Tag Archives: southern rock

Reviews

Reason to Believe: The Seventh Album from Kip Moore!

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The incredible country-rock legend Kip Moore is set to put out his seventh studio album this coming Friday. It is no secret that we are big fans of his here at Overtone, loving Solitary Tracks and even getting to see him live last year! So, to say we’ve been hyped since this album was announced may be an understatement! And, what’s better, it’s a touch shorter than his last too, making it a lil easier to write about… So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

Opener ‘Levee’ is a track we are already very familiar with. It’s an awesome song, and the fact that it’s the first track is honestly a great idea. It’s high energy; a real country/old-school rock track, and has been in my regular rotation since to dropped back in March. I can’t gush over it much more than I already have, but having such an up-beat, amazing song open the album sets the tone for the rest of it perfectly!

‘Get What You Give’ keeps the rockin’ vibes going, having an almost 70s, Quo riff running through it! Kip’s vocals fit perfectly over the top of it, and the way the instrumentation builds up through the verse is amazing. It explodes into a massive chorus, one designed to be played to huge festival crowds around the world! It fits perfectly in with his particular brand of country-mixed-rock, and is an easy addition towards the top of his massive catalogue of hits. It’s bound to go down a storm live, too! We even get an awesome couple of duelling guitar solos in this, not cutting them off and giving them plenty of time to breath, packed full of feeling. It’s the perfect Kip Moore track, and another big early highlight!

New single ‘The Darkness’ slows things down perfectly. A steady bass drum beat and a fantastic acoustic guitar riff opens things up, Kip’s powerful, gritty vocals soon slotting in perfectly over the top. It all builds to a fantastic, emotion-filled chorus, one that feels ripped straight from Solitary Tracks or SLOWHEART in the best ways! And it’s catchy as anything too, it’s definitely going to be stuck in my head for days to come. It probably helps that it’s painfully relatable at the same time, too. It’s a simply built track, but a fantastic choice for a single and the perfect way to break up the pace of the album after a couple of faster numbers. Three for three so far on incredible songs!

‘Heartbreaker’ picks the tempo back up, heading firmly into southern rock territory. The slide guitar was a nice touch, and the dynamics of it dropping down for the verses only to explode into the massive chorus again serves the track well. Said chorus is another huge earworm, and one that is bound to go down a storm live! It’s another track that gets a great extended guitar solo, the instrumentation being a massive and welcome focus of the album. The whole track is classic Kip Moore, and is another track that easily makes it onto our playlist. Amazing stuff!

Tracks like ‘Headlights’, ‘You & Me’ and the title track are more slower, soft-rock epics. All are incredible and again feel so very Kip Moore, fitting in perfectly with the rest of his back catalogue. The former builds perfectly into the choruses, a real country rock anthem. Meanwhile ‘You & Me’, while a little higher tempo, still has a ballad feel to it, and has once again one of my favourite choruses on the album! Then you have the slow, grandiose title track, the steadiest we’ve covered so far, but Kip does it such a way that it doesn’t get boring or long-winded having a few slower songs in a row. Heck, we also have the final single, ‘Faith in the Wind’, nestled in the middle…

Said track is feels like the big, emotional heart of the album. It’s a stripped-back, acoustic-driven song, and is honestly so beautiful! That chorus alone is amazing, especially with the double-layered vocals. I love the choruses getting bigger each time too, the production of the track doing a fantastic job. It’s once again so very Kip in all the best ways, feeling like a culmination of his previous slower sounds into this one, epic moment. What a shock, another highlight, on an album packed full of them!

‘Lonely Tonight’ reminds me of Billy Joel, opening on the piano and vocals and building in more and more as it goes. Much like other tracks on the album, it all leads perfectly to the massive, arena-filling chorus. It’s a rather understated chorus compared to others on the release, but is no less catchy and memorable. While it does feel ever so slightly ‘album track’, on an album this good that is hardly a complaint!

‘Long Time Coming’ is another slower track, a fully-country acoustic ballad. It’s the simplest arrangement, mainly just the one guitar and vocals, a few other strings and swells coming in sporadically throughout. There are some subtle harmony vocals at times too, and I’d be curious to know if it’s the same woman who is on ‘Levee’. It’s also somehow another song that breaks up the album a little, as although the last few have been slower, this is a lot less grandiose and layered, and feels like something completely different again. And, once again, the lyrics are utterly phenomenal. A truly beautiful, excellent song!

A similar vibe runs though ‘Wild Things Like You’, while the pace picks back up into a rock banger for ‘Sober’. It did feel a little “about time” after a few slower songs in a row, but honestly it barely felt like it dragged even a little! It still very much has a country edge to it too, almost an early 2000s radio hit vibe to it, while still fitting perfectly with the rest of the tracks. And it’s still a massive, stadium-rock chorus, and another that will go over a treat live. I almost feel sick of saying it, but it’s yet another incredible song, and big highlight!

The closing track, ‘Josephine’, feels like an amalgamation of everything before it! While acoustic-based, it still has a bit of a big band feel to it, and a slightly higher tempo too. The closest comparison I can make is something like Darius Rucker, which is never a bad thing! It feels like a beautiful way to draw everything from the album together and close it out, while also being a great song in its own right. A fantastic end to a fantastic album!

Overall: Hot damn, Kip knocked it out of the park again with this album! As much as I loved Solitary Tracks, which is a lot, I may love this even more! Almost every track on it is absolutely incredible, and there really isn’t a bad song throughout. I’d honestly put it up there alongside his very best, as far as albums are concerned. Kip is somehow still at the top of his game, some 14+ years into releasing music, and this album very much shows that. He is one of my favourite artists for a reason, and I cannot recommend this release enough to absolutely anyone!

The Score: 9.5/10

Reviews

Change of Plans: How Does 49 Winchester’s Latest Album Live Up to Their Previous?

