On tour across the UK, Panic Shack tried an online experiment for the hell of it.
“we’re gonna do this dance in every green room til we get really good, follow us on tiktok to see the progress xxxxx,” the Cardiff punk band wrote on Instagram in May 2025, posting a video of members Sarah Harvey, Meg Fretwell, Romi Lawrence, and Emily Smith doing a dance to Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much.”
Multiple renditions on TikTok, 100,000 followers, and 15.4 million views later, Panic Shack were all over FYPs. And they’ve just released their debut album.
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Formed in 2018, Panic Shack emerged from “daydreaming whilst at work,” according to Harvey, and a shared love of karaoke and going to friends’ gigs. A rambunctious, jubilant, loud punk outfit from the Welsh capital, Panic Shack brings perpetual Thelma and Louise energy to bangers about ride-or-die friendship, telling jerks to GTFO, bullshit body image expectations, smoking rollies, meal deals, London dudes, and the dreaded ick.
Mashable sat down with lead vocalist Harvey and guitarist/vocalist Fretwell to chat through their viral success and what to expect from their very first, self-titled LP.
Panic Shack stole TikTok’s heart with a dance
“everyone be quiet my show is on.”
Credit: Panic Shack / TikTok
“everyone be quiet my show is on,” wrote TikTok user Morgana on a Panic Shack video. “Why is this so addictive to watch? I think I watch each of these at least 10x,” wrote welsh_witchery on another. “Do you do divorce parties x,” added Eviebop.
Maybe you’ve discovered Panic Shack at one of their live shows. Or perhaps you’re one of the thousands who have found them through their series of “Miss You Much” dances posted since May.
The dance was originally choreographed by Ohio-based dance instructor Jezebel Shuvani (@JezFever). Posting to TikTok in February, she described it as inspired by the final scene from Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, in which Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), Destiny (Constance Wu), Mercedes (Keke Palmer), and Annabelle (Lili Reinhart) do their own choreography to Janet Jackson’s 1989 banger. (The artist’s original “Miss You Much” video itself is ablaze with moves.)
Fretwell had seen the dance JezFever had posted on TikTok and pitched it to her Panic Shack bandmates, Harvey, Lawrence, and Smith, who were all on board (who wouldn’t be?). Finding tiny corners, sunny rooftops, and cramped corridors in venues across Manchester, Brighton, Norwich, Leeds, and more, Panic Shack carved out time to throw down moves without fail. They even dragged drummer Nick Doherty-Williams into one.
“I was like, girls, we should try that when we’re on tour together. And we just did it, and did not expect it to take off,” Fretwell tells Mashable. “It was so crazy, because so many people are, like, you’re marketing geniuses! Who is running this? I think the combination of our stage outfits and the different locations and the consistency of doing it every day whilst we were on tour was really the secret combination. We absolutely did not expect it to go viral. JezFever and the troupe are so lush as well, we’ve got an online friendship with these women.”
Credit: Ren Faulkner
The dance boosted Panic Shack’s online fanbase tenfold, with a cursory calculation of the band’s “Miss You Much” videos sitting at 15.4 million views alone. The comments are full of old faithful and shiny new fans, the latter of whom have also found their way to Panic Shack’s YouTube channel. “Anyone else here because they were mesmerized by their TikToks? Now I’m addicted to their music,” writes one commenter, and they’re not alone.
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“You couldn’t write it, like, it could not have come at a better time,” says Fretwell. “Honestly, before the dance, we had like, 6,000 followers before we went on tour, and we came off tour with over 100,000 followers. It’s quite literally mind-blowing.”
“It’s interesting, because we’ve had a big following for a long time just for our live shows and now it’s really interesting deciphering who knows us from TikTok or from a live show,” she adds.
Panic Shack celebrates joy, calls out hate in the comments
Credit: Ren Faulkner
Having experienced toxic trolls and hateful comments in the past, Panic Shack experienced the (unfortunately) rare wonder that is being women on the internet surrounded by positivity, fun, and empowerment — all while being their authentic selves.
“We almost couldn’t believe that people were being so nice to us in the comments,” says Fretwell.”Some people have really emotional reactions to the dance as well. It absolutely, again, isn’t our intention, but I’m just so glad that people have found so much joy from it.”
“We’re being ourselves and I think that gets lost in social media quite a lot,” adds Harvey. “And our friendship, as well, probably shone through a little bit, as it always does with the band, and just when we’re hanging out.”
Alas, there are still dickheads online. In true punk form, Panic Shack often uses humour to call out misogynist comments on TikTok videos — including the tried and true TikTok strategy of highlighting heinous comments to name and shame them in new videos. In July, the band did send-ups of Robert Palmer’s 1985 “Addicted to Love” video; Shania Twain famously gender-flipped the video in 1997 for “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.” Panic Shack’s own punk version sees the band pin troll comments and crush a lip-synch of Palmer’s song.
“Sometimes we like to highlight some of the troll comments, just because it’s just our way of dealing with it, really,” says Fretwell. “We’ve received so many troll comments over time, haven’t we, Sarz? Even back then, years ago, that’s how we would deal with it.”
“We don’t want sympathy. We’re doing it just to fight back and show show them up a little bit,” says Harvey.
“We’ve had some really horrible stuff said about us over the years, and it’s just all misogyny,” adds Fretwell. “Essentially, it’s like, whatever they want to disguise it as it, the root of it is misogyny. Don’t think they like seeing women having fun, or not doing something for male attention, for the male gaze.”
Panic Shack keeps live shows and online moments separate
Credit: Ren Faulkner
Sometimes artists see online moments as an accompaniment to their live shows — Charli XCX’s “Apple” dance is the tip of the TikTok-to-stage iceberg. However, more often than not, there’s a pretty solid line between what happens on an artist’s online platforms and what happens on stage. For Panic Shack, it’s the latter, especially when it comes to their viral dance — you will not see it on stage.
“People have asked. People have been like, can that be the encore? And I think we’ve always just said that’s for the internet’s eyes only, really,” says Fretwell. “TikTok and online is like a separate entity, particularly the TikTok app. It’s somewhere we can just try and test out different styles of like, content, I suppose. But yeah, the live show’s nothing got nothing to do with it really.”
“It’s been thrown around a bit, but then I think we just thought it wouldn’t feel authentic for us to do that on stage,” says Harvey. “I guess part of the live show is the music and, yeah, fun and games. But I think the dance would just…if people were there, the gig, were there for music, and they saw us do that, they’d be like, what? To be fair they’d probably love it.”
Panic Shack released their debut album on July 18, with a huge UK and European tour ahead of them. On Friday, Panic Shack is playing a launch day gig and running a pop-up merch shop in Cardiff’s The Sustainable Studio. But first? Well-earned bevs. “Meg said she’s got a bottle of Champagne for us to pop,” says Harvey. “I’ve been reserving a special bottle of Champagne I got for my birthday that I’ve not found a reason to drink, so I can’t wait to pop it with the girls,” says Fretwell.
What can people expect from the self-titled release? “Lots more calling people out closer to home, lots of female friendship vibes, just to step into the Panic Shack world, really, just from start to finish,” says Harvey.
“It’s very much like, welcome to our universe, you know?” adds Fretwell. “We do want everyone to be a part of it. We want people to feel like they can be friends with us.”
Panic Shack is out now.
