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Interviews & Features

Brainwave: ‘Ill Intent deals with a general dissatisfaction with the state of the world, but also a sense that you can conquer your doubts and prove your detractors wrong!’

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We had the pleasure of chatting to New Zealand’s new breakout thrash/hardcore band Brainwave. Check out as we talk to them about their debut album, recent tour and future plans!

How would you describe your sound?

We recently found aYouTube comment saying that Brainwave sounds like a hardcore Toxic Holocaust, so we’ve picked that up and run with it!

The early influences on Brainwave were bands like Judiciary, Power Trip, No Warning – hardcore and crossover coming out of Texas, the North East U.S., and Canada.

Those influences are still with us, but we’ve also been trying to incorporate more melodic elements without going full stadium metal. We want to push both the metal and hardcore elements of our sound to the extreme.

What’s it like having your debut album out? What went into the decision to put out an album over another EP?

It’s been great to get the album out. It took about two years of sweet and blood and it means a lot to all of us.

From our perspective, doing an L.P. was really the next logical step. It was the only way to progress our sound and dig into all the influences and elements we wanted to draw out. E.P’s are great, but we needed something that allowed us more space and room for expression.

Is there a particular theme to the album, or any individual stories you want to talk about from it?

There are definitely some themes that come through the album. We were all facing some challenges during the writing process, at work or in aspects of our personal lives, and the album became an outlet for those struggles. Things like not achieving the goals we wanted in life, feeling disconnected, isolated, and atomised. This is also all of course in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the polarisation that had wrought. Society itself seemed to be breaking down. Songs like ‘Lost My Way’ and ‘Never Be The Same’ confront these themes.

We were also all profoundly affected by the genocide being inflicted on the people of Gaza by the state of Israel and the escalation of violence in the West Bank. It was frustrating that many people we’d looked up to had failed to recognise that daily horror and systemic forces pushing the region to the brink.

Overall, Ill Intent deals with a general dissatisfaction with the state of the world, but also a sense that you can conquer your doubts and prove your detractors wrong and, hopefully, make things slightly better in the process.

What is the writing process like for the band?

Generally Joram (guitar) will fire some riffs through and we will try and shape those into a song in the practice space. Often we will partly finish a song then move on to another idea and circle back later once we need to really hone the ideas. 

‘Never Be The Same’ is a good example of this method. There is a riff that comes in at around 1:40min that we were playing as an intro to our set when we toured with Lucre in 2024. We thought that would be the start of a song, but as we wrote and reworked things, it felt natural to use it as a kind of beat switch part way through the track. Lewis Noke-Edwards, who produced, mixed, and mastered the album, then had the idea of adding a super slow breakdown after the riff, and Joram added vocals to really kick this track up a gear. It’s definitely a band favourite.

Seen you’ve had a busy month with shows, how’s the tour been going?

Yeah, we’ve just wrapped up our release tour. It’s been amazing, hella fun!

It was our first time playing in the South Island (we’re a North Island based band), so that was really cool. And it was great to have our friends Martial Law on all five shows. 

We’ve been pretty active in Wellington for a few years, but to go outside our city and see people singing along, throwing down, and generally having a great time has been really gratifying.

What’s the scene like over there? Seen a good few bands coming through from your area recently!

The New Zealand hardcore scene is really strong right now. As well as great bands there are a bunch of people all over the country putting on shows and working hard to bring bands here from overseas. The community in general is in a really good place.

Huge shout out to all the bands that featured on the record – Molosser, Lucre, Martial Law, and Xile.

Also shout out all the bands that we shared the stage with on our release tour – Shuv-it, Visions ov Hell, Standover, Shuriken, Cryfor, Only You, Kisser, Virginia Dry, Strap, Moment of Truth, MoneySock, Dredge, and Nuclear Blunt.

Got a busy 2026 planned? Any hope to come over towards Europe?

Damn, we’d love to get over to Europe if possible! We’re pretty seriously discussing how we can make something happen over in Australia in 2026. Apart from that, I think we are all keen to get back into writing again.

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

Ossh, what a question!

For us, it would be about who we could learn the most from watching every night. We’re all really excited by what is happening over in Australia at the moment. Obviously the peak of that right now is Speed, but there are so many other great bands from there we’d love to play with – Iron Mind, Horsepower, Feel The Pain, and Dizdain just to name a few. All bands that are in the game not just for themselves, but their scene and community, too!

Interviews & Features

Hunter Brothers: ‘You need to be able to find those points of difference enough so that you have those unique perspectives while it’s also cohesive as a group!’

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We had the pleasure of chatting to 1/5th of the wonderful Hunter Brothers a couple of weeks back about their latest EP and touring plans! Check it out below!

The EPs been out a few weeks now. It seems to have gone down really well!

Well I hope so! You don’t always see all of the press or everybody’s internal dialogue so to speak, but what people have expressed has been positive so far! We’re grateful for that!

Is there a particular theme around the release? The title kinda ties into the songs all sounding a little different!

Yeah, definitely! I think this was an exploration sonically, of a few different directions. You have five siblings in a band, so to assume everything is gonna be one-sided is definitely not gonna be the case! We do share a lot in common, but there’s definitely the different influences that everyone pulls into the band as well. Our family alone, there’s going to be all kinda of county within that sphere. But then when you look at the world as a whole, or even national landscape, how do you define country? Or story is very country, we come from the middle of nowhere, grew up farming, but we’ve also had people say we look like we’re from New York!

That is definitely a part of the idea there, but also I think it’s a compilation of songs that we’ve been gathering for a period of time. We took a trip down to Nashville in January and started incorporating more things like the fiddle, or different sounds just to continue to evolve in music and enjoy where it’s going. Not just get stuck in the same thing all the time!

What’s the writing process like for you guys? I imagine working with your family you maybe get a little more leeway?

There’s pros and cons to everything. The pro is that you have these different perspectives that have similarities and shared life experiences. When you’re saying certain things the other can quite quickly deduce and understand what you’re saying. But also you need to be able to find those points of difference enough so that you have those unique perspectives while it’s also cohesive as a group. But that’s the case for everything, right? Sometimes when you’re writing with someone new they might see things pretty similarly to you despite just meeting you, they just get you. You develop friendships in Nashville and you tend to go back to those people who creatively you can collaborate with. As siblings, sometimes if you have all of us in a writing room, it’s a lot to process! If you have too many cooks in the kitchen, sometimes it can get a little overwhelming for certain members.

It’s still crazy to me, coming from outside of country, to see the Nashville writing scene. It’s really fascinating!

Yeah it is! No songwriters approaches something exactly the same way as the next one; it’s artistic expression at the end of the day. I think that’s what continued to shift things and mix things up a bit, you get lots of different perspectives. The learning part of it is how do you hold space for three or four peoples opinions at the same time? I think that’s really an art form in of itself. It’s one thing to write something in your notebook by yourself at home but to allow that creativity to be accessible to multiple people and have those collaborations come organically is art.

There’s a couple of collaborations on the EP. How did the Latham one come about?

