Red Rum Club
What was it like to make the live album and how do you feel knowing anyone can have a hard copy of your very own music?
The live album! We got told about a couple of months before that, it would be recorded on the night and then I don’t think anyone told us anything else, they never reminded us and said “by the way you’re getting recorded for the live album.” No-one did on purpose, because it was so we could just go on, go and do your thing and enjoy the night, rather than the pressure.
If they had of told us before we were going on, this is getting recorded it’s gonna be released we could have played better in the sense that the live album would have sounded better, but the gig and the atmosphere in the gig wouldn’t have been as good and that’s what’s most important to us. You can buy the live album, great and listen to it and we hope you enjoy it but, we pride ourselves a lot more on the actual gig, giving the experience, giving a party!
What makes music so important to you and why?
It’s a short call to happiness ist it? Music gives you that, for like 3 minutes or however long the song is or however long the gig is even, you just enjoy yourself a little bit and it sort of resonates with other people. If you listen to a band you like and you’re like, “oh yeah!” It puts you in a good mood for the first 30 seconds, the first minute, 3 minutes whatever, I think that’s what it is, the fact that we can do that to people.
What has been your best show to play, so far and why?
There's a few hasn’t there, like it depends. Our favourite gigs haven’t always been where we’ve played the best or things like that. I think things that make a great gig for us is the crowd and if the crowd are up. Probably one of the best ones we did this year even, was a This Feeling stage where we did Truck Festival and we done Kendall Calling and everyone was just up. But then we played Glastonbury festival this year and it was one of the best because it was Glastonbury. There was also this festival in Romania which we played the main stage. Opened the main stage, in front of like a couple of thousand people and we didn’t know what to expect because it was Romania, but it was like jumping on a plane and then just going over there and going on a big stage, not knowing what to expect, with all these boss bands. When we went there, we got treated like we had made it, because we were sharing the stage with the likes of, The 1975 , Jungle, Pale Waves, some really established bands. We received pretty much the same treatment as them, so like we arrived at the airport and we had people to pick us up, chauffeurs and that, with nice vans and in europe they drive really fast. That’s probably one of the best gigs. We got put up in a really nice hotel, really nice food and drinks. You know all this stuff and we were like is this all just for us? Do they know who we are? And all that makes the gig better. That was all boss, because you feel the part, you’ve had a few free beevies.
So Romania, Glastonbury , our hometown or Truck Festival.
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What would you say has been your overall biggest success as a band so far and why?
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The getting an album out, signing a record deal and getting the album out. It’s like the be all or end all, like once you’ve done that you can say yeah I had an album out once upon a time, when you’re older. There are a few, some milestones, tour , the O2 academy. There’s a few things that have made us feel like we’ve done something. Sometimes we crack into the universe of the big bands briefly, like when we did that Romanian gig and we were backstage with The 1975, and we were just like staring at them, we were all bladdered because it was our first experience of whatever drinks you want free because of the band, so we were just staring at them, all saying go and talk to them, and then a few of us went over and spoke to Matthew Healy, and you know that you’re terrified someones gonna be horrible, but he was the nicest guy ever! I think it was a pity though (laughs). He spoke to the lads for like 10 minutes about nothing.
What were your emotions surrounding the release of your new music video ‘Kids Addicted’?
Get it out! Relief. It’s a big thing, there’s so much going on around it as well so we were just like right, lets put it out, alright, lets go. We finished the tour and we get post tour blues ,we call it where you’re like you feel like you’re not doing anything because you’ve been working so intensely when you’re touring its everyday your playing and you’re basically campaigning your band, and then you get home and you’re just like back to normal. But to an extent it’s good to get the feedback. You still need to be out there and putting that video out, we wanted something. It justified it didn’t it because you’re sat there at home but you still get pings on your phone because it’s getting this many views, and this many likes and people are still justifying it. It’s reassuring that you’re seeing people still responding. There is nothing like touring. We had to take some nude stuff out of it though, there was a lot of nudity in the original cut, but nobody wants to see our bodies. (laughed)
How does music make you feel and has it ever been your therapy?
Not for a few years, like being completely honest because we do it so much now, we listen to music in a different way. Sometimes on a personal level. There are bands every now and then, you just come across a band and even though we kind of dissect bands and kind of question why are they good? Because it’s like our job, once every now and then a band will just blow your socks off and then that is your therapy, that just makes you happy. It makes you like sort of wow this is amazing, and you just enjoy it for what it is. We did a sofar sounds with Clean Cut Kid, and just sat there and watched their stripped back acoustic set and we were just like why the fuck do we even bother? When people can be that good. It was like watching the Lumineers or something, so maybe it is yeah.
What was your favourite part about tour and can you let the cat out the bag about any 2020 plans?
We are booked out from February to the May, so basically just save up your christmas money and buy a ticket. We’re grafting hard, a big headline tour, as well as maybe a few support slots here and there. Then we’ve got some goodies in some big rooms.
If you could tour with any band dead or alive who would it be?
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Queen, preferably alive.
Support the Beatles , Lennon or Bowie I think. Mcartney actually, yeah it’s got to be the Beatles, not Ringo though. That just makes sense doesn’t it?
Who is your biggest inspiration for sound and style?
Sound, I’m gonna say film, Tarantino and Bond. That’s my inspiration anyway we didn’t take influence from bands, we took inspiration from film soundtracks.
I think I look like a young Josh Brolen, his like a handsome actor, well his older now, but yeh. The BFG or the footballer Andre Gomes. (francis)
But inspiration for the band aesthetic is the colour black. Well to be honest, we're just a big group of fellas who don’t really look like a band, we just look like old men, so we were like what can we do to make ourselves look like a band. So we just made like a one colour scheme, monochrome. Even for a while on our instagram we just did black and white filters for everything, so it was at least consistent. I think also naturally because we’ve been together a few years we just started dressing similarly. Then one day we took the black and white filters off, that was scary. I tell you who else, The Neighbourhood, their instagram and the video for Sweater Weather, we watched that and we were like yeah, that! That’s what we want to look like,so we’re like that but hairy. (laughs).