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The country rock collective are set to release their sixth studio album this coming Friday! As already big fans of their music, we’ve been excited about this one since it got announced. Add to that that the single or two I’ve heard is great, and it’s made this album an absolute must-listen for us! Oh, and add to that the truly beautiful artwork, and this is already set to be a release to remember. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

The album opens on a chilled-out southern rock riff; the guitars setting the tone and the drums and bass following suit excellently. Isaac’s vocals fit seamlessly over the top, keeping the mood and tone relaxed and steady. It rather surprisingly explodes into a catchy, rockier chorus, reminding me of a Darius Rucker kinda sound in the best ways. Having said that, it also fits the vibe of the rest of the song perfectly. The lyrics are excellent for it too, both catchy and packed full of emotion. And the bridge, while simple, has some fun little guitar lead runs, channelling the bands Southern rock roots fantastically. And it drops back to just vocals, piano and some quiet guitars after, giving the track some great dynamics before it bursts back into that awesome final chorus. It’s a great way to open the release, establishing the mood of the album perfectly.

‘Bluebird’ adds a bit more blues to the proceedings, surely intentionally a little punny. Having said that, it still keeps the generally slower pace from the opener, especially with the acoustic, lower verses. It’s all builds perfectly to a massive, arena-filling country rock chorus, one that once again reminds me of that early 2000s sound. And not only that, but we get an epic, Aerosmith-esque bridge and lead bit separating the choruses perfectly. This is a really excellent track, and one that easily makes our playlist. I’m honestly shocked it wasn’t a single, but it could easily be one after release, it would do great as a radio country-rock track!

Speaking of singles, their cover of ‘Changes’ is banger of a ballad. It works surprisingly well as a southern rock song, and is only one of my favourite versions (and there are many) of the track. Honestly, Isaac is probably the best singer to have performed it, in this writers opinion. He puts so much passion and emotion into every line, clearly being a fan of the original. And instrumentally, it works perfectly, the organ, drums and guitaring carrying the somber tone amazingly. It’s interesting to have it placed so early in the album, but it fits rather well alongside the previous songs, so it’s hard to complain!

Songs like ‘All Around Me’, ‘All Over Again’ and ‘Bringin Home the Bacon’ are more tracks that fit in with the opening few. All are boot stompin’ country rock bangers in their own right, with ‘All Over Again’ being a particular personal highlight. And, while I have grouped them together to make the article easier to read, it does also reflect that the album is so similar. It is both impressive that it’s so cohesive, but also makes for an ever so slightly harder listen, at the very least when reviewing. It doesn’t make any of it bad per se, but does make my tiny-attention-spanned brain a touch less likely to listen to them all, especially when they are all so close together!

‘Slowly’ is a beautiful, acoustic-based track that honestly I can’t get enough of. From the simple arrangement that builds perfectly throughout to some of the best lyrics on the release to that chorus that’ll be stuck in my head from day to come, everything about it is amazing. And those vocal harmonies, GODDAMN. It’s easily one of my favourite tracks on the album, and may be up there alongside my top songs from the band in general, honestly. This is definitely one to check out if you are going to dive into any! A damn worthy single!

‘Oh Savannah’ is another beautiful slower song, while ‘Pardon Me’ is another incredible, catchy southern rock track designed to be played to huge festival crowds around the world. Both are great in their own right, but the latter in particular is another huge highlight of the album! And then, just like that, we reach the end to this surprisingly short release with ‘Heavy Chevy’. It’s another good song, giving off Whiskey Myers vibes massively with the vocals. The double track on them was an interesting choice that pays off massively, and once again Isaac puts on one hell of a performance. It builds perfectly through the acoustic stuff into a distorted, rockier second half, the dynamics being fantastic. We even get some awesome duelling guitar solos in the middle, feeling very Skynyrd in the best ways possible. Somehow it’s yet another huge highlight track on an album rather filled with this. It’s also the perfect, truly epic way to close the release, and is another song that’s up there alongside my favourites from the band as a whole!

Overall: This is a great release! It’s a damn good country/southern rock album, jam packed with some real amazing tracks. While it does take a slight dip in energy in the middle, both the start and end are phenomenal, providing some of the best tracks I think the band have ever put to tape. If you are at all a fan of the band or the genres in general, this is well worth a listen! I’ll certainly be spinning it plenty in the weeks and months to come, that’s for sure!

Overall: 9/10

Reviews

Patience to Play: Two Ways Home Knock it Out of the Park with Album Two!

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The incredible Anglo-Austrian duo are set to release their highly anticipated sophomore album tomorrow! Featuring a lot of the singles they’ve put out over the last few years, it’s a real celebration of where they pair are in 2026, as well as a hint of where they are headed with some new songs smattered in for good measure. We’re big fans of the pair here at Overtone, even chatting to them last year and getting some hints of this. So, to say we’re hyped that it’s finally here is an understatement. Let’s dive right in!

The title track opens things up perfectly; a hauntingly beautiful acoustic guitar riff that soon has Lewis’ vocals fitting incredibly over the top. Isabella soon harmonises perfectly too, it all building up fantastically to an almost Southern rock sound. The drums and other instrumentation coming in for the chorus was a fantastic choice, adding some great dynamics to it, and makes it feel effortlessly massive. The particular blend of folk, country and rock is awesome and is pretty uniquely their own. Heck, the bridge is phenomenal, giving off elements of the Who in the drums, Slash in the subtle lead guitars, and yet the vocals still firmly ground in Two Ways Home. It’s an absolutely amazing choice for an album opener, and is a definite early highlight!

‘Waiting on Luck’ is a song I’ve loved since first got into them a couple of years ago. It was a fantastic single back in 2022, once again showcasing the bands mesmerising harmonies, and a bit softer a side to them. Isabella kinda takes the lead vocally this time, but the pair do a fantastic job of always showcasing each other’s talents and working together flawlessly. That chorus is also incredible, and has been stuck in my head periodically since I very first heard it! Even though it’s been out a while, it’s a track that I can’t seem to ever get enough of; simple and soft-rock-infused-country, but is so damn good. So far, two for two on excellent songs! And, acoustically (track 13), it was certainly a standout to me when we saw them at The Long Road last year!

The first new track on the album, ‘Room for Love’, is just as good as the previous two tracks! It definitely keeps the soft rock-like vibe to it, the blues edge to it almost giving it a Lenny Kravitz feel to it. However, by the time the chorus hits, the massive harmonies and big-band-instrumentation, it definitely brings in their country-adjacent sound too. It’s all so good, the instrumentation being as much of a high point as the vocals in this track. That riff through the bridge is awesome, and I love the touch of the chatter and keys behind it, making it a real feel-good moment. I’m coming across as a fangirl already, but this is another great track! It’s all fantastic so far!