So that was one of the fun things about this project: we’ve done collaborations but not recently. So with this project as just an EP, we hit two of them! That was fun! The one with Latham, it came about in a bit of a roundabout way, it wasn’t like we knew each other. It was actually one of those things where we needed a specific voice for that part, and we knew one of us were going to be able to pull that off! I am not a rapper! I can spread my wings into R&B and pop, but rap is not one of them! I’m pretty sure I did actually try one time in the studio and it was awful. I’m pretty sure my brother kept that sound bite somewhere for blackmail!

Latham was the option that ended up working out. We can’t tour with him in this next leg of tour but we do have screens so we welcomed him onto the stage the way we could! We didn’t think any of us could pull off that part properly. That’s where the country roots come in, you’ve definitely gotta know when to let someone else take the wheel. I think what’s interesting about that, going back to the title All Kinds of Country, having collaborations on this project was the most relevant time to do so! The title is sharing that it’s for everybody!

I feel like country’s become a lot more broad the last couple of years since it’s taken off again, too. You’ve got the traditional stuff but then you also have country rock making a comeback and more hip-hop infused stuff… there’s everything!

Yeah, totally! and when you ask that question ‘how do you define country’, it’s a pretty open-ended question. Is it the sound? Is it how they present themselves? Is it their story? I do think that when I evaluate that as a whole, storytelling is largely what the genre is about. I think that that’s the theme that continues forward. Music is quite fluid, is a C note a country note? But I think one thing I see is that consistent thread in country is a lot of it is about storytelling, sharing perspective and life experiences. The narrative is incredibly important. And now more than ever people can access others’ lives and see what their background is. But it’s an interesting topic, and I’m quite pleased that ended up being the title of the EP, honestly!

Even just the location! We have plenty of country artists starting up over here. And we still very much associate the genre with the South of the US, but then it’s a massive genre in Canada!

Canada is a large country from a landmass standpoint, but population-wise it’s not that vast, so you get to know the people in the industry. A lot of us are friends with each other and it’s great to watch the growth and progress of each act who’s going through the difficulty of economic times and the touring process just like you! I feel like Canada has multiple different cultures living across each Province even, and that’s interesting as when you’re presenting a show, they maybe interpret it through multiple angles. Music and art is a very interesting field!

In terms of the EP, was it always set to be that length, or is there an album of songs floating around for the future?

Yes, we actually do have other songs that are going to be added to this project. Nowadays when it comes to releases there are so many different ways people do it. Some are releasing music constantly while some are more album specific or there’s EPs, or sometimes when you just feel the moment. Some songs hold relevance at a certain moment in time and you figure out how to package them up later. For us we wanted to release new music that we were preparing and getting ready. Our deadline was to have an EP ready by the time we were touring. Then there are other songs that I’m excited to record that will likely round out the project as a whole, or more this chapter. They have similar directions to them, even if the pieces have different sounds to them. I think the songs that are still to be recorded will flow into a similar space that this project is currently living in.

Have you got much planned in for next year?

There’s some shows that are starting to come on the books. Month to month there’s ones that we have to see if we can make work schedule-wise, we have a lot of moving parts. But yeah, that’s starting to happen, and then new music obviously. I think next year is gonna be a year of creatively exploring that next chapter. When you’re in between touring seasons is when you really get to carve out that creative side of things!

Any plans to come to the UK any times soon?

We’ve had this question multiple times now… I would absolutely love to make that happen! We’ve never played there before so I imagine everyone would absolutely love to. I think it all comes down to timing and opportunities, but honestly I think people from the UK just sound beautiful rich, I always wanted that type of accent! I wanna come hang out with people way cooler than me!

I would love to make the trek out there so hopefully we can make that happen soon!

Features, Interviews & Features

Revenant: ‘We’re always creating and pushing new ideas in the fold!’

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We had the pleasure of sitting down with the amazing lads ar Revenant the other day to chat about their brand new EP and their upcoming tour with Preacher Stone! Check it out below!

‘Black Dogs & Sad Men’ came out a few weeks ago, it seems to have gone down well!

Thank you, yeah people have really taken to it, we’ve had lots of messages that some of the subject matter has resonated with people and the songs have slotted into our live set nicely!

It’s your second EP this year after ‘Best Medicine’ in April, what led to such a fast turnover of releases?

To peek behind the curtain of what we’ve been sat on for a while. People who have been watching us for the last year-ish will recognise most of those songs as we’ve had them in our set for a good minute or two. We recorded both EPs pretty close to each other so after the release of Best Medicine it was just a case of incubating the Black Dogs and Sad Men.

Check out our review of the last EP here!

It’s your third EP in the last couple of years. Is the plan to stay with the same format, or is a studio album on the horizon?

Being the men of mystery we are, we don’t want to say too much. That being said, we’re always creating and pushing new ideas in the fold, and we’re always looking at the best way to let those ideas flourish.

What do you think the state of releasing new music is like these days? It seems pretty hard to predict what to put out sometimes!

Put out whatever you want really, obviously some things will be more commercially successful than others but if you’ve got a message, and a good following of people willing to hear and share, then stay true to yourself and it will all fall together.

I saw you’re all prepared for your Christmas gig at Arlington Arts Newbury. How hard was it to get actual Santa to fill in for Sugarman Sam pretty last minute?

Big boots to fill for sure, even for the mighty Saint Nic! Sam didn’t take kindly to being paraded in a costume for our amusements and so we had to think of something. We all wrote our letters to the big man and asked him to help us out and he actually had that evening free so it’s all worked out after all!

You’re out on the road with Preacher Stone in the new year, what can we expect from the shows?

You know, that is going to be our first proper tour and we’re stoked to get going, we’ve chatted with the Preacher Stone fellas a few times, super cool dudes. We’ll be playing a heap of new venues and cities to us, there’ll be a measured amount of chaos, a healthy amount of action, and an unbridled stallion of powerful tunes!

Have you got quite a busy 2026 booked in already, anything you can tell us?

We’ll be headlining a cool biker/veterans Care After Combat charity festival Backwoods Barn Jam, Market Rasen in July and we’ve got a few irons in the fire but nothing we’re ready to pull the trigger on to let people know just yet. Writing is a big focus for us at the moment so we want to put as much dedicated time into that as we can.

Do you have any milestones you want to hit in the next 5 years?

There should always be things to shoot for, getting a single onto mainstream national radio is always a good aim but maybe to play more festivals like a Planet Rock one, even Download and take our first steps into Europe, or maybe even the States.

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

Anything involving Chris Stapleton, Zakk Wylde, or someone like Alter Bridge would be nothing short of incredible, hit us up guys as we’re always ready!

Interviews & Features

Two Ways Home: ‘It feels like we’re going in a nice, steady upwards trajectory!’

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We had the pleasure of chatting to the amazing Two Ways Home at The Long Road the other month. Check out our interview with them below!

It’s been a busy weekend for you, right?

Lewis: Yes! We had two slots yesterday; get the work done and then we’ll drink. Press and catching bands today!

Are you here all weekend?

Lewis: We have another festival tomorrow, then a different one the day after! Four festival slots in one weekend!

And how were the slots yesterday? Two very different slots, right?

Lewis: Yeah! Hitching Post earlier in the morning; I think we played the first ever bit of live music on that stage. We christened it. Ashley Monroe was doing an interview before, so it kinda feels like we played a show where Ashley Monroe was playing just before us…

She clearly supported!

