Inside the Next Chapter of PVA with Ella Harris

Interviewed by: Lucy Dover (@lucy_dover_)

Ella uses she and they pronouns. For this piece, we use she, in line with how she asked for the interview to be written.

PVA are entering a new chapter. The London trio return on 23 January 2026 with their second album, No More Like This, a project shaped by three years of change, loss and rebuilding. The release follows their latest singles Boyface and Enough, two tracks that signal a shift toward something more melodic, more deliberate and more emotionally exposed.

At the centre of it is vocalist and activist Ella Harris, whose work spans far beyond the band. Alongside PVA, she is also the Campaigns Manager at Music Declares Emergency, the UK collective of artists and industry workers pushing for climate justice and political accountability within music. Her activism runs parallel to the world she builds on stage, and the two often feel connected by the same sense of urgency and care.

No More Like This grew slowly, without label deadlines or industry pressure, and the result is a body of work that sits closer to the bone. It is an album written through grief, clarity and collaboration, one that listens closely to feeling and does not rush to resolve it.

Sanxtuary sat down with Ella to talk about the making of the record, the role of queerness and community in her work, the realities of safe spaces in nightlife, and what it means to make art in a time where everything feels politically charged by default.

If you were introducing this album [No More Like This] to someone who has never heard PVA before, what would be your one-line pitch?

Somatic, sensual, smooth. Do not know why they are all S words. I guess it is a gentle album as well, more of a journey.

At Sanxtuary, we loved your debut album Blush, so we really excited to hear what is next. How are you feeling emotionally about this release? Excited, exhausted, protective?

Yeah, I think we are really excited. We are really proud of this album. It feels like a very resilient record, because since the last one we have all gone through a lot of life stuff, big changes. We are doing this album independently, which is quite daunting, especially in the current music industry climate. But we have got an amazing team behind it, and it feels like a fresh start. We wrote the record before we worked out how we were going to release it, and we took three years doing that. With the first record, we had time restraints and deadlines. You do not get to be as creative in those moments with a bigger label. This one feels different. We took our time. The music industry moves so quickly that if you take time, it can feel like you have missed your chance. But we feel excited. We think the songs are really good. It is the best lyrics I have written and the best songs I have sung so far. It feels nice to be in a creative process that is not restrictive. You hear horror stories about the music industry and creative industries in a hyper consumerist world. So it feels good. We are happy to be at a point where we can release work we are proud of and that reflects where we are at as people.

What story are you hoping to tell with the new album, and when did that narrative start to take shape?

There is a lot of grief in this record. I was feeling a lot of grief writing the early demos. There are the stages of grief in there, moments of anger. We have got a song called Anger Song about being allowed to feel anger in grief and the shame around anger. There are moments of euphoria, realisation, clarity, and also the dissociative periods where you want to escape or be perceived differently. Sonically the album is maybe more in line with the music we are listening to now. The first record was focused on creating a visceral sonic experience. We produced and mixed it ourselves, and it was about pushing the parameters of what we could do live. This time we wanted to explore subtlety and sonic familiarity, creating accessible music that still speaks to deeper tones and themes.

You have mentioned the grief you were experiencing while writing. Did the process feel therapeutic for you at the time?

Yeah. Music to me is therapeutic. Music, dance, making things. Some of the demo vocals we did were the best ones, because recording them three years later, you have to go back into that feeling and it is difficult. These were songs I was writing in real moments of sadness and clarity in a little basement. Revisiting that is a strange feeling. But that is what music is. Therapy is individualistic. When you build songs with your bandmates, then a producer, then a mixing engineer, then an audience, and then creatives building the visual world, it becomes a form of group healing. Everyone takes something from it. It is important not to sit in your own world. There were moments where I thought a demo needed to sound one way, and the boys would bring the instrumental somewhere else, and I would think it did not represent my feeling. But in creating something that represented our feeling, the song became better. And if that impacts someone else, that is beautiful. That is the beauty of it. I do not think anyone should hoard their creative work. I am very pro releasing as much as you can. You learn a lot from sharing vulnerability.

