Royal Ascent
Royal Blood’s world-conquering bassist gives the inside perspective on the duo’s new album, HowDidWeGetSoDark?, creative criticism and losing track of his own pedalboard
Alot has changed in the three years since TG’s last chat with Mike Kerr. Back then his band, Royal Blood, had released just a single track – the anthemic OutOfTheBlack. The single had us picking our jaws up off the floor, thanks to the almighty tone that this bass and drums twosome (the band is completed by drummer Ben Thatcher) was capable of producing.
Their debut album followed shortly after and sent the band into the stratosphere, hitting No 1 in the UK and earning the Brighton-based duo everything from a Brit Award to celebrity fans in the shape of Jimmy Page, Lars Ulrich and Dave Grohl. A rapid ascent for the man who funded the early days of Royal Blood by moonlighting as a chef. But as the pair release album two, the hotlyanticipated HowDidWeGetSoDark?, the change that we’re most interested in isn’t their A-list mates or how many awards adorn their mantelpiece: it’s Mike’s switch from his trusty old Junior Jet to a Fender Jaguar.
“Originally I used short-scale Gretsch Junior Jets, that’s how the Royal Blood sound started,” Mike explains. “It’s a really cheap bass, £300 new. As time went on I was approached by [Gretsch’s owners] Fender, who realised that I was using their amps and walking onstage with their Gretsch guitars. Fender were very nice: they made me this überJaguar with a humbucker, which I really like. They’re just tiny – they feel like a guitar! As soon as I played one of them I was like, ‘There’s no going back.’ Mine literally has one pickup, a single tone and a single volume control. There’s just one jack socket. I still use Starcasters for certain songs, but we have a new tune in B so I need the Fender because that’s going to take that low tuning.”
The last time we had a chat with Mike he was elusive when we attempted to prise out the secrets to his distinctively unique bass tone. Here was a rock star eager to maintain a little mystic to his craft. Today, he remains slightly guarded on the exact ins and outs of his rig, but concedes that even he has lost track of exactly what the hell is going on in his pedalboard.
“I only had one sound on the first album, whereas on HowDidWeGetSo
Dark the whole rig has a new configuration on every song. To be honest with you, it’s got to the point where even I don’t know what’s going on [in my pedalboard] anymore! There are a few key things that I keep close to my chest, but the principle of the sound isn’t really a secret. Basically, I use octave pedals and guitar amps. It’s more like the routing of everything [which is
“the principle of the royal blood sound isn’t a secret”
“I try to follow my ear rather than what I know”
secret] and a few things along the way that take the pedalboard from being budget to gourmet, ha ha! There are also a few things on the way that just make it tidier. Everyone knows I use an Electro-Harmonix POG 2 and some pedals for pitch-bending.”
Blood Work
One area that both Mike and drummer Ben are certainly willing and able to fully lift the lid on is the writing of How Did We Get So Dark?. “Songs get written in so many different ways,” Ben chips in. “Some are built from the drums up but then a lot starts with Mike and maybe lyrics. The song I Only Lie When I Love
You started with the lyrics. Mike had been listening to a lot of The Hives and The Rolling Stones and we wanted something a little bit glam.”
“I write a lot of my riffs when I’m drunk and I sing them into my iPhone,” Mike adds. “The next day I’ll sift through the ideas and when you translate them, they’re great. I try not to look at the fretboard when I’m writing riffs, because you know where everything is. You know if you go to a certain place, what it will sound like. It doesn’t seem very creative. Sometimes, I put all the strings out of tune, or I just try and write a whole riff on one string. I always try to confuse myself a little bit, so I’ll follow my ear rather than following what I know.”
The relationship between Mike and Ben is absolutely pivotal to Royal Blood. With just bass and drums there is an ocean of space to be filled, opening up all kinds of possibilities for the two of them to play off. “There’s so much room in this band, you can do as much or as little as you need to do,” Mike says. “Being creative is really important. More times than not it is about counteracting and syncopating with each other. There are big moments and moves that we do where we lock in; Out Of The Black, for example, we literally just turn into one machine and do exactly the same thing. That can be very powerful but then it’s also about spreading out as well.”
