Londoners Magazine

Andy White, 27, is the leader of Glorious Undead, a Christian church group that meets in a hall in Belsize Park. Founded by members of the alternative rock scene - whether industrial, punk, hardcore, metal or rockabilly - they meet weekly to pray and sing alternative Christian songs together.

“It can be difficult being a Christian in London. The open mindedness is cool but London isn’t a very Christian city. In your day to day life, you do feel quite different. At work or in a club, the chances are that most people aren’t Christian.

“It’s not like living in Kentucky or somewhere where everybody’s Christian and knows where you’re coming from.

“London’s full of different ideas. That’s cool, but you do feel like a minority. It’s sometimes hard to lead a Christian lifestyle in London because of the way most people live.

“But it’s great having so many different faiths in London. I’ve got a lot of friends with different beliefs. I prefer that to having a Christian only city.

“Glorious Undead (GU) works in London because you’ve got so many different people into so many different things. People come to GU from all over the world - Norwegian, German, Japanese and American.

“People are always going to be more open-minded in big cities. If we tried to do GU in a tiny mining village with a population of 20 it probably wouldn’t go so well. London’s an open-minded city with different ideas and different people from different backgrounds.

“I was raised in a medium-sized town in the north west and really wanted to go to a big city. When I came to live in London, I‘d only been to London once for a weekend. I saw the Tower of London, the crown jewels. I thought they were pretty rubbish.

“Now I absolutely love it. I love that you can never know it all. In five and a half years, there are still loads of places I’ve never, ever been to.

“You find something new every couple of weeks - a new area or restaurant. You can just keep going. I’d much rather some unexplored bits rather than a place where you know every single venue and person.

“My favourite thing is the energy. Even though it’s all busy and all crazy, I’d much rather that than living in a small town and getting a seat on the bus every time.”