Lewis: Well, I didn’t want to put it in those words, but you said it! It was an earlier set on the Friday so you never know if people are gonna be there, but it was packed, right to the back.

It’s a cool stage, as well!

Lewis: It’s nice to have a different format for a stage. You either have an open air one like Rhinestone or one in a tent like Interstate, but this was like… well the hitching post, it’s got posts!

Isi: It kinda felt Austrian. I felt very at home!

Lewis: Yeah, I could see it at a winter market!

You did the Round-Up on there. Were you approached to do it, the first time?

Lewis: We host the Roundup! It’s our songwriters night which we’ve been doing for eight or ten years. We’ve been hosting it at The Long Road now for a few years. We were approached.

Isi: I think they like us because we always bring a good lineup! The bookers say we can book whoever we want so we’re like ‘okay, you know we’re gonna bring a good lineup, so they say we can bring whoever we want’.

I remember seeing Luke [Fleer] supporting Drake Milligan last year; he was great, and to see him again was amazing. I chatted to Baylen too recently and he said it’s cool to have others get involved. I think there’s a record label or two doing a stage takeover as well!

You guys have had a busy festival season in general, right?

Lewis: We have! We get to every year and were like ‘this year was so busy with festivals, next year will be the quiet one, but so far it’s just been extra shows. It feels like we’re going in a nice, steady upwards trajectory.

Is this long weekend the last of the festivals for this year?

Isi: I think there’s a few more! There’s one secret one that we can’t talk about.

Lewis: There’s a few end of the year ones too. There’s a great one coming up in Wales. Then we’ll be looking to do a stream of shows on our own, be it the Round Up on tour or a solo show.

Have you guys taken the Round Up on tour before?

Lewis: We have! It’s something that was always my dream to do, and a couple of years ago we took it on its first tour. I Think we did 13 dates.

Isi: 35 acts, we booked. Every town kinda had a different lineup; there was always someone from the town and then someone coming in, it was good!

Lewis: We did it again last year and it was really successful, so we do need to do it again!

I was going to say do you have some plans for later in the year but it sounds like there’s something!

Lewis: We have lots of ideas floating around. We’re already thinking about next year too, you have to plan that far in advance.

Isi: Definitely a few Round Ups are coming up which… we’ve found a new home for the Round Up in London. That’s where it started, then we had a bit of a break doing it in London, but then we found the Cumberland Hotel. And that’s nice because the first Round we ever played was in Nashville in a hotel, so it’s kinda feels like a full circle moment.

You seem to split your time between here there and everywhere!

Lewis: Yeah! We just did a tour in Switzerland and Germany, which was really fun.

Isi: I’m from Austria, so we go to Vienna quite a bit to see my family and play a bit out there. And obviously the German-speaking countries are quite easy because I speak German, and Lewis speaks German pretty well.

Lewis: For a Brit!

I imagine the scene over there is completely different to over here, right?

Lewis: It is but it’s great too! There’s a lot of enthusiasm for whatever type of country music that we play. It seems to work!

Isi: I heard Spain is pretty good for the country and Americana market so I want to try and play some shows out there!

It’s been a while now since your debut album, would you say your sound has changed or evolved much since then?

Lewis: I think it’s funny, obviously there’s the country contingency and then the Americana one, and people try to say ‘well which are you?’.

Isi: We’re folk-rock, that’s what I’m saying. But there is a bit of country in there.

Lewis: We kinda just do what we do. Maybe that’s a cliche but we don’t try and be more and less of one thing. We like aspects of all these genres and hopefully we draw bits from all of them.

Isi: I’m hoping we got better since our first album!

Lewis: Well yeah! Our next album we’re working on will be a step up!

I was going to say is another album on the cards. It’s so hard to work out these days what’s best to release, from an EP to singles to a full release!

Isi: Actually that’s a good point! We’ve released a lot of singles and fans after shows come up and go ‘can I buy that album’. So we’re thinking of accumulating all of those songs, and then putting a few more songs on there as well as a little package. I think that’s gonna be end of this year.

Lewis: That’s what she keeps telling me!

Isi: I keep dropping the hint! We have to do this, get a move on!

I didn’t even think about people coming up after a show and wanting to buy an album!

Lewis: It seems old-fashioned but the crowd here still have some old-fashioned values. To call them old-fashioned is a shame; some good core values and want to support artists. We’re releasing a song on Monday but we gave our fans the choice to purchase a high quality WAV version of the single ahead of time, for £2, which is less than half of a price of coffee in London!

Isi: We did have a few come up and say they’d want a high quality version. Obviously streaming platforms do crush the audio. It’s quite hard to listen to the whole thing unless you can buy it sometimes. We figured why not, if someone wants to support us it’s a nice way they can do that!

Interviews & Features

William Prince: ‘I don’t believe you have to live in suffering to create beautiful art!’

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We chatted to the awesome William Prince the other week about his latest album, growing up on a Reservation in Canada and touring plans and life! Check it out below!

How would you describe your sound?

You’d think this would get easier when everyone asks you this all the time! My sound is very… because these are such story songs, the sounds has always been there as a support. Most producers I’ve worked with have said ‘if we’re making a movie here, your voice is the star’. For a long time that’s how I made records, just position the mic closest to me and we’ll capture the room. This new sound is of great speed, flash and volume. It’s kind-of this interstellar mashup of all these things I love from good country and Americana music. This albums got these driving drums and synths and baritone guitars. It’s a mashup between Gordon Lightfoot, John Prine and Jason Isbell. That kinda sound that you can drive a truck to for eight or nine hours of a shift! Maybe the music will energise you; pick you up rather than drop you off.

It’s a blend of all my influences, but at the core of it is this storytelling style that I’ve been working at for a while. So you’ll just have to listen and make up for yourself!

The album title and even artwork kinda hint at a bit of a change too, like it was an intentional shift?

Yeah, it’s a bit of a double entendre in a way. I’m trying to leave this place of mine, my origin, Peguis First Nation, a reservation about an hour and a half North of Winnipeg, where I’m from now. So ‘Further from the Country’ is pretty much about how I’ve come a seemingly long way so far but holy smokes, the sun is still millions of miles away! From here to where all the peers that I admire are, Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell, the geography that I want to occupy with Sierra Ferrell and Margo Price and Billy Strings, it feels like a long way to get to where they are but I think we’re closer than ever. This music I think is the rocket ship that will hopefully get us a little further along. Trading the horse and buggy for a spaceship!

Are there any stories from the album you want to touch on from the album?

I have a song on there, ‘All the Same’. That song is how we’re all kinda coming from the same small town. There’s always been this big divide between not only Canadians and Americans but white folks and First Nations people. We grow up in similar situations where we’re coming from lives that are filled with Birthdays and graduations, weddings, funerals. We’re coming from homes where families are struggling with addiction, with separation and divorce. It’s in those things that we are so similar and closer than we think.

