Watch older women making mistakes and just laughing about it
In the clubs and festivals of south Wales and beyond, six women in their 50s and 60s have formed a punk band called the NaNaz — not to recapture youth, but to weaponise the experience of being overlooked. Born from community workshops in Newport, their songs about pension inequality and menopause carry the kind of fury that only comes from having lived long enough to know exactly what is wrong. Their rise, without managers or labels, suggests that authenticity and age are not in conflict — and that the most radical act available to an older woman may still be to pick up a guitar and make noise.
- Six women who spent decades as nurses, foster carers, and ice-cream van drivers are now selling out punk venues every weekend — on their own terms, with no industry infrastructure behind them.
- Their music channels the specific, overlooked rage of women rendered invisible by age: pension injustice, menopausal upheaval, and the quiet violence of being expected to disappear.
- Younger audiences are flocking to them precisely because the NaNaz make mistakes on stage and laugh about it — a direct rebuke to the curated perfection that dominates social media.
- After every gig, women in the crowd approach the band not just with praise but with declarations: they are going home to start a band of their own.
- The band's momentum is building without a single conventional industry lever pulled — suggesting grassroots, community-rooted music-making may be finding a new cultural moment.
In a hardcore punk club in Newport, six women in their 50s and 60s are making a noise that has nothing to do with nostalgia. The NaNaz formed just over a year ago from community workshops inviting women over 50 to pick up instruments for the first time. Before the band, they had been nurses, foster carers, ice-cream van drivers, and theatre performers. Now they are booked solid at clubs and festivals every weekend, with no manager, no label, and no PR — just songs about pension inequality, menopause, and the particular rage of being invisible.
Anne-Marie Bollen, 60, a former community nurse and bassist, had grown up inspired by the first wave of female punk musicians but never felt confident enough to perform. The workshops were created by Jude Price, a community outreach worker who had experienced a stroke and understood the isolation facing older women. Their first single, 60 Lies, supports the Waspi pension inequality campaign — a punk anthem about pensions that lands with genuine anger and B-52s-style harmonies.
Lead guitarist Ange Pearce, 62, learned music from her jazz-drummer father at age three, left school without GCSEs, and spent years running a newsagent and an ice-cream van she eventually gave up because she kept giving free cones to children who couldn't pay. She and her wife have fostered 36 children. Multi-instrumentalist Marega Palser, 60, a former experimental theatre performer, had lost her relationship, home, and studio before joining the band. She describes the menopause as a chemical rewiring, and playing with women her own age as a spontaneous, balancing energy.
Claire Symons, 52, a former actors' agent, had never wanted to perform. She joined the workshop for novelty, knew two chords within weeks, and was booked to play the Hope and Anchor in London before she felt ready. She has since written her first song — a surprisingly upbeat piece about menopausal rage. She believes younger women connect with the NaNaz because social media is saturated with perfection, and here they can watch older women make mistakes, laugh, and carry on.
The band's youngest member, drummer Jade Ball, 29, was diagnosed with essential tremor at 18, contracted Covid which triggered a heart condition, and was hospitalised seven times last year. When the NaNaz called, she thought: even if this goes nowhere, I might get a group of women to hang out with. After every gig, women approach the band — not just to say they loved the show, but to say they are going home to start a band of their own. That, Symons says, is the whole point. Getting people to realise they could do it too. Which, as it happens, is the most punk idea ever.
In the bat-cave darkness of the Cab, a hardcore punk club in Newport, six women in their 50s and 60s are making a noise that has nothing to do with nostalgia and everything to do with fury. The NaNaz formed just over a year ago, born from community workshops that invited women over 50 to pick up instruments and perform. Before the band, they had worked as nurses, foster carers, ice-cream van drivers, theatre performers, and actors' agents. Now they are booked solid at clubs and festivals every weekend through the end of the year, with no manager, no record label, no PR agent—just songs about pension inequality, menopause, and the particular rage of being invisible in a world that has decided you should be.
Anne-Marie Bollen, 60, a former community nurse and bassist, saw an advertisement for the Nana Punk workshops on social media. The pitch was simple: no experience necessary, no instruments required, Sunday afternoons. She showed up. Bollen had grown up in south Wales as a miner's daughter, inspired by the first generation of female punk musicians—X-Ray Spex, Pauline Murray, Siouxsie Sioux—but had never been confident enough to perform on her own. The workshops were the brainchild of Jude Price, a community outreach worker and musician who had experienced a stroke and understood firsthand the isolation that older women face, particularly those dealing with chronic illness or care-giving responsibilities.
