Project Description
Interview with
BEN THATCHER
from
ROYAL BLOOD
Interview by: Karen Lowe
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Royal Blood have hit our shores to play their first headline tour around Australia as well as a spot on the Groovin’ The Moo line up. Karen Lowe spoke to Ben Thatcher about touring with Queens of the Stone Age, playing on a pontoon in Sydney Harbour and Mike Kerr’s hidden talents.
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You guys are about to do your first headline tour of Australia with the first show starting tonight. Are excited about it? And where are you looking forward to playing the most?
Yeah it’s great to be back over here in Australia and we are looking forward to the first show tonight. We are just about to go and do a soundcheck. We haven’t haven’t played a full set for quite awhile as we’ve been doing a lot of festivals and support slots where the sets have been a bit shorter so we are looking forward to playing more of our songs.
I’m really looking forward to playing everywhere really. There’s never somewhere that I’m really looking forward to doing because I take every day as it comes and try and put on the best show every night.
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Will you guys have any time off when you are in Australia? And if so, is there anything that you would really love to see or do while here?
We have tomorrow off because everyone’s got tomorrow off am I right? So that’s another reason why tonight’s gonna be a lot of fun. I think we are gonna get to be in some places, where it’s proper Australia. Some places where we’ve never been before so looking forward to exploring there.
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You guys released your second album last year. Did you feel pressure to try and ensure that it was just as good as your first album, if not better?
Yeah I mean, you have the old ‘second album’ thing where you know people are going to listen to it and expect something as good as the first. We definitely did have that pressure at the start but we got over that quite quickly and realised that we just wanted to make an album that plunged forward from that first one.
We didn’t want to make Royal Blood Two but have a bit of a progression with the instrumentation and different feels to songs. Once the pressure was off of all of that, we really enjoyed creating something that was right for us.
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Being on tour can be tough on mental health and general well being. How do you guys go with touring and do you have any strategies to keep each others spirits up?
We have, what I feel, one of the best jobs in the world so it’s really good to remember that. There are obviously things that can be hard – being away from your family and your friends; your girlfriends or whatever and it can get really difficult at times. Even being in countries where you don’t know anywhere or anyone it can be a bit strange but I think, for us, we love doing what we do. We love the people that surround us.
I don’t really know… I think just remembering why you are doing this and then when you walk out on stage and see all the people who have come to see you and have come for a good time, smiling and singing along; that’s when it really hits home. It just feels really good.
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What was the moment that you realised that you had made it as a band?
I have this conversation with a lot of my friends. Someone always says “you’ve made it now” when something else happens so we’re like “well when have we made it? How many times can we make it?”
I think we made it when our first album came out. We were so proud of the songs and the achievement of the album and signing up with a record label. That was when we were so happy with ourselves. After that, it’s all out of our control really.
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Do you have any embarrassing tour stories? And what about some of the crazier moments on tour?
Yeah there’s many. We’ve been on tour for a good four years now so a lot of things have happened.
I’m trying to think of something funny that hasn’t been said before but I can’t think of something off the top of my head. I’ve got the worse memory!
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Photo – Karen Lowe
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Photo – Karen Lowe
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What are some of the best things that you have seen at a show?
We just got to experience being in South America for the first time which was incredible. We’ve never been down there and the fans down there are crazy because people don’t often go there.
The welcoming reception there and the crowd was unbelievable.
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As a fan, it’s often quite hard to go up to your idols and say hello for fear of being turned away or fear of seizing up and sounding like an idiot. As a musician, how do you go at meeting your idols? Have you ever gone to speak to someone and just seized up?
There is always the fear of embarrassment or rejection but I think you’ve just gotta go and do it. Pick your moment and go and say hello because people are normally quite nice and don’t mind saying hello and having a little chat.
I don’t think I’ve ever really seized up before doing it. If I really feel like that, I just don’t go over.
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You have toured many places now and many different countries. What’s the one place that you haven’t toured that you would really love to get to one day?
I’d really love to go to India. I think that would be a fun place to play some shows.
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You guys have been on some pretty massive line-ups/festivals over the last few years including touring with QOTSA and Foo Fighters. Has it become normal to you yet or does it still feel rather surreal?
It’s kinda come quite normal to us now because it’s become our new reality so all of those guys have become quite familiar to us now so it’s kinda quite easy and you have this different view of each other now. It’s just like normal.
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What was it like touring with QOTSA?
Amazing! We’re going back with them in a couple of weeks. They are just great guys and we love them very much. They are brilliant and they know how to party. They are good guys.
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What are some of the stranger places that you have played in before?
We played on a platoon in Sydney Harbour and Mike did a bass solo on a speedboat going around the platoon. That was quite fun.
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Do you have any hidden talents that we don’t know about, for example cooking, acting etc?
Mike has got quite a lot of talents. He’s a good chef – used to be a chef. He’s also very good at magic tricks. He was one of those geeky, nerdy kids at school.
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Photo – Karen Lowe
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Photo – Karen Lowe
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What’s been some of your favourite festivals that you’ve been on?
Glastonbury’s always a favourite of ours where it’s one of the bigger stages in the world and quite a thing being from England and playing on that stage.
I really enjoyed Splendour in the Grass. We’ve done that a few times and always have a good time there and I would say probably the Lollapaloozas‘ in America and South America.
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I would love to get to one of those one day.
Have you never been to Glastonbury?
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No I have been to Reading Festival and V Festival.
Reading is fun. Glastonbury is where it’s at though.
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You guys have played a lot of shows now. Has there ever been a show which you just want to forget about?
Not really. We’ve had some where there have been a lot of technical difficulties and that’s been frustrating. Especially when you travel a long way to play somewhere and nothing works. But never think that we’ve played too bad before.
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Was there any valuable advice that you had been given at the beginning that you wish that you had listened to at the time? And what advice would you give to someone who was starting out now?
Not really any advice but just watching bands play and see how people do it and watching even how they talk and what they do along that. It’s not so much advice but a learning thing for us.
Advice would be just have fun really. Be creative and don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks about the art that you are creating and just have fun with it.
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Anything else that you would like to add that I may have missed?
No I think that’s all good!
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Thank you so much for talking with me today and I hope you enjoy the shows.
Thank you very much.
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You can catch
ROYAL BLOOD
on their Australian tour
TUESDAY 24TH APRIL – HORDERN PAVILION, SYDNEY
FRIDAY 27TH APRIL – GROOVIN THE MOO, ADELAIDE SA
SATURDAY 28TH APRIL – GROOVIN THE MOO, MAITLAND NSW
SUNDAY 29TH APRIL – GROOVIN THE MOO, CANBERRA ACT
SATURDAY 5TH MAY – GROOVIN THE MOO, BENDIGO VIC
SUNDAY 6TH MAY – GROOVIN THE MOO, TOWNSVILLE QLD
MONDAY 7TH MAY – RIVERSTAGE, BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY 9TH MAY – MARGARET COURT ARENA, MELBOURNE
FRIDAY 11TH MAY – GROOVIN THE MOO, BUNBURY WA
SUNDAY 13TH MAY – HBF STADIUM, PERTH
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