‘All The Same’ talks about when growing up in those situations, apathy can take over, there’s less of a reason to shine and be your best self. A lot of people I grew up around deal with that still. I still feel the effects of it in my family, it’s not something that just goes away when you find a little bit of success in music. I’m thriving and being successful despite being born in a situation that was kinda designed for me to fail. Put on a reserve, out of the way, a long time ago cut off from any real resources. I know there are Americans living in small towns and people in the UK from little places dealing with this thing where nothing changed, no matter how hard I try, it’s all the same. So why bother being good, let’s just give into the thing that wants to keep us apathetic. I just refuse.

I tell a few stories in that song that I’m really excited for people to hear. It lends itself to realness, this grit and hardship I’ve seen. I’ve witnessed it take people from me and take people from themselves. I just wanna sing that song as a product of determination, that despite that you can actually change some things around you.

The singles have been really great. I love ‘For the First Time’ and how it talks about moving on from pain. It don’t break me like it used to. My father makes an appearance on this record again. He passed 10 years ago and it’s been such a flash. ‘The Charmer’ tells a bit more of his story. I always prop him up as the hero dad that he was but again, in his heart he was a man dealing with the effects of going to day schools, his family situation wasn’t ideal, he lied his way onto job sites. He did his best with what he had. I just wanted to show that he was a real man at the heart of these things too. It helps me understand him in his way; why was he angry and frustrated. It’s a different way of navigating love.

How did you get into more of the country side of music? A lot of the UK still associates the genre with the South of the US!

Well, country music lives on the reserve. It’s cowboys and Indians for a reason! When you go to the baseball or hockey games on the reserve, the music that plays is Merle Haggard, it was Hank Williams, all the greatest country singers you can think of, and my dad gravitated towards Cash and Christopherson. Thankful,y that’s one of the gifts that he gave me. He loved to strum a guitar and sing these old country songs all the time. That really opened a world to me where music was a possibility. When you’re a kid you’re only really exposed to the main radio, and none of these voices really sounded like me. Then you discover Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen, and you start to realise there are working class musicians. I moved to the city, further from the country, and I started seeing non-famous people making music for the first time. From that moment, that’s when we started assembling this ship, and it’s going to take us where we want to go.

The album has only just come out but I imagine you still have a few songs in the pipeline?

Yes, thankfully! I used to think I could stockpile; let’s write 200 songs and I’m good for the next 20 albums. It doesn’t work like that. There’s no saving your best stuff. Who knows how much time I have, or how much time these people even want with me. And I love creating what’s honest and reflective of the moments I’m living now. That’s what’s fun, you can dip into that pile of lots of music ready to go, and share it when it’s appropriate.

There’s a song on this record that I started 10 years ago. Leading up to this moment to record it, finally the chorus came to me and finally it made sense. On rolls the wheel! You go to play a show and soon they get bigger and your name is still on the wall. Your son is getting older and you get married and buy your first home. These are things I never really imagined for myself when I was hopping couch to couch and basically living out of a car. Now I’ve built a following and have a great support system. That can bring a peace that can be linked to complacency or a laziness or lack of edge or hunger. It’s none of those things. I don’t believe you have to live in suffering to create beautiful art. We can live wholeheartedly, ambitiously, optimistically, for our families and leave a memory behind that shows that we enjoyed our time together. That’s so important to me.

I’m kinda left reeling even 10 years after my dad’s death. Now that I’m a man I wish I could have taken a deep dive for 10 hours. ‘Tell me the things you were going through that I couldn’t hear when I was 10’. You come to learn that he was just a younger man trying to balance a family. He didn’t have a lot of money to do it, or a talent that pays him like this. But he majorly assisted this life. He’d give you his last dollar to take care of you. That’s the kinda man he was. I patch it together through memories, and I think if he were here today I’d see the best side of him.

There’s a whole bunch of things on this record!

You’ve touched on it already, but you have a busy few months, right?

I just announced the Futher From the Country’ tour with Boy Golden opening. He produced this record, Liam Duncan. More friends that get to come along for this month-long journey. I have so many talented players on this record, it’s my band on it and the tour. I was humbled right before, too. The day before we started recording I was playing basketball with my son and slipped and separated my shoulder, so I was in a sling for the first three weeks of production! Relinquishing a bit of that control, letting my crew direct things and help me find a sound was really special. They deserve a lot of credit! If you go to my Instagram and the album announcement there’s a whole credit sheet there. They’re a huge part of what the sound is on this record, and I’m really happy to have these people in my corner making music.

I’ve been known for a sitdown folk show for years, now over the last few years it’s more Stand in the Joy, like the last record. To be seen, to be heard, to project without fear that I’m happy and I’m more determined than ever. Look how much further along we are than sleeping in that car and pawning my guitar for cigarettes. I think it’s time to triple down on the belief and just keep going, man. It’s rocket fuel, and it’s fearless into the unknown, because there’s no other option!

Any plans to come back to the UK soon?

The UK’s always on the radar! I just wrapped up a few dates over there with a band back in September! I’m sure there’s some summer/fall dates coming down the pipeline. My goal is to finally get my band over there. I’ve always been solo, so I think it’s time the UK experiences what the full thing is!

Interviews & Features

These Wicked Rivers: ‘The train’s going so fast and we’re always on it, we just try to cling on and see what happens!’

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We had the pleasure of chatting to our friends These Wicked Rivers at The Long Road a little while back, about their step into the country scene and upcoming [now announced] new album! Check it out below!

How was the set?

Aaron: Really good! Obviously it’s a different genre of festival than what we’re used to. But with the next record we’ve started writing a few more country styles, so it felt like a nice bridging of the gap. But we went down really well!

Rich: Yeah, I was worried we were gonna be a bit too heavy.

Aaron: I do remember mentioning it as a concern.

Rich: As I said, just trust in the rock, Aaron! It will provide, and that’s exactly what happened.

I definitely saw some like Cadillac Three merch, it brought all the rockier country fans down.

Aaron: I think a few people said it was a breath of fresh air to have something a bit different. There’s a lot of country artists and we’re a bit more blues rock. We went down really well and we all really enjoyed it!

How did it come about, playing here?

Rich: Just one through the agent! We’re local lads to her, but because it’s not really our scene none of us have been before, so it was really nice to get an opportunity to come and check it out. It’s absolutely beautiful, amazing grounds and a really good vibe!

Aaron: It suits the character of the band. We’re very much about people connecting and all that positiveness. The festival feels like it has that similar energy to it. And everyone’s walking around in hats and boots, we fit in!

Check out our review of them at TLR here!

I was starting to panic when you first came on that I didn’t see a lamp, but there seems to be more and more each time. I haven’t seen the globe before!

Aaron: The trouble is when you add something you then can’t do a gig without it. We did a fly gig where we played in France on Tuesday, and even then the promoter went out and got us some lamps! We never could escape them!

Yeah, I imagine the band van’s getting quite full now, right?

Rich: Yeah, well headline stuff we need two vans now because we have so much furniture to cart around to each show.

Aaron: We have to leave guitars just to bring all the rest!

I saw your gig in France on social media, it looked sick!

Rich: It was amazing! You never know how things like this are gonna go. We were headlining the night and it was beautiful, you could see the sea from the stage, lovely weather, and it was a good crowd there!

Aaron: About 600/700 people! We’ve had it when we toured Europe before but the council pay for it as a community thing. It’s such a cool thing and we’re just happy to be involved! The band before us were quite comfy, then we went out and did our thing and people seemed to really enjoy it!

