Disney goes punk: TikTok sends Welsh covers band viral

"They were gonna love us or we were gonna be bottled."

"They" are a festival crowd of heavy metal fans about to be presented with… a band playing a bunch of Disney covers.

You can understand why Peej, lead singer of Punk Rock Factory, was apprehensive. Fortunately, the crowd were soon screaming along to Let It Go, the Frozen anthem loved by children worldwide.

So how did a south Wales quartet end up playing Disney tunes and children's TV theme music in a rock festival?

Like many of the weird events of recent years, you can thank (or blame, depending on musical taste) Covid. A TikTok video of the band playing a cover of the Lion King's Just Can't Wait To Be King went viral as everyone was cooped up inside in 2020, and it snowballed.

But why did the band from Cwmbran, Torfaen - singer and guitarist Peej, Ryan (guitar), Benj (bass and vocals) and Kob (drums and vocals) - start singing Disney in the first place?

The four, now mostly in their late 30s, grew up together in the local music scene, and all at various points played in bands, separately and together.

A couple even worked in parts of the music business, but by 2014 none of them was in bands, and they decided to meet up and play for fun and "release".

"A friend of ours owned a recording studio so on a Monday evening we'd all meet up for a laugh and hang out," Peej said.

"We ended up chucking the odd punk cover together which we would chuck up on YouTube and nobody would really see it or care, to be honest."

Only ever meant to be an online project, after a few years they went their separate ways and worked with other bands, but picked it back up in 2018.

In 2019 they released their first album - "guilty pleasures really" - such as Meat Loaf and Hansen.

"Again it didn't really do a lot. But then Covid hit the beginning of 2020 and," he gives a sheepish laugh, "it kind of worked really well for us".

One of those guilty pleasures on the 2019 album was Just Can't Wait To Be King, recorded because Disney's Lion King remake was coming out

"Things like TikTok were huge during Covid - everyone was stuck at home, they had their kids there. The only thing that people could do was watch box sets, do pub quizzes over Zoom calls or flick through TikTok and Instagram.

"Our cover of Just Can't Wait To Be King was the first thing that really kicked off for us. That's where the Disney element came from because we thought, well, we need to do more of that."

After the song took off during the first lockdown and people were "throwing Disney songs at us to do" they decided to record a full album of punk Disney covers.

"From then it's just become this behemoth and we're touring and we're international now," he said.

Peej had some road testers on hand in his son and daughter, 10 and eight at the time.

"My daughter grew up watching Frozen and stuff like that, so I had a good gauge with her."

In 2021, a music agent was looking to book them to tour, which they had never done as Punk Rock Factory.

They heard they might be playing a half-hour set at Bloodstock, which is primarily a heavy metal festival, but everything went quiet.

"Then I remember it was a Sunday and he contacted us and he said you're playing Bloodstock, on Thursday, but you need to play for an hour," Peej recalled.

"Bearing in mind we hadn't rehearsed, we'd never played live together, so we had three days. We literally locked ourselves in the studio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and just threw out a set and drilled the songs.

"So the first show we ever played was in front of about 8,000 people.

"We didn't know what to expect. Like I say, it's a heavy metal festival and we're there playing pop punk versions of Disney songs and [Teenage Mutant Ninja] Turtles and Power Rangers and stuff.

"They were gonna love it or we were gonna be bottled. That was the life-changing moment there I think.

"We went onto the stage, you've got 8,000 metalheads, you've got massive guys in denim jackets covered in patches and huge beards and screaming the words to Let It Go back to you."

At the end of 2021 they did their first UK tour, playing 300-400 capacity venues, and "pretty much" sold out.

Since then, the four quit day jobs to gig full-time, and this year played Download a UK tour and Australia stint, last year it was Slam Dunk, and there have been European festivals, with Japan and the US also on the cards.

Some may dismiss covers as an easy option, but Peej said a lot of musicianship goes into making songs written for one genre work in another.

The band originally thought when they started getting successful they would produce an album of original tracks at some stage, but their view has changed.

"I think as time's gone on Punk Rock Factory is what it is, and I think if we start throwing in original stuff it would kind of muddy the waters a little bit for people," said Peej.

"I think if we did, we'd probably do it under a different name, or a different guise.

"You see a lot of bands out there now that have got the anonymous thing, so a lot of bands would wear masks [and] you don't really know who the band are.

"Maybe we'd go down that route if we did originals."

And, with another laugh, "Who's to say that we're not one of those masked bands anyway?"