Why a mysterious road sign has appeared on Sheffield Parkway of an ‘old lady swearing’

The comedic and slightly ‘controversial’ billboard located on the parkway was set up by Sheffield based band Perfectparachutepicture, who have been compared to English rock duo, Royal Blood.

Perfectparachutepicture is made up of Kyle Ernest on drums and vocals and Edward James on bass – with the pair being heavily influenced by Biffy Clyro, Death From Above 1979, and Queens of the Stone Age.

Inspiration for the billboard was the responsibility of band member Kyle Ernest who drew up the design of an old lady with tattoos putting the middle finger up.

Kyle said: “I decided to have it printed on my kick drum, and then obviously we toured all over the country and the UK, and it started to sort of get recognised, to the point where we were like, oh, actually this silly idea, this silly design actually might be working quite well.

“So then, back in the last year we decided to get some t-shirts printed up, just with that design on, and they sold like hotcakes all over the country.”

He added: “We’ve been working with a small independent record label called Kycker music and the guy called Frank Wilks who runs it and he's been great.

“We thought about getting the design that sort of gets everybody's attention on the biggest billboard we could find, which obviously ended up being the one on the parkway.”

“It’s not something that you would ever really see.

“We weren't even sure if they were going to advertise it and I think the advertising company thought, actually this is a great great idea because it’s so different.”

Kyle said that the band wanted the billboard to have a ‘little bit of mystery behind it’ and want people to question what it actually is.

The band started in 2013 and began to make a name for themselves in 2019 after airing on national radio, radio six and BBC.

Since then they have performed at the Tramlines festival, Mosborough festival and inside the iconic Leadmill venue.

Recently their single 'Working Machine' placed seventh in the IndieXL charts in the Netherlands - up from number 20 in its first week and number 12 in its second week - alongside huge names such as Biffy Clyro, Nothing But Thieves and The Cribs.

“To be up there with those names is just absolutely incredible because we, in a way, we still see ourselves as this little band from Sheffield but with all the support that we're getting from national radio and BBC, and then charting in the Netherlands, our music has been played in Australia, Spain, it charted in the apple charts in Turkey,” said Kyle when asked about the band's success.

“It’s incredible, on Spotify in the last four weeks our single has had over 10,000 plays. People are obviously loving it, and I think we’re on the verge of the next level.

“Something like the billboard on the parkway is just the perfect step for people to go alright who are these guys, we’ll check these out, and hopefully we’ll get bigger and bigger.”

For more information, visit www.perfectparachutepicture.com.