We get both the full band and the acoustic version of ‘Polaroid Kids’ on this release. While both are similar, they still channel different energies, and it’s well worth checking both out. Heck, after multiple spins of both, I’m still not sure which I like more! The stripped-back nature of the acoustic one focuses more on the lyrics and the harmonies, but the emotion in the full band is palpable. I do have to say I think the spoken word bit fits better with the electric, in this writers humble opinion. However, as I said, both are excellent. They’re anthemic, ballad-like songs and the electric one breaks up the flow of the album perfectly to that point. And, lyrically, it’s maybe my favourite track on the album.

The most radio-country track here, ‘Feet on the Asphalt’, is a great, upbeat, track not too far removed from something like Russel Dickerson or Thomas Rhett. It’s catchy as anything and infused with enough rock to keep it high-energy. And, once again, the vocal harmonies are like only TWH can do, grounding the track to them despite it being a different feel again. I love the playfulness between the pairs vocal delivery in this track keeping it light and catchy throughout. You guessed it, it’s another amazing track, and one that easily makes our playlist!

‘Medicine Man’ is a more blues/rock based country bangers. It feels a touch darker than most on the release, and almost gives off ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ vibes. And, it has one of the best choruses on the album! We also get a previously-unheard acoustic version of it to close out the album, pushing it much father into the country category in the best way. It takes on more of a Hank Jr vibe to it, the two tracks being so different in sound but both being excellent in their own right.

The following few tracks, ‘She Keeps Time Like a Casino’, ‘Hot Rain’ and ‘Signals in the Smoke’ are all slower songs, much more country-ballad territory. All are excellent songs in their own right, and even though they are one-after-another, it doesn’t feel like the momentum of the release drops at all, most likely due to the high quality. I like ‘Hot Rain’ building to more of a rock ballad by the end, the distorted guitars and soloing adding so much depth to the sound. It’s probably my favourite track of the few, but none of them are bad by any stretch!

‘Hear a Heartbreak’ has more of a soul feel to it, the steady plod and vocal delivery being more akin to Rag’n’Bone or Hozier. It has a fun bounce, energy and swagger to it, and once again when both of their voices entwine together, it’s phenomenal! And it still has enough of their unique brand of rock edge to it to keep it succinct to the album too, a true testament to their writing talents. It’s yet another major album highlight on a release packed full of them!

Meanwhile, ‘Colder Water’ is a straight up Western track, and I am all for it! It’s like I was trapped somewhere between an Eastwood and a Tarantino movie, it was awesome! It’s catchy, and packed full of some fun melodies from both the vocals and the instrumentation. Then you have the last non-acoustic track on the album, ‘Slower Kind of Love’. Honestly, it kinda bridges the gap rather perfectly, having plenty of acoustic elements to it while also having some great drumming for the choruses. It all builds perfectly to the massive bridge and crescendo too, the track being put together excellently. It’s another track I’m a little obsessed with, honestly, and yet another high point of the album!

Overall: This is an amazing album! It explores just about every avenue of country, folk and blues music across its runtime, being long but not feeling like it at all. It’s such an easy listen that goes by in a flash, somehow still leaving me wanting more! Every song is as good as the last, and it’s the perfect showcase of their recent output. If you are in any way into any of the genres named, do yourself a favour and check this out, you won’t be disappointed!

The Score: 9/10

Interviews & Features

Otis: ‘All the music we love listening to is in album format!’

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We had the pleasure of chatting to the amazing southern rockers Otis the other week about their recent single, plans for 2026 and what they make of the UK. Check it out below!

How would you describe your sound?

Oh yeah man, we get thrown into the blues and classic rock pot, as well as the Southern one! It’s kinda weird for us, the Southern rock thing, because really all rock comes from the south. Little Richard, Elvis… it took this combination of gospel and blues and standardised country music to make all those things happen. But we’re grateful for anybody who listens to us and they can call us whatever they want!

We’re happy to do it. And we’ve really been welcomed into the classic rock community. We’ve spent a good amount of time playing with bands like Foreigner and Cheep Trick and UFO. On the Southern rock side we’ve played with Wet Willie and members of the Almond Brothers… we’ve been very lucky that the older guys have seen the spark in us and said to come out with them and learn the ropes!

I feel like genres blend a lot more these days. You can fit into all sorts and people are a bit more open-minded about it!

Yeah, absolutely! Especially in the UK and EU, it seems more welcoming to loose Classic rock bands. In America, at least radio-wise, you had a rock hit 30 years ago, or you’re more active rock like Shinedown or Nickelback. But for what we’re doing, we’re kinda in that in-between place and they don’t know what to do with us on the radio over here!

You’ve just returned with a new single, right?

We have! We released a song called ‘I’m Wicked’ on February 5th. We won Classic Rock Magazine’s track of the week when it came out! There was tough competition so we really appreciate people getting in there and voting!

So far so good, people really seem to be enjoying the song! Last weekend was the first time we got to play it live so that was a lot of fun!

I know it’s been a couple of years since you put out a single, what prompted new music now?

Man, we were going wide open ‘till about 2020. Then I had thyroid cancer, I had to get it removed and take radiation treatment, and the original guitarist for the band went over to play bass for Black Stone Cherry, and the drummer wanted to stay home and do the family thing. So, we brought two new guys into the band and started touring and releasing music again in 2023. We released ‘There’s a Break in the Road’ in 2023, ‘Last Fool in the Line’ in 2024, didn’t release anything last year but released ‘I’m Wicked’ this year.

It’s good to get some new music out there, and we’re working to try and get a full release out! Doing all the behind the scenes business stuff to make that happen. People seem to really be digging what we’re doing, so we want to get some new music out!

That was going to be my next question! Are you looking for end of the year for a longer release?

That would be great! We don’t really have a date down yet but it’s something that we’re working on. All the music we love listening to is in album format, and it’s kinda hard to release music in the single format because people only get a little glimpse of what you’re able to do. When you put a record on and you listen to it front-to-back you get a really clear picture of what a band is about.

