What did you get up to over the holidays?
I was at home with all the family round ours over Christmas and a few days after that. Then for New Years I traveled up to Sheffield to see all the Drop Dead guys and partied it up with them! It was rad. I recovered by the 3rd of January though when I got back home!
Did you get any terrible gifts? Or give any?
Hahaha… I wouldn’t say I got terrible gifts at all, it was just nice to be at home again and celebrating good times with family again seeing as we were away a lot! There was a bird feeder though we received and it did make us all laugh for about 10 minutes!
2010 collectively saw you guys achieve huge things. Does that put you under a lot of pressure to outdo previous ventures?
As a band we want to make everything we do the right way, we achieved tons of things we never thought as a band we would do. When we come back again with our new album, we have lots of things planned for it, hopefully they will be as exciting as 2010 was for us!
Everyone asks about the highlights, but have you had any low points throughout your career?
We had a rough patch when we were out with Paramore at the end of 2009. We had been on tour all year and we were all exhausted, I think we got to the point where we needed some time away from each other before we came back straight away again in 2010 with Hold Me Down. We were a divided group and if we didn’t have a bit of time away from each other it could of done some damage to our band.
What are your hopes for this year? Anything that you’d like to delve into but not had the chance before?
Lots of things, band wise we want to try and explore a few new festivals in the summer that we have never done before. Obviously our new CD, we are hoping to go record in the States so it would be a totally new experience for us because we have always recorded in the UK. I’m also starting up a company with 2 of my friends from back home called Antique, our merch will be out around spring / summer time, something new for me but something I’ve always been interested in doing.
How has the reaction been to your new single ‘Rescue Me’ featuring Chiddy?
There has been mixed vibes about it, obviously you’re going to get people who either love it or hate it. We had fun doing this song because it was totally different for us, it’s nothing like our new material we have so we wanted to keep it separate and try to make it a fun experience working with another artist like Chiddy. I like this song myself and would hope to think lots of different people who like different styles of genres of music can also listen to this.
How did you meet?
We are part of the same label and had the idea of doing a song like this, somehow they worked their magic and KABOOM! That was it really.
Rap-rock collaborations always seem to go down a treat, was it something that you’ve specifically wanted to do?
Yeah I like the idea of it, brings it to a new perspective on how to look at an artist and see how talented people can be. Look at the Linkin Park Jay Z collaboration, I am a massive fan of both artists and how they produced a really cool CD with previous work they have done before in my opinion was something totally different but also a great combination.
How was the recording process, did you learn anything from him?
We weren’t there when he recorded his bits, we had a song structure what we thought would be cool to use and sent him a rough idea of it over and he was keen. So we recorded our parts of the song in North London with Matthew Lawrence and spent 2 days getting the track nailed down so we could send it over to him. Once we got the track back with Chiddy’s parts on we were happy to hear the finish product. It was a totally different experience for us recording like that.
What would you consider the most valuable lesson you’ve learned so far as a band?
One thing we learnt on one of our first big tours was from a band called The Sleeping, they said if you don’t come off stage sweating, then you haven’t worked hard enough that night in your performance. Still to this day when I play I think of those things they have said and put every bit of energy I have into our live performance. If you have seen us then I’m sure you can see it.
Do you get to spend a lot of time with fans? What has been the funniest experience/gift?
We try and spend as much time with our fans as possible. It has been a bit difficult for us doing this in the UK at the bigger shows but we still hang out, we have meet and greets for the bigger shows and then when it’s smaller shows we are normally just kicking it about the venue. The funniest gift we got was definitely a 6 pack of beers from 2 girls in Scotland on the last run of the tour. We had had a right giggle about it!
Tell us about your riders and must have tour items?
We were lucky enough to have catering on our last tour, but our rider normally contains lots of drinks both kinds and snacks really. Not really that exciting to be honest!
What home comforts do you miss whilst you’re away?
You’re always going to miss your bed no matter what. I always miss my own home shower as well, nothing like a good old scrub up in your own shower! Sometimes the venue showers are weak and it just feels like someone is dribbling water on you, never fun!
When were you last star struck and why?
For me it was when I met Thrice at Reading and Leeds festival last year. They are my favorite band and they were such nice dudes, also very talented and it was cool get to meet them.
Recommend the Resonance UK readers:
3 Bands/Musicians: Thrice, Architects, Your Demise
3 Movies: The Union, Inception, Toy Story 3
How did you get involved with the Peta2 campaign?
We were approached by them and asked if we could get behind the company, we are all meat eaters but we don’t like the concept of how some things gone on in the animal world like cruelty to a pet! So we wanted to make awareness of what this company does if you’re a vegetarian or not, they do tons of things that’re great!
