Hanni Pidduck and Clara Townsend make up two halves of Brighton duo ARXX and describe their sound as “like Taylor Swift if she only ever listened to Nirvana”.
Hanni tells Newsbeat when they saw the Slam Dunk line-up they weren’t surprised – “sadly”.
“You can be outraged but it’s still not surprising. It’s really upsetting that we’re still at that point.”
The singer and guitarist, who identifies as non-binary, says representation is simply “not there”.
“The feeling and the general experience right now is that opportunities are afforded much more for a certain demographic,” they say.
“And because of that, they’re then taken away from women and other marginalised communities.”
For that to change, Hanni says diversity needs to be seen as an opportunity and not “a problem”.
“You need someone to actively say, ‘This year’s going to be different’,” they say.
“And part of the problem is no one’s deciding that.”
Slam Dunk would have been “naive” not to expect some backlash to the line-up announcement, Hanni says, and even though more acts are yet to be revealed, they agree with Allanagh that it doesn’t set the best tone for what to expect.
“If you’re embracing the idea that representation is a positive thing, then I think you would understand that that needs to come from day one,” they say.