I have found it’s so much effort to keep up with the crazy single release schedule Spotify wants you to do these days, there’s so much that goes into each release.

Oh man, it’s exhausting! And really expensive, too! Ideally they want you to release a song every three months or so to keep the numbers where they need to be. At a point you have to look at yourself and go ‘am I putting out music out at the right pace for me and for the right reasons, or just keep the numbers happy?’. We always want to serve the music and put out the best thing we can, but you do have to kinda play the game sadly.

What’s the writing process like for you guys?

We’re a get in the room and hash it out kinda band. I may have a riff or some lyrics or an idea but I try not to develop it too far because once the other three guys get a hold of what’s going on it always changes into something far better than I’d have gotten to on my own! A lot of times I do end up using that root idea, but they manage to take it somewhere completely unexpected, which is a lot of fun. We all feed off each other during the writing process just like we do live. I think that’s the cool thing about being a band over being an artist, you can showcase that. With bands that we love like Humble Pie and Faces, it’s that interaction between those players live in a room that makes it so unique!

I imagine it’s still a nice groove writing with the newer band members?

Oh yeah, I think this lineup of the band, our songwriting has really improved. The two new guys, they’re so energetic and they were into what the band was doing beforehand, and then ended up being in the band, so it gives them even more of a renewed energy!

You’re right in the middle of a run of shows, right?

Yeah, tomorrow actually [at the time of recording] we’re playing with a band called The Damn Shames and Nigel Dupree. This will be a lot of fun as I’ve known Nigel, son of Jesse James Dupree of Jackyl. I’ve never got to see him play, and he’s never seen me play! Then we have a show in Ohio, so the touring’s kicking up for us! We’re still doing the weekend thing, which works for us as a lot who see us are blue-collar people, they can’t really swing going out on a Tuesday night. We’re weekend rock’n’roll warriors!

Have you got a busy rest of the year planned?

Yeah, there’s new shows coming in every day, so from now until November we’re gonna be hitting it! Hopefully some time to get back to the studio and get some songs down and get this record out!

Do you have any plans to come back to the UK any time soon?

Yeah, we’ve been over twice and really enjoyed our time, we’d love to come back! It’s just finding the right opportunity and make as much of an impact as we can while there. It’s tricky; we wanna go everywhere and see everybody but it’s hard to do! We wanna do festival stuff and club stuff, we’ll eventually make it happen. I know people want to see us!

Have you got any comparisons you can make of the scene here compared to back home?

For us we feel a lot more respect when we come over and play for y’all. There’s so much to compete with over here, with people on their phone or watching the game, but over there people just have a greater reverence for live music. Not that people don’t enjoy it over here, I guess our type of music is just something that doesn’t get seen as often over there. So we feel very respected when we come over there!

Features, Reviews

Preacher Stone, Revenant and Eddie & The Wolves Rock the Old Cold Store!

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An apt name for a venue, as it was bloody cold last Friday when we arrived at the venue (part of the INCREDIBLE Castle Rock Brewery). However, we had three awesome rock bands to warm us up with, and they did exactly that! Somehow it was my first time seeing both Preacher and Revenant, though I’d been a fan for years, so to say I was excited was an understatement! Let’s dive right into the night’s fun, shall we?

Eddie & The Wolves opened the show and killed it if I do say so myself. Those who came down early saw, I’d like to thing, a good hard rock set! As usual, I’d like to thank everyone that came down to watch us, brought our merch, gave us such kind words, you’re all the reason the four of us do it. And, while I’m happy to tongue-in-cheek type here that we put on ‘the best set of all time, and anyone who missed it will never see something so glorious’, I just hope that we gave people an enjoyable half an hour! I had a blast up on stage, and I know the other three did too, and it sounded good to us, at least!

Next up were the incredible Revenant. They’ve been building a lot of momentum over the last couple of years with a handful of great EPs, and that momentum truly carries over to their stage show. The four-piece filled the room with their energy, and sounded just as good live as they do on track. Opening on the run of maybe my two favourite tracks from them, ‘Public Service Announcement’ into ‘Best Medicine’, before blasting through a lot of the rest of their awesome three EPs, it was one hell of a setlist. And the band put their all into playing each and every track! The bands stage presence as a whole is undeniable, and Sugarman held the crowd in the palm of his hand throughout. The band have put in the work to get to where they are at, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch!

After a short break, the legendary headliners took to the stage. The North Carolinan Southern rockers have really been embraced over here in recent years, which reflected perfectly in their ability to pull off a headline tour like this to a packed out, adoring crowd. I still spin By the Horns now, so for it to get so much love in the set (I mean, it was the tours namesake) was awesome. However, having never seen them live before, getting to hear the classics was also amazing! From ‘Old Joe’ and ‘Writing on the Wall’ to ‘Olf Fashioned Ass Whoopin’…’ and ‘Not Today’ we got a great spread of their back catalogue, a journey through the bands whole career. Ronnie is still one of the best frontmen in the genre some nearly 20 years into the band, and the rest of the guys compliment him perfectly. Special shoutout to drummer Josh Wyatt, he blew me away not just in his solo but throughout the whole set, what a phenomenal talent! The whole band were excellent from start to finish though, playing their asses off and keeping the crowd singing and clapping along throughout!

And there you have it folks, another great night for underground (ish) rock music! What more could you ask for? Three incredible bands working their ass off, a good venue, a great crowd, and surrounded by great beer! All the wins! I cannot recommend any of the bands or the venue enough, check them all out our as soon as you possibly can. I already need to see Revenant and Preacher again, and hopefully we can get a run-back of the whole tour sometime in the future!

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.

Reviews

By the Horns: Do Preacher Stone Top Last Year’s V?

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The awesome Southern rockers Preacher Stone are back with a brand new album, following up last year’s excellent V. I’ve loved the band for a while now so have been rather impatiently waiting for this release, so when I got it through our email there was no way I wasn’t checking it out early!