Rich: It’s tough though. Think we worked a full day Monday, drove down Monday night, flew crack Tuesday, played the festival Tuesday, stayed Wednesday, flew back Wednesday night, work Thursday Friday!

Aaron: But it is festival season, and all the shows have been great! We’ve had a really good summer, and obviously we’re back out on the road in November again! Around the UK with The Virginmarys as support. It’ll be a cracking week, we love them lads!

Rich: Other than that we‘re looking at recording the new album. It’s already written so hopefully in November we’ll record that. I can’t wait!

Aaron: We’ve been writing for a while, and it’s so hard writing while being on the road, you don’t get much time to do it. In between we’ll be together and writing. We’re really pleased with the record we’ve put together so we’re ready to hit the studio now and bring it to life.

Is there much else you can say about the album?

Rich: I think the second album, Force of Nature, was a funny one as a lot of the songs on there had been hanging around for a while. A couple had been on early EPs, a couple I’d had in my back pocket for eight-ten years. Whereas this album, it’s all new material, it’s all stuff that’s been written the last two years. Because of that we started to really click and find our sound. The new album will be a bit more representative of the band we are now.

Aaron: It’s the evolution of the band, really. A couple of the songs we’ve been playing live, we did one today, we put it in the set and it’s always gone down so well we can’t take it out! People have now started to sing it and know it in the set, which is really good! We’re really excited!

You did a church tour earlier this year, how was that? Was the sound pretty good?

Rich: It was, yeah! I was a little concerned about it because I’ve been to a few gigs and the sound doesn’t always travel. But we’ve got our own people doing the sound and they did a cracking job. A lot of these places are built with the acoustics in mind. It was a more enhanced sound but less people can be there, so it was very intimate by nature.

Aaron: It was a really good energy. I’m thinking of that first show we did that inspired the tour and thinking how amazing it was to be playing in a packed church. That’s what churches should be, bringing people together to celebrate something that’s higher than ourselves. I think it suited the vibe of the band and everything we stand for. It was a good run!

Rich: One of our band rooms was a bell tower!

Aaron: A couple of solos in pulpits. It was different, but a good different!

Rich: It’s not easy, though. It’s harder work than doing normal venues. But when you look back on it at the end, there’s some incredible photos and videos! It’s worth putting the extra effort in, I think.

Check out a reaction we did of one of their singles here!

Any goals for a five year plan?

Aaron: We tend not to think too much more than a year ahead. The train’s going so fast and we’re always on it, we just try to cling on and see what happens! Try to do everything we do with love and supporting each other and just try and enjoy it.

Rich: Every year we’ll do some sort of touring in Europe and in the UK, festivals. It’s about ticking those boxes. But next year will be the launch campaign for the album, and the year after I think we’ll just see how album goes!

Are you interested in playing more shows to this sort of crowd?

Rich: Yeah! We want to get out to as many people as possible and the scene that we’ve been associated with a while, the classic rock scene, we’ve done a lot of those festivals now, a lot of those people know us, so it’s nice to dip our toes in the blues scene and the country scene. Build that fanbase and get the name out there!

Aaron: We’re quite good as a band really because we have heavier songs, more country songs coming through, so we can kinda dip into a few different places and still be ourselves. We just go out and do Rivers and hopefully people dig it, which they same to!

Yeah, I’ve seen you guys a few times now and it fit just as perfectly here in a more country environment!

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

Rich: We have a couple we’d love to support; Blackberry Smoke, Rival Sons.

Aaron: Black Stone Cherry were big for me growing up, those first two albums were massive.

Rich: Skynyrd too if they’re listening!

For us it’s just getting out in front of more people. With those bands, as much as we love them, we think it would be a great platform for us too!

Interviews & Features

Preacher Stone: ‘We absolutely couldn’t have another long stretch without a record!’

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We had the pleasure of sitting down with Ronnie and Darrell of the awesome Preacher Stone last week to chat about their latest album and upcoming UK tour. Check it out below!

I heard the album release show went well the other day?

Darrell: Absolutely, it went great!

I always get curious, how do you guys decide what to play off a new album? Is there any magic to choosing when the audience aren’t as familiar with it?

Ronnie: We played the whole thing! Played the whole album, not back to back, but spread out over the set.

How do we choose? It’s usually a lot of good spirited arguments. We’ve got six records worth of material, somethings going to get left out. God bless them but there’s always some fan that personal messages us like ‘can you play this song?’. I’m the only guy that’s been in the band since the beginning anymore. There are songs off some of them earlier records that if you threatened me at gun point I couldn’t sing. I’d have to go back and listen. There were a few that we recorded that we maybe played live once or twice but not regularly, and they’re usually some of the more elaborate pieces, and you can’t just pull them out of the hate last minute. It would be a disaster!

It’s been nearly three years since we last chatted. How’s the last three years been?

Ronnie: It’s been rough. Best of times, worst of times. It’s been great with the success that we’ve had and the name has grown and more people have come on board. But we went through a period of loss, we lost two band members, that’s been tough. But the bright thing is Darrell’s in the band now, it’s like he’s always been here, it was a great fit. We’ve been busy, and doing a lot of things that people don’t see.

The last album was V after a fair bit of time off. What prompted you to return with another album just a year later?

Ronnie: We absolutely couldn’t have another long stretch without a record! We also really needed to make a statement that we were still swinging the bat. With the loss of a founding member and the keyboard player, a lot of people were looking at us like ‘what’re they gonna do?’. None of us have ever been good at backing down from a challenge. We HAD to put out a record. And this record had to be damn good, we couldn’t just put one out to put out a record. There was a lot of pressure, but it was good for us. It pulled us together and made us closer as a unit. We rose to the challenge!

Was it all written by the current lineup, or is there stuff that’s been hanging around a while?

Ronnie: We had one that had been hanging around, and a couple of songs that Ben had worked on. ‘Think yen Now’ was somewhat formulated. It was everyone throw your ideas in a pile and let’s use the ones when we play them that speak to everybody.

Darrell: Outside of that it’s all new material. ‘Blessing and a Curse’ was sent to Ronnie by Marty’s wife. Luckily they had it recorded so I got to hear what he played and use that as my foundation. Everything else was written pretty fresh since I joined the band!

It sounds like a pretty healthy way of working together. Have you [Darrell] worked with many of the other members in the past?

Ronnie: Other than Daryl this lineups been together over 10 years. The earlier method was Marty would bring his ideas, and if you had an idea and it was as good as the other idea then we all worked on it and became a song. It’s still a pretty similar method, but ‘Saddled and Rode’ and ‘Old Joe’ were Daryl’s ideas. But anyone can take an idea and go their own way with it. I hope you don’t get your feelings hurt! It’s a wonderful thing if you can deal with that.

Darrell: Everyone in the band seems really healthy about not getting their feelings hurt by it. It’s good to have a fresh set of ears on it. If I bring a song and get Ronnie’s take on it, more often than not I like what he’s done. It may not be what you started with, but it comes out being a much better listen in the end.

