The 1975 won best British group at the 2017 Brit Awards and used the stage to support musicians who choose to speak on political issues.
Matty Healy said he rejects the idea that musicians should "stay in their lane".
Popstars are often told to stick to the day job when they speak about social and political issues instead of promoting their work.
He told Newsbeat opinions of artists are more important now than ever.
"This whole thing of [people saying] 'stay in your lane' - well, we will stay in our lane but our lane is socially and politically informed pop music," he said after the band collected their award.
"It's a big lane."
"People who have a platform should use it, that's just b****ing out if you don't.
"You can be scared of being perceived as being preachy but the fact of the matter is, in times like this, art is way more important. It just is.
"People need to accept and do something about that. We're going to try and do something about that."
The 1975 won best British group at the 2017 Brit Awards
The band also praised one of the night's big winners, the late David Bowie, for how he used his platform to speak to fans about important issues.
"Bowie changed the way we talk about sexuality in public, that's something I'll always remember because that obviously has transcended and informed so much of culture," Matty said.
"Those artists were about so much more about breaking taboos than they were about being musicians," his band-mate George added.
The 1975 weren't the only band to use the Brit Awards to make a political statement.
Katy Perry was joined on stage by two giant skeleton puppets which many people said were dressed to resemble Donald Trump and Theresa May.
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