The title track kicks things off with plenty of energy; a fantastic blues riff and some powerful drums! The riffing continues between the lines of the verse, keeping the track bouncing perfectly. The vocals fit perfectly immediately too, and it all feels like it builds to the massively catchy chorus, the harmonies adding even more awesomeness to it! We also get some amazing lead guitaring in the middle and to close the track out, the duel soloing being fantastic and again fitting the vibe of the song so well. It’s a simply arranged yet very well written southern rock song, and sets the tone of the album perfectly!

‘Saddled and Rode’ opens on another fantastic riff, it having a stomping pace and energy to it when the drums and bass come in behind. It strips back in the verses, the dynamics of the track being fantastic as it makes the choruses hit even harder! The drumming in particular on this track, and throughout the whole album, is incredible, Josh Wyatt being hugely underrated behind a kit. Everything he does fits the riffing perfectly and adds so much to the song. Not that the rest of the band aren’t hugely talented too, however. As I said, the riffing and soloing is incredible, and Ronnie’s vocals fit the tracks awesomely. The chorus is so simple yet is going to be stuck in my head for days to come! It’s another excellent song, and an easy album highlight!

‘Writing on the Wall’ follows a similar formula to the previous two tracks, but again does so so damn well that it’s hardly a complaint! Everything about the track is so very catchy too, the dropped-down verses giving me early 2000s Black Stone Cherry or Lynyrd Skynyrd, and it building perfectly through the pre into an absolutely amazing chorus made to be played to massive festival crowds. It’s another fantastic song, and one that easily makes our playlist!

Check out our interview with them here.

Tracks like ‘The Devil You Know’ , ‘Old Joe’ and ‘The Last to Know’ are all pretty similar, slightly slower and more blues oriented tracks. They all have a great stomp and swagger to them, with the former surprisingly reminding me of some of Iron Maiden’s modern stuff in its guitar work. All are truly excellent tracks, with the latter being another big favourite of mine from the album. The only reason I’ve grouped them together is so that I don’t repeat myself over and over!

‘Blessing and a Curse’ slows things down with a beautiful acoustic ballad. It’s the perfect change of pace slap bang in the middle of the album, and is an absolutely fantastic song in its own right! From the acoustic and slide guitars to the great vocals and incredible use of harmonies, it’s a really well constructed track. It’s honestly one of my favourite tracks on the album, everything about it is awesome. It’s catchy as anything, and the instrumentation throughout is amazing. It’s another made to be played to huge crowds in arenas around the world, and definitely one to check out if you’re going to try any from the album!

The final two tracks, ‘Come What May’ and ‘Think by Now’, are more awesome southern/hard rock from the band. It’s two more great, mid-tempo tracks, with the closers chorus in particular being another high point of the album! It’s also the perfect album closer, seemingly bringing it all back round to a similar point as the title track. Again, but are fun, boot-stompin’ songs that are simply rather similar to each other. However, that shouldn’t take away from either track, as both are great and worth listening to!

Overall: This is a damn good southern rock record! It’s short, sweet and right to the point, and because of that is very much all killer, no filler! All nine tracks on this are great, with some standing out among some of my favourite from the bands growing discography. I’m so glad the band returned to the studio faster this time after their last release, and what they have come out with is something excellent! I’d recommend it to anyone even slightly into southern, country or just hard rock in general!

The Score: 8.5/10

Reviews

Devil and a Prayer: One of the Best Debut Albums in Country?

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One of the fastest rising stars in the country world, Tyler Braden, is set to finally release his highly anticipated debut album this coming Friday. I’ve really gotten into him this year after seeing him support Brothers Osborne, so have been rather impatiently waiting for its release. So, when it came over our emails, I jumped on it almost immediately. I’ve heard a few of the tracks before as we’ve had a handful of singles, but this thing is LONG, so I’m sure there’s plenty more awesomeness to sink my teeth into!

The dark Southern single ‘ME OR THE DAWN’ opens the album up perfectly. From the strings to Tyler’s fantastic drawl, the verse builds up to a massive, pretty rockin’ chorus! It’s catchy as anything too, certainly set to be stuck in my head for the next few hours/days. I remember hearing this one live too and it’s just as good on track! We even get some awesome little guitar lead lines in the bridge, adding a nice little variety to the track. And Tyler pushing his vocals in that last chorus is amazing, his power and rasp being phenomenal and almost reminding me just a little of Shaun Morgan of Seether. It’s certainly got that rock edge to it, but it’s also so very radio-friendly; no wonder it’s done so well already! A fantastic choice to start the album on!

Another single, ‘MORE THAN A PRAYER’ is up next. It has a bit more of a traditional country vibe to it, at least at the start. The pretty quick pace and great guitar chord progressions, alongside the absolutely amazing vocal harmonies in the pre, again all build perfectly into another arena-filling chorus. It’s a fantastically written chorus too, it dropping out to just the drums and vocals for the first two bars, the guitars working between the vocal lines before exploding back in at the end. It’s incredibly memorable and very catchy! It once again has a rock edge to it too, giving off vibes of Shaman’s Harvest or Sin Shake Sin. It’s a sound that I absolutely adore, and love that it’s slowly slipping into more mainstream country. It’s another simple-structured song, but one I love and is an easy highlight for our playlist!

The first new song of the album, ‘THINK ABOUT ME’, is a slower, radio-ballad. Having said that, the guitar tone still firmly grounds it in a rockier sound. And somehow, despite that, it’s still rather beautiful. Tyler’s lyrics throughout are awesome, and his lyrics are on point! It’s yet another massive highlight on an album that’s so far packed full of them!

Single ‘ABOVE THE WATER’ is another slower track kinda like the previous, though overall more stripped-back. It’s an acoustic-ballad, focusing almost entirely on the guitar and Tyler’s brilliant vocals. It does still build throughout, keeping it consistently interesting, but the core of the song remains. It’s an interesting choice for a single as it is so simple, but there is no denying that it’s a fantastic song nonetheless. Another one that’s definitely worth checking out!

‘YOU DON’T GET TO CRY’, much as is expected with the lyrics, is another slower song. It’s very much like the previous song in that it’s mainly built around the guitars and vocals. However, the rest of the instrumentation is present at times throughout. Arguably, I prefer this to the single previous; it feels like it has a bit more heart and umph to it, and I can certainly relate to the lyrics. It’s a damn good country ballad, and one that I’d recommend to anyone into the style! It’s maybe my favourite ballad track on the album, as similar songs like ‘LOVED ONCE’ and ‘EVERGREEN’ are still fantastic, but don’t quite come close.