Ronnie: It’s never really finished until it’s mixed and mastered! It’s one of the most fun parts of being in a band for me; everyone bringing their ideas and trying to create the best song you possibly can! Then we take it into the studio and our producer goes ‘try this’. One of the last steps, after it’s all recorded, Jim and I get across the table from each other with the lyric sheet in front of us and the song playing and Jim takes a marker and edits it all.

You guys are touring over here soon, right?

Ronnie: We’re coming in January! Late January, early February.

You’ve been here a fair bit over the last few years or so, are there any comparisons you can make between her and back home?

Ronnie: Our show Sunday night was a lot like a UK show. It’s a supreme compliment to the audience for being so supportive because we’re treated so well in the UK. It’s starting to feel like home. Southern Rock is not as big a deal in America as it is in the UK. In the UK we’re authentically Southern Rock, in America we’re five guys from America that play Southern Rock. We’re authentic, we’re all about as authentically Southern as you can get. I think anything I sing is gonna be Southern because I’m Southern. Ours comes in a little on the heavier side, we have a lot of classic rock influence too. And I’m an enormous Thin Lizzy fan. We had a review that compared us to Black Star Riders, I was like ‘I’ll take that!’.

What can we expect from the tour? I can’t imagine we’ll get the album in full every night but some will be there, I imagine!

Ronnie: We might! There are certain songs we have to play, songs that if we didn’t play we’d be in trouble. But we’ll mix it up, there’ll be something for everybody. And Daryl always comes up with songs that he wants to play. We want to play them all. If we played everything for everybody every night, our set would be 3.5 hours long and I don’t think anybody wants that!

Darrell: I think we should do a five hour set every night!

Ronnie: What do you want to play, Daryl? It’s his first time over in the UK. We’re excited about showing him the food and the culture and screaming like a little girl like I did when you’re driving on the wrong side of the road.

Darrell: I’ve been to the Bahamas so I’m ready for that! I’d stand up there all night and play these songs, they’re fresh to me! But whatever the fans want to hear and Ronnie wants to sing, I’ll play it! And that’s the reason we’re there, is for the people!

Ronnie: We’ll play the songs people request if we can. But sometimes on a tour you’re one place then the next night you’re somewhere else and it doesn’t leave you a whole lot of time to work up anything.

Interviews & Features

Evan Bartels: ‘Music is like wine; if you have it and you like it then it’s good!’

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We had the absolute pleasure of chatting to the wonderful Evan Bartels the other week at The Long Road! Join us as we chat his UK shows, latest EP and plans for an upcoming album!

Check out our review of his set here.

How was your first set of the day?

Fantastic! It truly exceeded expectations. I thought it would be pretty good, but you never know when you’re at a festival with a bunch of other acts playing and you’re on at 12:30. But there was a couple of hundred people there, that tent was full! I thought ‘crap, this is crazy!’

Is it ever still nervewracking to go up there as a solo artist, especially at a festival like this?

That’s a great question! I would say sometimes. I’m never nervous in the sense of am I gonna mess up the song, it’s always more like, I hope people are receptive to this. But that’s another thing that you learn over the years when you’re building a set; it’s a lot like busking, doing a festival set as a solo artist where people don’t necessarily know you. When I was a kid I came up busking on street corners quite a bit. You’ve got to hit ‘em with some songs they won’t immediately walk away from. Then I find it’s just meeting people; you try to get to know the audience and let them get to know you and hope for the best! No one threw any rotten tomatoes, so that’s good!

Do you play with a band back home?

I do! I’ve had a band in the past that I’ve played with. Then when Covid hit and a lot of the touring opportunities dried up and a lot of the budgets froze it’s not been super practical sometimes to hire a band. That’s when I started touring more solo and focusing a lot on telling stories with the songs, try to make it a show that way. My goal is to be able to come back to the UK next year and have a band with me. We’re working towards it!

It would be fun to have a band. I’ve done it in the past and done full band records. It’s a different energy, there’s different tools you can use for the show.

You’ve been out here a fair bit this year already, right?

This is my third trip. I was here in March and did C2C, then came in May and did some shows with Charles Wesley Godwin. Now I’m back for the Long Road and doing a show at St Pancras Old Church in London.

We came into Long Road from Cologne, Germany, played a little festival there call Sound of Nashville. That was great because I met Nolan Taylor there, and Cameron Whitcomb, and he was great, we were all hanging out and drinking beers like ‘this is alright!’. Now the travel to get from Germany to the UK, I did not think that would be as harrowing as it was.

Did you fly out?

Yeah but we had to take a train from Cologne to Frankfurt, then flew, then a train from Heathrow to Paddington, then to Euston, then to Rugby. Like okay, that’s a long day!

Are there any comparisons you can make for here compared to back home?

I will say the one thing that’s mainly different is the way you do travel. In the US if someplace is 12 hours away, you’ll drive. I don’t know which one is easier. Here you might be on a train for six hours but at least you can sleep!

But the festivals, it’s funny how much the land here looks like where I grew up. It feels like we could be in Kansas right now! It’s beautiful!

You’ve got a busy rest of the year planned, right?

That’s the plan, yeah. I’ll be going out on the road in the States a few more times. Trying to sneak in another trip over here too. Doing a tonne of songwriting and starting to record the next album, There’s always something! Then on top of that you’ve gotta be a dad and a husband, mow the lawn and do the laundry! It’s an adventure, man.

You’ve had quite a busy year already, it seems! I saw you got played on Theo Von’s podcast which was cool!

Yeah, he gave me a shoutout for the new EP! That’s about as cool as it gets, honestly!

I also saw you were on tour with Brothers Osborne. Was the stage spinning?!

Yeah! I’ve done three or four shows with them so far this year and two of them, the stage was spinning. You were in the middle of the crowd and it slowly spins. They warned me about it, like ‘hey, just so you know, it spins, but it’s really slow’. And then you’re playing and it kinda messes you up a little bit! You’re looking out at the audience and you look down for a second and all of a sudden you’re looking at new people.

You touched on the EP before, and I remember being sold by the presser. Did you write it in a cabin, if I remember correctly?

So I wrote the songs in the tour van over the years. When we recorded it I built a little cabin behind my house and did it in there. I just did it as a passion project. I hadn’t put out music for a while so about a year ago I’d recorded some demos and my buddy Dave heard it (everyone calls him Squirrel). He was like ‘I’d love to help record this’. I didn’t know he was an engineer, we’d never really talked about work. Turns out he’d been like Rick Ruben’s house engineer for like 10 years. So he got these insane microphones and brought them out to the cabin and we recorded it all in there. We did a few takes of each of them and then picked the one that felt right. We recorded at night, I would just open a bottle of wine and play the song. There’s no metronome, no audio tuning, each track is the whole performance.

Once we got that, I had a few others friends; Paul DeFiglia, he played the organ and bass and double bass on it. Another great cat, Russ Paul, he’s a very renowned Nashville peddle steal player, so he did that. It’s funny, we recorded it in my backyard cabin, we did the bass at Paul’s backyard studio, the peddle steal we did at a buddies studio that was a backyard garage, and then we mixed everything in Squirrel’s studio which is a converted shed in his backyard! But I love the way it turned out!

What made you pick an EP over an album?

