Joe Talbot ’s five-piece Bristol punk band Idles share Beth’s desire to find strength in vulnerability. Talbot’s lyrics smash conventional notions of masculinity all the while displaying the blunt rage associated with it (“I’m a real boy, boy and I’ll cry/ I love myself and I want to try”). The band’s sophomore record Joy as an Act of Resistance was a clarion call to anyone with grit in their teeth, tackling issues like social dislocation, austerity and loneliness with the same unwavering stare Beth shows a Savages audience, often with a wry smile tucked somewhere in the back. Meeting for this conversation, the pair extract passion from pain.

‘Serious’ is an uninspiring word: dour, dull, deadening. Beth is anything but. Savages’ 2016 record Adore Life is a splash of water on the face. When she steps on stage with the four-piece, she appears both all-powerful and wilfully vulnerable, a mode of engagement the band acknowledge in a written manifesto that accompanies Adore Life: “It’s about showing weakness to be strong.”

Savages frontwoman Jehnny Beth has a reputation for seriousness. You wouldn’t know that though, on a grey Thursday in a photography studio in Haggerston, her chit chat brightening a room that crackles with occasional laughter. It’s only when she turns to the subject of music that her brow furrows slightly and the room seems to darken at the edges.

Crack: One thing that unites your music is to fight against an oppressive world with love and compassion. Do you feel like people are crying out for that right now?

Jehnny Beth: For me there was a realisation on the second Savages record where I received so much love from the crowd and I felt I had a responsibility to answer that. I decided to write Fuckers. “Don’t let the fuckers get you down” was a phrase a friend gave to me when I felt down, and I thought, I’m going to give it to people as well. I don’t know about you, but when you’re on stage and you receive so much cheering and love…

Joe Talbot: It’s the best feeling in the world. I was crying on stage the other day just because I felt so carried. There’s a point for both Jehnny and myself on stage where you give more than you can contribute as an artist, you just let go and it’s like being caught. It’s like falling backwards and having people catch you, on a scale where you feel elated and part of something bigger than you understand.

With Savages’ music and the school of feeling we came from as a band – post-punk and noir, goth music, like Bauhaus – it’s a dark aesthetic and I think there’s a responsibility to embrace the macabre. The new school of thinking is that you can actually do that with compassion and inclusivity. That’s what’s needed at the moment, a counteraction to the dislocation and isolation which comes from everything happening in this fucking world at the moment.