Single ‘HOW IT STARTS’ just begs for all the radio play in the world. Combining elements of country, rock and pop perfectly, it’s a lot of fun and so well crafted and written. From the simple verses to the chorus begging to be played to huge festival crowds, it’s very much a summer anthem! It’s very much another absolutely massive highlight of the album for me!

‘SO LONG’ is even more rock than the rest of it, giving off very big HARDY vibes for me. That’s not an issue at all either, I love it! From the simple electric guitar and Tyler’s vocals building to that MASSIVE chorus, it’s really awesome. My only slight complaint is I really hoped we’d get a little more of a guitar solo in this one, as it really felt like it was gearing up for it. Still, it’s an excellent song and yet another high point of the album, another song that’ll be stuck in my head for days!

The next few songs on the album, for some reason, are all in lower case and are classified under the ‘(b stage)’ moniker. I assume it’s an indicator of these being even more stripped-back songs than any of the rest of the album, very much acoustic-folk/Americana over the more country-rock rest of the release. All are great songs in their own right, and fit pretty perfectly together. However, with the album already being long and a touch bloated, I do think slowing it down for 13-minutes in the middle is a risk that doesn’t quite pay off, at least for me. Still, as I said, none are bad songs at all, with ‘nothing looks good on you’ being a personal highlight. Plus, Tyler’s vocals on ‘dear old flame’ honestly gave me goosebumps. And I wouldn’t even say spread them out either, as I like the idea of them all being together as almost an intimation. But it does make a long album even longer.

‘BREAKING IN THESE BOOTS’ picks the pace back up perfectly, being maybe the rockiest track on the album. To I’m sure no one’s surprise, I loved it. It’s a blues-tinged, swagger-dripping country anthem with plenty of energy and memorable moments. It’s pretty heavy for even country rock too, and it’s wild that Tyler’s vocals fit this just as well as an emotional acoustic ballad. It’s another awesome song and, you guessed it, another massive high point!

One of the latest singles ‘GOD & GUNS & ROSES’ is another slower one, but as a massive GnR fan I can’t help but love and appreciate the cleaver lyric writing, and the song itself is well crafted. This deep into the album it’s a little hard to talk about it without repeating myself, but it is a damn fun little song. And indeed, thank (80s) Guns n’ Roses!

‘CALL ME FIRST’ and ‘RIGHT ON TRACK’ are both other good songs but damn, after such a long album already, they do give off slight filler/album track vibes. I hate to be ‘that guy’ as I definitely can’t write music this good, but when the album is 19 tracks long and packed full of awesome, amazing songs, these couple do kinda stand out as ones that maybe could have been cut. It’s a shame too, as I really enjoy the latter, especially the more I listen, but it just doesn’t live up to a lot of the rest. They worked well as singles too, but in the context of the album I’m sadly less into them.

Friend of the company Kaitlin Butts features on the next track, ‘MIGHT BE DANGEROUS’, and honestly it kinda meshes the two’s styles perfectly. Not only that, but their voices compliment each others just as well. It’s a real epic-feeling song, their harmonies being beautiful and the strings behind them filling everything out the sound incredibly. I’m shocked it’s the only feature on the album, but it makes it even more impactful, honestly. This is utterly beautiful and another firm highlight of the album. I’m honestly shocked it isn’t a single already, but surely will be in the near future!

The closing track of the album, surprisingly, is Tyler’s biggest hit to date, ‘DEVIL YOU KNOW’. It was the one I was familiar with before I’d even seen him live, and it’s one hell of a banger. No wonder it’s got him this far already, as it really is a Brantley Gilbert-style masterclass of modern country-rock. That chorus is incredible, but the whole song is awesome and so damn catchy. And it’s another song that is just as good live as it is on track! Tyler was onto a winner with this song, but honestly it fits just as well on the album as it works as a single. And not many artists these days close things out with a big song, which is wild to me as I love it as a concept and it works well here. Of course it’s another huge highlight of the album, and the perfect way to end things!

Overall: I really enjoyed this! There are so many incredible songs throughout. Yes, I’d still say it’s a little long, but it had a pretty great flow to it and there was so much variety that it didn’t actually feel it’s length as much as some country albums do. And there were so many amazing songs that it would honestly be hard to cut it down by much. And the fact that this is his debut album too, with just a couple of EPs prior to it, is utterly insane. He is already becoming a big name in the country world, and this release will very much solidify that fact! I’d recommend this to absolutely anyone out there into country and/or rock!

The Score: 8.5/10

Interviews & Features

Revenant: ‘We’re musicians, we don’t know what to do aside for be musicians!’

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We sat down with the rising NWOCR stars Revenant last week to chat about their upcoming EP and plans for the year. Check it out below!

Check out our review of their last EP here.

How would you describe your sound?

Sam: We’d call it Southern rock with a modern twist, I guess. Having said all of that, though, we have gone more of a classic rock sound, all of our influences are that. But yeah, I definitely think Southern rock with a classic twist!

And so the lead single for the EP last week? It seems to have gone down well!

Sam: Last Tuesday, 18th of Feb it came out! yeah, we’re really happy! I think today it’s been streamed over 10,000 times, which is mad! It’s always a nerve wracking thing because you put your heart and soul into these things and when you release it it’s like watching your kid go off to school, how’s it gonna do? But we’re chuffed with it!

It’s the start of the EP cycle, is there a theme surrounding it or is it more individual stories?

Sam: I wouldn’t say there’s a theme. We’ve kinda… we’ve got five songs… I guess the theme is we write about what we know and we write about things that we think other people have experienced as well. So there’s a song about being a teenager and not wanting to listen to anybody. There’s ’Best Medicine’ which is effectively a love song. ‘Runaway Rage’ is about being super angry. There’s ‘Least I can Do’ which Matt write about his other half and his crow children. Then ‘Miss You’ I wrote after my grandparents passed away. So all of these things, although personal to us, everyone can relate to it!

And what’s your writing style like?