I knew it was going to be an album or an EP. I had 10 or 11 songs that I was considering for the project, and when I’d done demos of everything and listened back I didn’t want there to be any filler or anything that didn’t feel like it needed to be here. It was just a case of finding the songs that told the story that I wanted to tell. When we got done with that, where we landed was an EP. I’d rather put out a great EP than an okay album!

And you said you’re working on a longer release next, right?

Yes, we start recording next month! I’m hoping to land on between 10 and 15 songs because I currently have about 40. Whittle it all down and find the ones I love, not just like. That’s the goal!

Do you have a dream tour lineup?

Oasis. I wish I was on that tour!

You know who I’d love to do shows with? Jason Isbel. I’d love to watch him play every night on an acoustic tour. Or guys that are playing over here like The White Buffalo. James Bay too, I could listen to that guy sing the phone book every night and be happy! Those are a handful of them but if I start listing them we could be here all day and all night! You know who’s he sick actually, and I’d love to write some songs for her someday, is Adele. If she’s ever one of these pop artists that decides to make a country album, I hope she calls me!

It’s interesting you say James Bay as he’s had almost a mixed reaction to playing The Long Road.

I saw some of that! Crazy to me, good is good. I get where some people can be ‘well, he’s not country’, but by what metric? Compared to a lot of the bar-type bands, I’m not country. I think the thing that always shines through when you’re putting country or Americana or roots together is ‘is this authentic?’. When it comes down to it; if you don’t like James Bay you’re wrong! He’s got a great voice and great songs and I think it fits in in any country and any genre. And like, is Shaboozey everybody’s country? Or Morgan Wallen? Or cCharley Crockett? There’s so many different subsets and genres and opinions that I think a lot of people get lost on that. Music is like wine; if you have it and you like it then it’s good! The music part of country music is way more important than country. Everybody’s got a different opinion on these things.

Interviews & Features

Outlaw Orchestra: ‘Can you imagine us doing a dance routine?!’

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We had the pleasure of sitting down for a quick chat with our friends The Outlaw Orchestra at Hella Rocks festival the other week. Check it out below!

How was the set?

Dave: Fantastic! Great sound up there, really good sound! It was our first time here and was excellent!

It’s been a couple of years since we caught up now! How’s the last few years been?

It was Call of the Wild! 2022? 2023? Time flies!

Ryan: Really good! Some really good progression and upwards trajectory.

Pete: Festivals have been crazy. We’ve had a really good live year.

Dave: Phil Campbell passed the buck to us to go do a gig in France, a headline slot… albeit at 1:30am! They said headline but I’d give that to the Guns n Roses tribute band on from 9-11. It was more the graveyard shift! But when we walked on stage there was still 20,000 people there.

Yeah, I’ve done Graspop the last couple of years and it seems to be such a thing in Europe where you’ll have a headliner and then people will still keep going for three, four hours after!

Dave: It’s great! As a musician… someone said to me before take a moment, take it in, and take a photograph with your eyes. And I did! I remember seeing people miles away and then down at the front, but seeing that many people was crazy! I couldn’t take a moment, I was concentrating!

Pete: We had the tour before that with the Gypsy Pistoleros. Done a number of really good gigs. I’ve taken a moment at each of them to kinda go ‘this is not a normal life, this is great!’. It’s a privilege to be here and enjoy it!

Dave: Next week we’ve got one down on Glastonbury farm. 10k ticket sold already! It might not be for us, but that should be fun! That’s in the more commercial pop circuit too, what the hell?!

I feel like there’s more crossover than ever between genres these days!

Pete: I think that’s part of the reason we got the gig; variation. You’ve got Raye headlining, you’ve got Inhaler, Bonos kids, so more indie rock, and then us doing the pub stuff! Up there with a pint of beer and a packet of scampi!

Dave: Then again saying that you get bands like Chaz and Dave who used to rock big and people love it! It’s good time rock’n’roll!

Ryan: Everyone says you guys look like you’re having a good time, smiling, and that’s almost the difference!

Dave: I know I’ve faked it before!

You guys have also put out the last album since we last chatted!

Ryan: Yes! You did your reaction videos that we loved, too!

Dave: I watched it with my mum and when it got to the end and you like ‘fuck yes’ she was like “is he allowed to swear?”! I was like ‘Hell yes!’

I was wondering how you guys write stuff. In terms of inspirations from that album alone there’s all sorts!

Dave: I think that was different in that Alessio, the vocal coach and engineer, sometimes sings with Dragonforce, we literally walked into the studio and Ryan set up in one room and us in the other. He says ‘wait, I’m going to record the drums, keep playing it’. Once we were warmed up he was like ‘now Ryan’s mapped out we can tinker. I want to capture you live’. You get a lot of influences from everywhere, but he would shout things out too. As a vocal coach he’d be saying ‘I can hear a harmony here’. The only thing is, he sings in Dragonforce, so he’s like ‘Dave, try and do this’ and hits some Bruce Dickinson-like note. I’ll tell you what Alessio you come in here and I’ll go and record!

Ryan: We’ve worked with so many different produces but Alessio, he’s got some different kit. His ear is different! Instrumentation too, he’s got loads of good effects and would be like ‘try and play it with this chord’.

Pete: From a songwriting point of view we’ve approached every album a bit different. First album you play the songs you’ve been playing for years. Second album you kinda experiment a bit. It was a lot shorter timeframe this time, we didn’t sit with the songs very long. This album we’ve got a nice long timeframe, really lived with it. We’re also much more collaborative with the new stuff. We’re had a really good writing session last night actually for some new stuff, looking at ideas and reference tracks.

Dave: get YouTube up and nick that bit from that song and that bit from that one, put it all together, they’ll never know!

You’ve got a few more gigs in October I saw, right?

Pete: Yeah, we’ve got Black Deer (sad), that’s gonna be really good! This is the thing, we’ve had some great gigs this year, and have got even more great ones coming up!

Dave: I really loved playing over on the continent. Nobody knows you but it’s such a great vibe!

Ryan: The food as well! And you can have red wine at like seven in the morning!

Pete: You can do that at home!

Ryan: Before we went on at 1:30 in the morning they had what they called a sexy show. Strippers, pole dances, fire breathers, and you’re just stood there!

Dave: The funniest thing. This one French girl, very natural very beautiful and confident. She goes out there in front of 20,000 people, so classy, like burlesque. Goes all the way down the catwalk, right out there… and whips her thong off. She’s now just wearing her heels, spins them on her finger. She walks off stage, stands between me and Pete, lights a cigarette. Pete’s saying to me ‘play it cool, play it cool!’. She’s stood there completely casually as we’re both riddled with being English, we didn’t know what to do!

Pete: A few days later when I was telling the story I said I didn’t know where to look! I went ‘I just looked at my wedding ring!’.

Ryan: We went for a swim at the local theme park, it was so good, honestly brilliant!

Pete: Ryan lost his sunnies! A wave hit him and as he came back I was like ‘where’s your sunnies?’ And he was like ‘NO!’.

Dave: Prescription too, prescription sunnies!

Ryan: Honestly I’d loved to have been there a few more days, done a few more dates. Europe is completely different!

You’re pretty active on social media. It seems to be going well!

