits. Tracks like Is There Life in Rhyl? and Holy Pictures explore personal trauma and social conditioning through an unmistakably British filter; Catholicism, childhood fear, seaside holidays, and haunted toilet trips included. And yet for all the levity, Art, Religion & Chocolate Biscuits never shies away from darker themes, especially around mental health.

Despite their tongue-in-cheek exterior, there’s real musical depth here. Drawing influence from The Cramps, The Fall, X-Ray Spex and early B-52s, the band blends Pete’s raw guitar with melodic bass from Katy, big old-school sax from Lottie, and Tony’s chameleon-like drumming. That mix of styles and personalities is part of what makes the Dinner Ladies tick. However, their emotional honesty is what makes the band resonate. They’re punk in the truest sense, not just in sound, but in attitude. Defiantly DIY. Proudly working class and utterly unwilling to fit into anyone’s box.

“We’re not the usual group of four blokes in leather jackets. There’s a big age range, a mad mix of people. Our agent in Germany says we can be put in front of any crowd, punk, arty, young, old, and it just works. DIY means two things to us. Being in control of everything and working with people who share your vision, and personally, it’s about ‘Do It Yourself, Be Yourself.’ That’s the great gift punk gave the world.” (Pete Bentham)

The chances are that they will, because beneath the chaos and comedy of the Dinner Ladies lies a band with something rare: heart, humour, and a hell of a lot of honesty. This is kitchen sink Punk for the 21st century served just the way you want it; boiled down, brewed up, and with a side of biscuits. Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies will be celebrating the album’s release at this years Rebellion Festival when they will appear in the Opera House on the 7th August and on the Almost Acoustic stage on the 8th August.

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