Sam: From my point of view I’m a guitar player first and a singer second. I really struggle to see an overall song so I generally tend to bring in a riff or a lyric idea and then the four of us really get together and wrap our heads around it and contribute our own bits and pieces. Matt and Carl (drummer) are really good producers, they can see the whole thing from above and put it together that way!

Are you planning to let us hear any more of the EP before its release?

Matt: There’s som more singles planned but there’s no point putting out previews or stuff like that. There’s no point going ‘here’s a preview of a song you can’t listen to’. I think gone are the days now of buildups to releasing songs, I think it’s pretty pointless. Just get the song out and then promote it.

We’ve got a couple of singles coming off the EP, though! They kinda follow on from where ‘Best Medicine’ started, really. It’s a very catchy, hit you in the face straight away kinda thing. I don’t know who or what it sounds like, but yeah, I think it makes people listen. I think the next two tracks, ones really happy and the other is just angry and pisses you off. So there’s a mixture of emotions that come out of it and, from that, a mixture of sounds too.

And looking ahead, are you planning on sticking with more of an EP format, or are there talks of an album?

Sam: I think we’ve got… we know what we want to do and what’s gonna come from that. All I can say to you at this point is that there is more music coming and we’re always writing and always looking to see where we can take things. This is the second EP we’ve done and the reason we did that is that today’s society is quite immediate. Matt’s really good at looking at what the audience wants; everyone wants it now. I think you’ve gotta be really established before you can do an album and get people to commit to that.

Matt: also an album… realistically if you were to write 10-12 actual good songs, or even if you went away and wrote 15-17 songs and threw away five of them, that’s not a quick process. We’re not into going… well, we did it with one song on the EP but we got lucky, where we’ve had a two-hour period where the bare bones of a song has come out of it. But we don’t work that way. The riff that we had that grew that song, Sam and I had been playing that riff for about four years. Sam finally said ‘we’re gonna do something with that riff today’. We had a studio day where we were in there all day. To be honest they don’t always come like that.

Going back to the whole album thing, being an independent band at this level, how much time and effort does it take to write an album and go ‘cool the album’s out’, and it’s like ‘sounds good, what are you doing next?’. It’s just taken us a year and a half! Maybe we’ll do another EP, maybe we’ll do an album, maybe we’ll just put out singles. I think it’s an ever-changing landscape. You’ve just gotta keep doing what you’re doing, and we’re still working it out really. It’s taken us seven months to get the EP ready, we need a bit of a breather to work out what the next step is!

In terms of the live stuff you seem to be all over the place this year!

Sam: I think we’re definitely a live band, that’s where we thrive. I think we just want to get the music out to as many people as possible. Again I’m sure it’s the same for fans like yourselves. Matt and I have come into contact with people who are more obsessed with how many people they can play in front of and what they look like. With us though, if you said to us ‘there’s three people in the Dog and Duck, do you wanna go play a gig’, we’d go yeah! Having said that though, we wanna get out and play as many high quality shows a we can and deliver.

Matt: I think that’s the necessary thing to do, to start to step up and network in this environment. However, that’s not taking away from smaller shows. We’re playing the Coin Exchange on March 14th that holds 450 people. It’s 50% sold out at the moment which is great, it’s looking like it’s going to be a massive gig for us. A week later we go play at The White Heart in Basingstoke, which is just a pub. But then we’ll taylor two different things for those shows. For the Coin Exchange it’ll be a more professional setup, the whole show is completely thought out, from a fan perspective. Then in Basingstoke, we’ve got three or four new songs, we need to play them live to see how they are live and what we can do with them.

But yeah, we are getting about here there and everywhere. Maid of Stone I’ll be good. And they seem to be bigging us up! We’ve never met them, well we know Darren Wilson, one of the scouts, but he just became a fan, that’s how we know him! But they seem to be sharing our music. They said the other day, ‘current Maid of Stone favourites, Revenant’, which is lovely! We are so new on the scene so it’s just nice to see that really!

We’re playing up in Sheffield for Steel Paws, too. I’m struggling to remember them all now. And I don’t mean that in an arrogant way, there’s nowhere near as many as last year, but when there’s so much going on I can’t remember!

Sam’s big thing is let’s create a show and take it out there, inside of let’s go on stage and play some songs. But yeah, the gigs are coming in thick and fast! We’re lucky that it’s all coming in towards the end of the year, but we’re looking good!

You’re relatively new to the scene, but what would you say it’s like at the minute?

Sam: Now, I say this a lot. The great thing is about music is that anyone can do it. I think the scene, particularly with the NWOCR one, there’s good bands, and then there’s great bands. And I think it’s a case of how much you want it, and what you’re willing to do to get your music out there. I can’t knock anyone who says I’m in a band, I love doing pub gigs, I love what I’m doing. Fine, wicked. We all know it’s really hard making a living out of this. The bands like us and like The Dust Coda and AK and the Red Kites that look people in the eye and go ‘we’ve got good songs and we’re coming for it’. I love building a show and delivering that to people, making the live experience different from the recorded experience. But yeah, it’s just how much you want to do it and put on the line and back yourself.

Matt: I think a big part of that too is how far can you take it. You’ll never know if you never try! I don’t think we’ve got any delusions of grandeur, but I don’t see any reason why we… I’d be personally happy if in 10 years time we say we’ve had enough but we look back and say ‘well we supported them and played these massive shows and in this country’. Yeah, it’s just great fun. We’re musicians, we don’t know what to do aside for be musicians! We’ve gotta play, so why not take that as far as we can. It’s not about being the biggest and the best, for us it’s just giving it a good crack and see what happens.

The scene is really good, we’ve met so many lovely people! The guys up in Manchester and Firevolt, leaf promotions, we’ve made so many fans up there. It’s lovely really. We got invited up there for the Christmas do and stuff like that. It’s a lovely scene, but maybe there could be more for bands to do to connect with each other. Like you said, we saw your name on the poster, but we’d never connect if it wasn’t for this. Is there more that bands can do to like gig swap and stuff. There needs to be more of that, more working together for everyone to rise, instead of bands trying to step over each other. I think it needs to be more prevalent in any music scene, really. A few nobs as well, let’s not shy away from that!

You guys seem to be doing good on social media, any advise for bands just starting out on that front?