This ‘locking in’ is relatively rare in Royal Blood’s world. Instead, Mike opts to play off, around and – as he admits – generally fuck up Ben’s hip-hop influenced, cymbal-light beats. “When I lay down a riff, any other drummer would come in with a classic rock beat, whereas Ben won’t even play any cymbals – he’ll go straight to the toms and keep it sparse with a big beat and a hip-hop beat,” Mike explains.
“Removing cymbals makes things sound twice as heavy. We juxtapose against each other too, so if Ben’s doing a really big rock beat, I think, ‘How do I fuck that up?’ If I just rock out with you, everyone’s heard that before.”
It’s a musical marriage that worked a treat on their debut, and How Did We Get So Dark? proves that three solid years on the road has done wonders for their in-the-studio chemistry. The record packs the stoner vibes of classic Queens Of The Stone Age with the pop-rock bombast of Muse, as evidenced by tracks like Lights Out and I Only Lie When I Love You. Mike explains that the album’s raw, honest quality is partly thanks to the band’s willingness to offer an upfront critique of each other’s work. “Being creative is also about being able to communicate honestly and constructively,” he says. “I think you get that out of having a good friendship. It’s one thing to have a good chemistry from playing together, which we obviously do have because we’ve played together for over 10 years, but you also need the ability to put an idea on the table and pick at it and poke it. You have to realise that the song is more important than any one person in the band. That is something that we have got really good at over the years. There is no ego in the way when it comes to a song, we’re always asking how to make something better and improve it. That only really comes through criticising it. That is half of our chemistry. We don’t critique each other’s skill level; it is more about looking at an idea and beating it into shape and improving it or just making it more creative. We don’t do that for the sake of it but when we do it is really important. A band that always pats each other on the back will only make average music.”
Double-barrelled
While it seems that life as a duo has allowed Mike and Ben to develop a deep musical connection, we wonder if such a stripped-back line up is also a doubleedged sword. Having just two creative brains contributing ideas must sometimes be a tricky spot to be in? “It can be,” Mike admits. “But what we get in return is worth it. You can be really
bold and clear with ideas when there’s just the two of us. Ben really trusts me a lot as well. I think being the only guitarist, or bass player – or whatever you want to call it – I can run away with it. I get that freedom and Ben gets that freedom of being the only other member. In terms of the writing, it’s also about our taste and our quality control. That is something that we trust about each other as well.”
With the album in the bag, the next thing on Royal Blood’s hit list for world domination is to nail their own headline arena tour. Luckily, they have one lined up already for the autumn. Pulling off such massive shows with just two blokes onstage (we’re pleased to hear that there are no plans to place a touring guitarist just behind the curtain) should be a daunting undertaking. For a band with such a seemingly innate live connection as Royal Blood, we can’t see it being a problem.
“Developing a live chemistry is about enjoying playing with each other,” Mike says. “Your chemistry can be diluted in a four or five piece band. There is also a practicality to being spontaneous with only two people because there’s only one person to follow. If you tied two people’s legs together and raced them against three people with their legs tied together then the two people would win because they can function more easily and get the knack of it quicker. We’re the smallest gang you can have.”
“The chemistry was always there but I think the more that you play with someone the stronger that bond will get,” Ben adds. “We got to this stupid stage where we didn’t need to talk to each other. We could telepathically know what the other was thinking. It’s the same onstage.”
Fail Safe
We often hear of rock bands taking the fun and soul out of live performances. Becoming fixated with delivering a ‘perfect’ show, packing their sound out with backing tracks to ensure that an audience gets a set that is a carbon copy of their latest album. For Royal Blood, there are no bells or whistles; just almighty dollops of energy, showmanship and fun.
“Playing live with Ben is the most fun thing ever. We both purposefully put unpredictability into our live shows where I don’t know what he’s going to do sometimes. If I say ‘improvisation’ that makes it sound like we are skilled at improvising... It’s more like social improvisation rather than musical. That chemistry is what the whole band is about. We sometimes throw things in live just for each other. It doesn’t go right every time. More times than not it goes wrong. If we walk offstage and something like that happens and we missed this bit or that bit then we just say, ‘That’s what rock ’n’ roll is about.’ That’s why we’re not session musicians or in a pop band.”
It may not make for a flawless gig every night, but it’s earned Royal Blood an army of fans and has seen them rock everything from toilet circuit headline shows to stadium support slots with the Foo Fighters. We reckon they’re just getting started.