When you brought the songs to the rest of the band, their input shifted them away from your original demos. Do you think that collaboration changed which tracks you are most proud of?

Yeah. My favourite track on the album is Okay, which is like a saga. It reminds me of Thelma and Louise, them driving off the cliff. That song came from us just jamming. I had these silly, strange lyrics. It is one of the tracks I am most proud of. At every stage of the process, from the first jam where I was pushing to get a demo, to someone recording it, to building the idea. With Okay, there were moments where the boys were working on it in the studio, and Lou’s drumming on the track, the drum take is wild. We cut up his original take and patched it together in the demo, and he had to play it out fully. He stayed up all night practising it so he could track it the next day. Those moments are amazing, because they are pure determination. The songs you are most proud of are often the ones you worked hardest on, where you really fought to realise the idea. They are usually the weird tracks. And we have a lot of moments like that on the album. We worked hard over a long period, with many iterations and studio sessions, getting them to sound how they sound. I developed so much as a singer and performer. It feels amazing.

Ella Harris, Josh Baxter and Louis Satchell of PVA

Your lead single is Boyface. What made you want to introduce the album with this one?

We love that chorus so much. We wanted to introduce the album with a real pop number, a statement of intent. We like changing the sound and moving to a new place. I am singing a lot more on this album, so it felt right to lead with something chorus focused and melody focused. The slower tempo, the trip hoppy drum feel. We worked really hard to get the drum sound and the synths and the mix right. We wanted something that felt like a synthesis of everything we have developed. We love that song. It was one of the first we wrote, and that chorus has been in my head for three years.

Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind the track?

Boyface is a love letter to non binary masc people, my kings and queens in the club. It is about fearful devotion. About how queer spaces can be transformative but also overwhelming, sensory, visceral. When we first recorded it, there were loads of vocal layers, screams low in the mix. It feels euphoric. I came into my queerness a bit later, and the song represents that feeling for me and for others.

Is queerness and community something we can expect to see explored across the full album?

I would say it is more sensory. A very sensory album. Lots of references to the body, touch, feeling, the aftermath. But yes, I think so. Enough, which is out tomorrow, is one of my favourites. That one is super queer. It is impossible not to be when you are writing lyrics. Lily Allen said her songs are about her, and I think it is impossible to write music that is not about yourself in some way, because we are all projecting.

What moment in the making of Enough made you realise it had to be the second single?

We were not going to release it as a single for a while. Then we showed it to Lynks [the London-based queer performance artist and musician], and Lynks said it needed to be a single. And we thought yes, it does. We all love it, but we were worried it was too weird, because singles are meant to bring people into your camp. But we wanted to release it. The bass line is sexy, the beat is crazy. We used a lot of classic MPC samples on the drums. There are so many hidden easter eggs in the mix. We love it. It is one of our favourites on the album. It is nice to have the freedom to release it and build a visual world around it. It feels like us.

Listening to Boyface, we caught a hint of Caroline Polachek. Were there any particular musical influences shaping this album?

Yes. Caroline Polachek, ever since we did the remix [of Welcome to My Island in 2023] But I've been a long term fan since the Chairlift days. We were also looking back at the British trip hop scene before us, Massive Attack, Portishead. We were looking ahead, Erika de Casier, that kind of thing. Kwake Bass [their producer] was showing us stuff from The Alchemist and Mos Def, Sade, Erykah Badu, all of that. The weirder side of pop and R&B. It feels more in that world rather than the post punk electroclash world Blush was in. We all listen to so much music constantly, so there is so much to draw from. That is why there is so much great music right now.

PVA grew out of small rooms and close knit scenes. What makes a space feel genuinely safe to you beyond just the label?