The band's first single was called 60 Lies, a song supporting the Waspi women's pension inequality campaign. A punk anthem about pensions might seem an unlikely choice, but it lands with genuine anger, layered with B-52s-style harmonies. Ange Pearce, 62, the lead guitarist, grew up in Newport surrounded by music—her father was a jazz drummer who taught her from age three. She left school without sitting her GCSEs, worked at a local supermarket, and bought her first acoustic guitar with her first wage packet. For decades she ran a newsagent, then an ice-cream van, which she eventually abandoned because she kept giving away free cones to children who couldn't afford to pay. She and her wife Liz have been foster parents to 36 children. Liz is recovering from a stroke. The NaNaz has offered a welcome respite, and Pearce's life—eventful, complicated, lived at full volume—has already provided material for songs like Idiots Everywhere, a scathing love letter to Newport town centre.
Marega Palser, 60, a former theatre performer and multi-instrumentalist, discovered punk at 11 and found in it something genderless, anti-establishment, a place where women stood equally with men. She had hit a breaking point before joining the band—she had lost her relationship, her home, her studio, burned out from work. She trained at the London Contemporary Dance School, auditioned with Bauhaus's Bela Lugosi's Dead, worked in experimental theatre, and built a career as a performance-based artist. The menopause, she says, chemically rewires you, changes how you experience the world. Playing music with women her own age creates a magical, spontaneous energy that balances the withdrawal, the difficulty, the chemical upheaval.
Claire Symons, 52, a former actors' agent from Devon, had never had any urge to perform. She signed up for the workshop because she liked novel experiences. Within weeks of picking up a guitar for the first time, she was booked to play the Hope and Anchor in London. She told them they were mad—she only knew two chords. She agreed to join the band on condition she wouldn't go on stage. Then came the first booking: Anne-Marie's 60th birthday party. Eighty people in a garden. Symons has since written her first song, Harness the Darkness, which is surprisingly upbeat for a song about the unreasonable anger of menopause. She believes younger women especially connect with the band because everything on social media is about perfection. Here they can watch older women making mistakes and laughing about it and carrying on.
Jade Ball, 29, the band's replacement drummer, is the youngest member. She was diagnosed with essential tremor at 18 and had to relearn the drums. She contracted Covid, which triggered a heart condition. Last year she was hospitalized seven times. When the NaNaz called, she was in a strange state of mind, but she thought: even if this goes nowhere, I might get a group of women I can hang out with. She is not outgoing and gets along much better with people older than her. The previous drummer, Nina Langrish, 65, left to travel in Thailand but still makes occasional appearances on the maracas.
After every gig, women approach the band. For every person who says they loved the show and left smiling, there is another who says the NaNaz inspired them to pick up a guitar or write a song. That is the whole point, Symons says. The job is not to get everyone to follow the band around. It is to get them to realize: I could start a band too. Fuck it, let's do it. Which, as it happens, is the most punk idea ever.
Citações Notáveis
Our job is not to get everyone to follow the NaNaz around. It's to get them to realise: oh, I could start a band too. Fuck it, let's do it.— Claire Symons, rhythm guitarist
The thing about menopause is you are being chemically rewired, so of course you're going to start experiencing the world in a different way.— Marega Palser, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What made these women different from the fictional Riot Women that critics dismissed?
They had actually lived it. These weren't actors playing menopausal rockers who'd only heard of Abba. They were nurses, foster parents, performers, people who had spent decades building lives and now had something real to say.
Why did the workshops work when so many community initiatives fail?
Because they removed every barrier to entry. No experience, no instruments, Sunday afternoons. And they were led by someone—Jude Price—who understood isolation from the inside. She wasn't selling a fantasy. She was offering a door.
The songs about pensions and menopause seem deliberately unglamorous. Is that the point?
Exactly. These women aren't trying to be young again or pretend they're something they're not. They're writing about what actually matters to them—pension theft, chemical rewiring, invisibility. That authenticity is what resonates, especially with younger women tired of curated perfection.
Jade Ball's story—hospitalized seven times, heart condition triggered by Covid—how does that fit into a punk band?
It's the whole story in miniature. She was broken, uncertain, isolated. The band gave her not just music but community with people who understood struggle differently than her peers would. That's what punk was always supposed to be about.
They have no manager, no label, no PR. How are they booked solid through the end of the year?
Word of mouth. People see them, they tell other people. The documentary crew is filming them for the BBC. The story itself is the marketing—women in their 50s and 60s playing real punk, not nostalgia, not a tribute act. That's genuinely rare.
What happens when the novelty wears off?
I don't think it will. These aren't novelty acts. They're musicians with decades of life experience, playing songs about things that matter. The novelty was ever thinking they wouldn't be good.