Sam: hire Matt as your social media guru!

Matt: Social media can be the key that really unlocks a lot of doors, but it isn’t the be all, end all of what we’re trying to do and achieve as a band. A lot of people, and who wouldn’t, want their song to go viral. Okay, but the how are you going to back that up, what’s next? Are you even ready to be thrust into it. If we went viral on a song and then Slash was like ‘wanna come out on tour’, we’d say yes but then we’d be like a rabbit in headlights, we wouldn’t know what we wear doing. But obviously we would do it!

One of the main things with social media, and it’s the hardest part, is consistency. I struggle, I’ve got a family, I don’t have time to always be like ‘let me sit down for an hour today to work out what to post, and then another hour to make it’. But there are ways that you can approach it to get a good result out of it. I put up a video about buying Black Sabbath tickets, I was really lucky and I’ve been studying these creators that teach you how to get views. And one of the main reasons that video worked really well was because that was the hot topic on that day, on that week, so people are gonna sit and watch that. Then you’re like ‘cool, our new songs out’, and 2000 views. It can be pretty disheartening. But at the end of the day, if you’re gonna post a video about your music to get people to listen to it, you’ve gotta be genuine about it. If you’re gonna get 2000 views a day, do it for 10 days. That could be 10-15000 eyeballs on that song, all it takes is 500/600 of them to listen on Spotify and then Release Radar is triggered. It’s all about a snowball effect.

But it is so disheartening, you’re just trying to cut through and keep going. But then randomly last night, I got a message on TikTok from a kid saying he and his dad were listening to ‘Best Medicine’ and they love the track. And I had no idea who he was, I’d never spoken to him! So yeah, you’ve just gotta keep going and attack all of them!

Interviews & Features

Sons of Liberty: ‘We’re not gonna make one million pounds out of Sons of Liberty, but we are going to have a damn good time doing it!’

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We sat down with our good friends Sons of Liberty while at Winters End the other weekend, catching up about their latest album and plans for the year. Check it out below!

How was the set?

Oh, it was great! We haven’t done anything since October last year. So we’d had a bit of downtime, we’d had a couple of rehearsals, but a big gig like Winters End is always a bit of a challenge! But, it was really cool! Kira Mac were super early with their soundcheck so we got loads of extra time to get more comfortable with what we were doing. We were at least an hour earlier than we should have been so we got to have a bit more time. And a shoutout to Rich Brinley of NWOCR who did our front of house sound tonight! Everybody’s reporting how great it sounded.

It’s been a couple of years since we last daw you and since you’ve had a lineup change, how’s that been?

Oh wow, that is a little while! So yeah, Russ has come onboard after the songs were already written, we’d demoed them up and we’d been in the studio a couple of times, the backing tracks were down. It was like “what the hell do we do now?”. So we sent a couple of mp3s to Russ on email and like an hour later two songs came back with some worked up backing vocal ideas. So the click was right there! We put him under a bit of pressure as we’d spent way more money recording than we really should have done. Originally Rob left, then Rob #2 was fronting the band for a little while but when he came to the studio that didn’t quite work out. So we thought okay, we’ve spent a lot of time… but Russ stepped up to the plate. Three or four days in the studio, after about 10 days doing demo versions. So we worked him really hard, but the reaction has been fantastic!

Yeah, the album seemed to go down really well!

Thank you! And live too, there’s a lift in the energy of the band. Yeah, he’s a bit younger than we are, not beating around the bush here! But he’s brought a challenge to the rest of us to lift our game a bit.

It did look like you were having fun up there!

Oh Christ yeah! And that’s absolutely what it’s about. We’re not gonna make one million pounds out of Sons of Liberty, but we are going to have a damn good time doing it! So as long as that comes across on the stage too, that’s wonderful!

And you played an unreleased track for an EP, right?

So when we recorded the album we had 13 songs recorded that were all treated exactly the same way. When it came to… vinyl is really challenging, like 44-minutes maximum. Once we worked out which songs would fit the vinyl we thought we should just go with the 11 songs on the CD and keep the other two back for future use. So for the October gigs that we played the two unreleased tracks we put out on a little EP and it’s gone really well! Six songs from the album, one from the EP, and it seemed to work pretty well!

I imagine there’s some writing going on still too, right?

Yeah, I mean Fred is prolific. He sends me stuff… after the week you can log in and there’s another message or track or riff idea that he’s come up with. That’s where most of the songs start. A couple have gone a little further with Russ doing some lyrics and vocal ideas, but we’ve not rehearsed or got together as a band. We’ve just been focused on making the most of what we’ve got in the can, so to speak!

Have you got quite a busy 2025 planned?

Yes! So kicking off late February until early May pretty much every other weekend we’re doing three or four gigs. It looks really cool as a tour poster! Couple of festivals in the summer. We’re playing A New Day which is a new one for us. It’s associated with Alford rock and blues. It’s quite eclectic, it’s more of a mini Glastonbury-type festival with lots of different types of music. But they’ve slotted us onto the bill! We played Alford last year and off the back of that we got the booking for this.

Then in the Autumn another run of gigs around the UK. So yeah, the diary for 2025 looks pretty damn good! I think we get to o to Scotland twice. We seem to have gathered quite the crowd up there having played the Winter Storm festival a couple of times. And that seems to ripple over onto your own gigs in Edinburgh or Glasgow! It’s nice that we’ve latched onto a few people there!

Do you have song you wish you could have written?

Most of us have pretty big classic rock histories. Freddie would probably say ‘Rock Bottom’, UFO. Me and Mark are more Blackfoot, so something like ‘The Highway Song’. Steve’s a bit strange because he likes his extreme metal stuff, or the operatic stuff, so he latched onto Nightwish and stuff like that. Russ, being a bit younger, he comes up with something a bit crazy. He loves his Bon Jovi, but loves to throw in a bit more of a pop thing.

Yeah, it seems like bands like to throw in a bit of a pop cover every so often!

Yeah well me and Freddie go back a long time playing in bands and we did the whole cover band thing. My approach was to take things like ‘Footloose’ and rock up the guitar riff a little bit and turn it into a rock song. It always went down well! The craziest thing we ever did was ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe but with kazoos doing the keyboard run!