‘We’re a live band and we take enormous pride in what we do’
D ERBY band The Struts are heading for Nottingham’s Rock City as part of their biggest UK tour. Band members Luke and Adam talk about touring, playing Nottingham venues and Dave Grohl. The album has been out a good few months now. Are you happy with the reaction? Luke: Yeah, really happy! We had great reviews pretty much all round and, considering how difficult it was to get it done, and of course the pressure of it being a second album as well on top of touring and travelling around constantly, I think we did a really good job of following up what we all consider a great debut. I think we’ve topped it, which is a real achievement. You performed at The Victoria’s Secret Show. How did that feel? Adam: It was great, yeah. I personally didn’t realise how much of a big deal it was until I looked into it more after finding out we were doing it, but yeah it was a great experience, and yeah, it was fun. Luke: It was really bizarre. The guy who actually runs the whole entire show was the guy who basically heard the music and thought, you know what? I am going to take a chance on this because the music itself really compliments the show and the pace of it, and it’s sexy rock and the girls will be able to walk really well to it… and he was right, it worked really well but we were definitely fish out of water! I mean, Shawn Mendes, Rita Ora, The Chainsmokers, Halsey; these are people who are all massive, bona fide pop stars in their own right, and it didn’t surprise me when we were told to mingle with some of the girls and no-one really knew who we were but they were lovely, and it’s cool. I actually saw the performance, I went to Geneva Airport on Christmas Eve and on the way out, I saw the Victoria Secret shop and of course, there we were, on the big screen. The music, would you say it’s glam rock? Adam: I wouldn’t say it’s glam rock in the sense, like T-Rex and stuff like that. I think it’s more the aesthetic, which is glammy, and then the influences are there but it’s kind of a mixture of everything. We draw inspiration from T-Rex, and Slade, and Bowie, and there’s Queen, The Rolling Stones are in there, Oasis to a certain extent, Supergrass. So, it’s a real mixture, all the music that we love, but I suppose if you want to put it under an umbrella… Luke: I think glam is a good label to stick on the group. First and foremost, the band has always been about pushing things forward, and that includes the kind of glam genre. Adam’s right, like he said, the aesthetic visually is quite glam, sonically it’s not what people think as glam, and you flip that on its head as well and the music is kind of like this melting pot of everything but we’re not carbon copies of Queen or The Stones or all these other bands, and in terms of rock
music in general, we want to push things forward which is why we introduce a lot of different sounds into our music which we don’t really feel that people have done in quite a while or ever done before. You talked about some of your influences there; do you think there’s a bit of resurgence in those sorts of acts and more of an interest for bands like you, a new band? Luke: Yeah, I think we’ve been coined along with Greta Van Fleet to be, what I read, was retro-revivalists. Are you happy with that? Luke: Look, it’s great to be associated with any kind of movement, I guess; I wouldn’t say it’s 100 percent truth but there’s no denying it, when people look at us we are definitely wearing our influences on our sleeve, and probably pushing things forward and daring to be a bit more progressive than other people in that movement, but I think it’s cool. Even if you were to look back in the 90s and think, OK well what’s Britpop? People define it as Oasis and Blur, but among that as well, you had Supergrass and Pulp... it’s cool to be part of something. We’ve got to talk about what Dave Grohl said as well (he said that they were the greatest band to ever support Foo Fighters). Luke: Oh yeah? That was nice, a kind thing to say as well, weren’t it? Very nice! It’s quite funny, along with how amazing that year was, on and off, touring with them. To begin with, we were only meant to be doing one leg of the tour and then he kept asking us again, and then again… Did you notice a change in how people perceived you after he said that? Luke: It’s still fairly early days. I noticed the moment it went up on Twitter, my publicist here in the UK said “NME want to talk”. And that’s the first time they’ve ever really wanted to know anything about us. So, there is like trickling of opportunities that are coming from that, which is so hilarious; it just goes to show the power of influence, doesn’t it? I think it’s a little bit early days but we’re already starting to get a few things. Adam: The UK tour is selling really well so that probably helped. How many years has it been since you did a full UK tour? Adam: Five years! Yeah, we did Liverpool, Manchester… One of the gigs [Leamington Spa] we played to my brother and his four mates, I think. Luke: Yeah, we did. We did Exeter as well. Exeter was bad. Adam: It was your mum and dad. Luke: Yeah, with probably about nine people in the audience. Adam: So this one is about 1,000-cap rooms all across the board. Shepherd’s Bush and Rock City are about 2,000, looks like it’s gonna sell out which is going to be amazing because that’s what we always wanted really, to do it on our own turf. Without massive airplay, like Kerrang! Radio and we got Planet Rock, which is great, but without mainstream like Radio 1 and stuff like that, so it’s cool. You mentioned Rock City, that’s essentially your hometown show. Have you played there before, supporting or anything? Adam: We’ve played the basement about eight years ago... and Spanky Van Dyke’s? That’s not open anymore. I think there were about five people. Rock City is 2,000-cap and it’s really close to selling out! Luke: We did Download last year, which was pretty insane. We had no idea how that was going to fly...There was a sea of people; there were easily 12,000, probably. Adam: I think more. About 20,000, I reckon. Download is literally, I think, the only last remaining rock festival, like, true rock festival. I mean Post Malone is headlining Reading and Leeds this year I think, which is cool, but it ain’t rock music, is it? Luke: Reading and Leeds has always been a sign of the times, it reflects what’s happening chart-wise over here in the United Kingdom, so it doesn’t surprise me that it’s a lot more urban and pop music, but no, Download is definitely the last remaining “proper rock” rock festival. How would you describe a Struts show? Luke: It’s very theatrical. One thing we always try to do is give the audience a completely different experience to what they would have just putting the album on. So, we tend to add a lot of things to the songs themselves. There’s costume changes, there’s audience participation... Adam: It’s a lot rockier than the record… It’s like a garage band version of the album really because its just me on guitar, I don’t have all the bells and whistles that we have on the record. It’s definitely just much more in your face. High energy, and sweaty. Luke: I’d say if anyone enjoys the music and is interested by that, I would encourage anyone to come and see us live, because that is really our bread and butter. That really is one of the biggest reasons we’ve been getting such promising opportunities. The only reason we managed to get the Foo Fighters one was because Dave came and saw us play live. A friend of a friend of his had heard us, and they were on holiday together, and a few days before he said, ‘You know that band I was telling you about? They’re in DC, why don’t we go watch them?’ and he was like ‘Yeah, let’s do it’ and he ended up loving it. I would definitely say we’re very much a live band and I think we take enormous pride in what we do live.
■ The Struts play Rock City this Sunday, Tickets: www.alttickets.com, £17.05 inc. booking fee.