Pete: We’re trying! It’s tough isn’t it, social media! It’s not really anyone’s natural thing. We’re trying to be better!

Do you have any advice for people in that area?

Pete: Honestly we are the worst people to ask! For me the thing I respond to is when I see people being authentic. We’ve recently tried to do more than share a gig poster, we’ve tried to capture what it’s like to be around us.

Dave: It’s mad. When we did the Phil Campbell tour, our biggest hit rate was the three of us eating a bag of fish and chips! It’s real!

Pete: You can’t predict what videos are gonna pop up. We had one outside a gig in Chesterfield where me and Dave were just busking Kiss. Ryan sort of turned it round and sang. I don’t know why but that kinda randomly caught on as a video!

Dave: I’d love to watch Iron Maiden just having a laugh! But then you cannot get backstage footage of AC/DC, and I’m hungry for that!

Pete: Have you seen the video of James Hetfield doing the rounds recently? Obviously they play on that big circular stage and there’s a big instrumental section and Hetfield just sits down, his roadies made him a cup of tea, and he has his cigar. And then he goes back up again, it’s really weird! It’s obviously a massive video because people want to see that!

Dave: All I heard is the only advice was do three posts a week and one reel. Do them at the same time each week, and it will start to get out there. I’ve certainly found when we’ve done preorders and stuff, don’t do it on a Tuesday morning. Friday mornings do okay!

Pete: We always try to put it out after 6pm if we can!

Dave: Consistency, and as painful as it is, be yourself.

Ryan: People can tell if there’s a facade. People watch musicians through a filter. That’s fine, but you have your onstage and offstage personas, and people want to see the offstage.

Dave: Unless you’re downright gorgeous and then you can do what you want!

Pete: I’ve seen bands do dance routine, can you imagine us doing a dance routine?! It would be so stupid, it wouldn’t fit! It would be awful!

Dave: But there we go, there’s the advice! Album recorded January/February, hopefully out end of summer, and then we’ll see you again in a couple of years! The grind. But then that’s why we do it, because it’s better than sitting at home channel hopping!

Features, Interviews & Features

Larry Fleet: ‘I had someone ask me how I’d describe my music once and I said “it’s country Western bluegrass soul!”’

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We had the privilege of chatting to the amazing Larry Fleet at The Long Road the other week. Check out below as we chat about his UK tour, his latest EP and his future album plans!

How’s the tour been so far?

It’s been great! People are showing up, filling up the rooms, literally packed every single night. Well, we’ve played two shows, but they’ve been packed! And tonight is gonna be great I think. Then Belfast in a couple of days is sold out, too! I think it’s good for these festivals and all this stuff going on. People are showing up, they’re singing the songs. We’ve already pretty much sold out of our merch and we doubled what we were told to buy! People are buying stuff, they’re having fun, singing songs, showing up, I couldn’t be happier!

Is this your first time out in Europe?

This is my first headlining thing. I came out and did London in ‘23 with Morgan [Wallen], at the 02 I was first of three, and then this year I was direct support for him touring. It went really well and I think it’s helping me sell a lot of tickets, too. Getting in front of his crowd, and there’s a lot of them, I think that’s helped us out. But this is my first headlining thing so I’m pumped about it. And I’m thrilled with how it’s turned out.

Are there any comparisons you can make from out here compared to back home?

There’s differences. I would say one thing I’ve noticed the last couple of nights is people listen to you when you’re talking. I tell stories, and when I’m doing that they’re silent and it’s like ‘wow, they’re actually paying attention!’. And then they sing every word you do, but that happens in the States too! But I think it can be more respectful and attentive here. Back home we’re coming out for a good time and they can get a little drunk and rowdy, while here they seem a little more respectful. I like it!

Yeah, I think even today we’ve been at a couple of the smaller stages and there’s been some learning almost from people coming out and being like ‘oh yeah, this is really quiet when I’m talking!’

Yeah! And some people don’t like it. They want people,to be rowdy all night because they’re playing rowdy kinda stuff, but I’m a singer/songwriter so I like when people listen. I wanna tell you the story of how it came about. It’s cool they wanna be a part of it.

As for similarities, when you go to a city it still feels similar to back home, you just have building that are 400 years older! The architecture is a little different but cities feels similar. All in all people have been super nice to us!

Somewhere in the South came out a month or so ago now, the response seems great so far!

Yeah! It’s funny because when it came out, we’ve only played it maybe once in the States; we didn’t play a lot in July. We came over here and were like ‘let’s try it out’ and Baylen started playing it on the radio, and just a few days ago we saw it’s like top 50 on a bunch of album charts over here! The songs been doing great and that whole EP, we’ve been playing pretty much everything on it and people are digging it!

It’s four different songs with four different styles. And that’s what I kinda wanted to do when I put it out. I’ve been sorta pigeonholed into what is just traditional country, but there’s a lot more than that. Here’s this blues, this soul, this rock. It gave me a chance to say here, this is what’s coming.

What made you choose an EP over another album?

Honestly, when I split with Big Loud at the end of last year, I wanted to go in the studio for a few days, see what I come up with, and show different songs with different styles. I just wanted something I could get out quick to show ‘hey, I’m here’. To show the record label has nothing to do with me being successful. I had a great relationship with the label but they can slow you up as they have a lot of artists, you can’t put out music when you want to. This allowed me to drop some songs to keep people with me.

You’re pretty active and successful on social media, do you have any advice for people on that front?

That’s something I have to work at! I’m not the greatest at it. One thing I can’t do is be fake. I know there’s a lot of people like me who want to see something real, so I try to give them something real. Whatever I’m doing, whether it’s something stupid or whatever, we have a fun sense of humour between us as a band so I try to let you in on what you do. When I’m hanging out with my kids, it’s just me being a dad! I try to make my music as honest as possible and I think that’s why things have worked out that way. I’m not trying to act like somebody else, so for advice just be yourself. Whatever you’re into, odds are someone else is gonna be into it too. Your demographic or crowd may not be millions, but it may be a couple hundred thousand! You can make a living!

You used to be in a bluegrass band as a kid with your family. Would you say it still influences your sound today?

For sure! That’s how I started. If you can play Bluegrass music you can play pretty much anything. Like sped-up jazz, almost! It’s a very hard thing to learn, so me learning that early on helped a lot. I still write songs so every now and then I have one that’s like ‘oh, this feels like a Bluegrass song’! I had someone ask me how I’d describe my music once and I said ‘it’s country Western bluegrass soul!’. I’m not always bluegrassin’, I like Southern rock and blues and all these other things too. But bluegrass is always still in my DNA, I love it. I played a bluegrass song in London last night!

Is there anything we can expect from the set?

I mean you can expect ‘Where I Find God’, that’s what kinda got me here. I’mma play a few new songs. Honestly I don’t even know what the set looks like. My drummer, I just kinda let him do his thing, and if we need to change it I’ll just call it out. We tend to play something different every night. If someone comes up and is like ‘hey, you didn’t play this song I wanted to hear’, well, come tomorrow night! Every night we try to make it a little different, that’s what keeps people coming back. It’s not just a rehearsal, you wanna be tight but you don’t want it to feel like a Chuck E. Cheese show, you want it to feel organic!