These last couple of years, I’m getting to do these really cool jobs. ‘We saw your work on a Metallica T-shirt’ and things go from there. So the work I do with bands gets seen by other industries. ‘The art director of the game is a massive Metallica fan and he wonders if you’d design a skateboard’. They find me online and ask me things like that and, my long-winded answer, is that I love it all the same. If it’s a fun project, then I’m up for it.” The fan response to artists who have already supported our message has been overwhelmingly positive. With national and international studies showing that the vast majority of the public support action on climate, and with the opportunity for governments to direct post-covid recovery funds into green jobs and infrastructure, there has never been a better or more effective time to speak out on climate… and the stakes couldn’t be higher. But Luke’s work extends far beyond music. His illustrations grace innumerable video games – including in-game elements for the Gears Of War franchise as well as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. His artwork has also appeared on Santa Cruz skateboards and in 2000 AD – the iconic comic where Luke started out as a graphic designer some 15 years ago.

Peter Saville reworks Joy Division’s iconic ‘Unknown Pleasures’ for new Music Declares Emergency t-shirt. Credit: MDE/Press Music Declares Emergency founder Fay Milton of Savages in a new No Music On A Dead Planet t-shirt. Credit: Press

Yeah. I started there around 2004 and I worked there for about nine years whilst playing in bands. I was commuting from Birmingham to Oxford every day and then playing gigs at night, and not really sleeping. This was when I was a lot younger and I still had energy! I was always into the metal scene and I wanted to tap into that still by doing gig posters. Then I left 2000 AD and started working in video games. I did bits of concept art for video games while continuing with my own art. Every artist’s goal is to be able to do what they want to do. Now I’ve got to a point where I am able to do that. I started doing illustration and art from a very young age and most artists will probably say that. When I left school I played guitar and I always wanted to be in a band. I think it’s a common theme among artists, they play an instrument as well. I was in lots of really shitty bands and I realised that being in a band was really hard. I always did artwork, for friend’s bands and stuff. The music industry is very childish,” she added. “We run around thinking we’re special, we make a mess and someone else clears it up. We think that the rules don’t apply to us. In certain areas, that’s fun because it leads to creativity. When it comes to impact on the planet, it’s just not OK because the people you’re impacting are your audience. Recycled’ vinyl is available quite commonly – it’s the offcuts from the process of making LPs,” explains Nigel Adams from independent label Full Time Hobby. “It isn’t massively more expensive and is cheaper than some of the colour variants – plus, you can get random colour-ways.” While it might seem odd for a climate crisis organisation to be making anything physical at all, we’re assured that all the shirts are made through a process that’s “sustainable and circular,” using natural materials and renewable energy. People are also encouraged to send shirts that are “at the end of their life” to online retailer Teemill to be reincorporated into the manufacturing process and go round the cycle again.

Foals attend the Hyundai Mercury Prize: Albums of the Year at Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on September 19, 2019 in London (Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) Not even NFTs (non-fungible tokens) escape this debate. These pieces of one-of-a-kind digital content – everyone from Slipknot to Mike Shinoda to Poppy have got in on the act – also have a negative impact on the environment. The cryptocurrencies used to buy and sell them create planet-heating emissions – one piece of analysis, reported by The Verge, estimated the average NFT has a carbon footprint equivalent to a month’s worth of electricity usage for a standard person in the EU.With regards to education, I went to art college in Birmingham and I gave up. I’m not sure that’s the best bit of advice, but I gave up because a job as a graphic designer came up and I wanted to learn from that and make money. There was never a hard and fast rule, or a grand plan. It was because I was into stuff. I felt that I was willing to learn and I figured that if I was into what I was doing, things would go somewhere and that’s what’s happened.” We believe that greening the music industry is a necessary part of creating a fertile environment for artists to speak out and create their own work around climate. We work with our partner organisation, Julie’s Bicycle, to coordinate and activate change within our own industry. Music Declares Emergency describe themselves as “a group of artists, music industry professionals and organisations that stand together to declare a climate and ecological emergency and call for an immediate governmental response to protect all life on Earth.”

Speaking to NME about the organisation’s goals in 2019, Music Declares Emergency founder and Savages’ drummer Fay Milton said: “There’s such a short period of time to make the changes we need to make, and to make people wake up and realise that there isn’t time for everyone to change everything they do. READ MORE Savages’ drummer and Music Declares Emergency co-founder Fay Milton on climate change – “Music needs to get real” For more information on the Music Declares Emergency Turn Up The Volume campaign and this week’s events visit here. The nice thing about Festival Republic, and Reading & Leeds in particular, is that they recognise what an important role music can play in being a cultural influencer to create change,” Milton told NME. “They’re doing great stuff in terms of sustainability, but also recognising the power that they hold as a communicator. If you are a record label or Artist manager you can encourage and support your artists to get involved with this important campaign

Speaking to NME about the organisation’s goals in 2019, Music Declares Emergency founder and Savages’ drummer Fay Milton said: “There’s such a short period of time to make the changes we need to make, and to make people wake up and realise that there isn’t time for everyone to change everything they do.

The latest release is designed by Thom York of Radiohead fame and his long term artistic collaborator Stanley Donwood . The pair met at Exeter University’s art school, and first worked together in 1994 when Donwood worked on the single My Iron Lung from that same year, and created the cover for 1995 album The Bends. He’s gone on to work on designs for the band’s album ever since, as well as Yorke’s solo projects, inclidong Atoms for Peace. While Reid’s hardly rested on his laurels since, it’s little surprise that his design for Music Declares Emergency’s ‘No Music On A Dead Planet’ T-shirt range draws on that instantly recognisable punk aesthetic. This campaign relies on artists from across the musical spectrum stepping up and using their voices. That’s what we lose if we continue on this current trajectory,” added Chapman. “We’re trying to be positive. There is time to turn it around.” Ultimately, Milton said that her dream was for “the music industry as a whole to really take a moment to take on board the real world situation that we’re in”.They have to act responsibly and the more pressure we can put on them to do that, the better. We need a safer, fairer, greener world.” It was the afternoon of the BRIT Awards, I was recording a podcast with him expecting to hear about what outrageous suit he’d be wearing to the ceremony in London that evening. Instead, conversation turned to the existential danger posed by the climate and ecological emergency. It was exactly the type of conversation – a mix of desperate frustration and stubborn optimism – I’ve had with numerous musicians recently. Summing things up, Simon said: “Things have changed, and we need to wake up… We need to do so much more. Me and my band need to figure out ways so that we’re not contributing anything to that.” Considering all this, it's no wonder the voice of the music community is once again growing louder on the issue. This time it feels different – more defiant. Enter Music Declares Emergency, a grassroots collective co-founded by Fay Milton from punk band Savages. They witnessed the work being done by activist group Extinction Rebellion in 2019 and decided it was time to create a space where their friends and colleagues in the music industry could unite in action on climate. Their striking motto stands also a warning: ‘No Music On A Dead Planet’. Their mission is clear, too. They urge governments and media to tell the truth about the scale and severity of the problem, call on governments to have net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and encourage people to recognise the injustices in society that’ve led to the climate and ecological emergency. Charity Music Declares Emergency blummin’ hopes so. The organisation was founded in July last year by music business executives and artists to forge a cohesive, industry wide response to the climate emergency—their declaration of a Climate and Ecological Emergency has over 3,500 signatures now. That document calls for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and pledges music industry action on environmental sustainability.