It is really important. We have played venues that have not been safe for the audience or for us. There is a full responsibility from venues. I was at a panel recently about building safe spaces in the grassroots scene. With queer people, you can go to a queer night at a venue, but if the security guard does not treat you with respect, what is the point? Grassroots venues often have reduced capacity and cannot do proper onboarding or training. There needs to be more funding, more safety legislation, more training for bar staff so they can deal with unsafe situations. I worked in music venues from 18. We would have machete attacks and you would think, how do I deal with this situation? You would be doing shots at a So Young night and suddenly there is a machete attack. Grassroots venues host queer nightlife, all nightlife, all gigs. It is important we as a community hold the bar staff, the owners, the security and the clientele to account. When I go to Piehouse Workers Co op in London, it is an amazing community run space. It is the safest space. And compared to venues where you are on edge the whole time, you just lose business. People stop going. There are already boycotts of London venues because of transphobia. These were venues important to me growing up, but I do not go anymore and I do not want to put gigs on there. Hopefully the penny will drop and there will be more support for venues that want to implement changes. Like with everything, it is funding.

No More Like This artwork

Do you think of PVA as a political band?

We try to be. It is difficult for artists to speak up, especially if you are not established. I am very political. I would never speak for Josh and Lou, but they are supportive of political choices and ideals we want to put forward. It is hard to be a musician now and not be political. Corporate sponsorship, billionaires creating platforms that divest money from artists and fund AI weaponry. I do not know how you can be a musician in this inequitable scene and not be political.

You recently took part in a panel for Music Declares Emergency. What felt urgent about lending your voice to that work?

I am the campaigns manager. That is my day job. I have worked there for two years. Music is a tool for change. My main job is using music to incite political change and advocacy.

Is that political consciousness something you hope carries through the new album as well?

I think so. Not that we are singing explicitly political stuff, but being a person in this world is a political act if you are not a white billionaire tech man. At PVA shows, you look at the front row and see such a range of people. When I am at the merch stand, people give me badges with my pronouns. We have such a lovely fan base. As we move toward 2029 and what I think is the most important election in a long time, just having people together in a room feels political. Creating positive, hopeful spaces. We curate the venues we play to make sure they are safe. We would never play somewhere if we heard something went down. We want to create an alternative to spaces that are not like that.

Do you think political and environmental messaging lands differently when it comes from musicians rather than institutions or traditional activism?

Yes, one hundred percent. Music has such an important role. You can have the same music taste as someone with a completely different worldview, and songs can mean similar things in your heart because it is emotional. That is why my day job is finding creative ways to promote sustainable and equitable futures. Music is an important tool, sometimes more so than art or TV, though they are important too. There is still class involved in cultural infrastructures. Music is still inequitable and difficult for working class musicians, but there are moments where people break through, like Sam Fender winning the Mercury Prize. These people can be political, and it is seen as an asset. Musicians have a big role to play.

What is something that feels really important to you right now?

Freedom for Palestine. I think that is the biggest thing on my mind at the moment, especially with the breaching of the ceasefire in Gaza. That is obviously quite big. And I know a lot of people feel similarly. On a smaller scale, loneliness. I have been thinking a lot about loneliness recently. There are so many lonely people because of our phones. It is nice to be announcing a tour tomorrow and doing work that gets people together. Our first EP came out during Covid and everything was screens. Now music marketing is all TikTok and reels. It is nice to do physical things in a room. That is how I met Josh and Louis, at gigs. At 17 or 18 you just go and hope to meet people. It is nice when people do.

What is something you would like to leave behind in 2025?

Quite a few things. One thing I would like to leave behind is the amount of content about how to make your life better. It is giving Cosmopolitan 2010. Every time I go on my phone it is like, I need to be doing this and this and this. Especially with Ozempic now, you can buy your way into being better. I would love the world to take a slower pace. I want people to be more gentle with themselves. If you achieve one small thing in a day, contact someone you love, do some laundry, that should be enough. You should not have to present your morning routine like a performance. It is overwhelming.

Finally, what would your ideal Sanxtuary be?

I would love somewhere communal, maybe woodland communal living. Foraging for food, growing food, everyone supporting each other, raising kids, looking out for each other. Lots of music, lots of singing, lots of art. And no billionaires. No billionaires.

You can listen to PVA's latest single, Enough, here: