We had the chance to sit down with the wonderful blues rock guitarist/singer Tom Killner, to chat about his latest album (review here) and his touring plans for the year. Check it all out below!

How’s it’s been to see the response to your new album?

It’s been great, to be fair! It’s different to the last albums we’ve done. It’s great that people are on board with it and like what we’ve done, which I’m really grateful for!

And it’s been a little while between releases, right?

Yeah! Somebody said it’s been six years since the last one, one of the reviews was like ‘it’s been over half a decade’ and it’s like wow, where’s that gone?! Yeah, time seems to slip by rather quickly. Especially with ‘that thing’ that happened that we don’t like to mention. So yeah, six years now. But we won’t leave it that long until the next one!

And what’s the writing process like for you? Do you write it all and then bring it to the band or do they sit and write with you?

It’s a mixture sometimes. Generally I’ll have a riff idea or the lyrics or an idea of the lyrical content. And I do like to chat with the band and get musical ideas. I do like other people’s input into stuff. It’s important that it’s not just a singular vision for the songs. The track ‘No More’ was originally a ballad, I wrote it on acoustic guitar. It just didn’t work. And then Rich, the drummer, said ‘let’s try it this way’, and this was like a week before we were due to record. Like lyrically there were no issues but musically we were struggling a little bit. And that’s when we take it to the band and swap and change it and things.

So it’s sort of a mixture between myself doing bits and pieces and the band coming up with ideas. I more or less let them have free rein with what they want to do on the tracks. That’s down to them.

Is there a particular story or theme throughout the album?

I don’t think there’s a story, you can’t call it a concept album. It’s an accumulation of songs I’ve written… some I wrote years back and we’ve toured them for years. Some of them were done literally the week before we recorded the album. But all the songs are from a certain point in my life, pinpointing what it was like then. Some are just pure fantasy, some are observations on everyday life. So that’s kinda the theme from the record, pinpoints through life.

I imagine there’s some music floating round for the next project still, too?

Yeah, I would say so! The vinyl format that we did, you’ve gotta cut down to a certain length or you start to loose audio quality, which a fun constraint to have. And the cost of having a double LP is unattainable at the moment. But yeah, we have got ideas and songs and riffs that didn’t make it onto this record that will be on the next one. And hopefully it won’t been too long before we start getting those together and having the next one written.

And do you lean more towards albums as opposed to single or?

I’m in both camps, to be fair. The industry is changing with how to capture your audience; you’ve got to move with what is happening, really. I would say I’m in the camp of I like a full album but I’m not afraid to have a couple or three singles from the album before the release. It sort of gives the people an indication of where it’s gonna go. Today it’s really hard to keep the attention of people. We’re in the world of 15/30 second videos. I’m 28 now so I sort of caught the end of when you used to go into shops to buy singles. So the singles thing has always been there, but it’s a rarity these days that bands are purely releasing LPs or full albums.

And so you’re on tour next month, right?

Yes! We are headed out with Hush Money, from Georgia. I can’t wait to be heading out with them. It’s crept up on me, seems like this year has disappeared already! We have a few dates with them across the UK; Scotland and the North-East and down to Wolverhampton and finish off at Call of the Wild. Really looking to that!

Then in July we’re heading out with Preacher Stone. These shows that we’re doing, we’re playing venues that we’ve never been to before, meet in new friends, so we’re looking forward to it!

Have you got much planned for the summer/back end of the year?

We’ve got quite a few festivals throughout. There’s plans for a tour later on this year on our own. It’s not been announced yet but we’re working on that! But mainly through summer it’s festivals.

Do you have a dream tour lineup you’d want to be a part of?

This question comes up a bit and I think it changes on a daily basis! A big one for me would be Blackberry Smoke. They’ve been on the playlist today so that explains why! Lukas Nelson, he’s really cool! Jason Isbell is one of my favourite artists in the Southern rock camp, phenomenal songwriter!