The Treatment
The band prepare for nine UK dates with their new frontman.
No longer considered new kids on the block, the British hard rockers launch a nine-date headline tour, backed by Airrace and Tequila Mockingbyrd.
With Spinal Tap it was drummers, but The Treatment seem to have a problem with lead singers – Tom Rampton is the third one you’ve had.
Dhani Mansworth: For us, this is a case of third time lucky. Mitchel [Emms, whom they found after he appeared on TV show The Voice] was a very different person – his influences and direction, and what he wanted out of music.
2018 is actually the band’s tenth anniversary.
Tagore Grey: It makes us feel older than we’d like. Being picky, we first met ten years ago but didn’t become The Treatment until our previous band broke up eight years ago.
DM: We signed to Spinefarm Records on my eighteenth birthday and I’m now twenty-five. We’ve grown up together. That gives us quite an interesting story
Your tour across the US with rock giants Kiss and Mötley Crüe at the invitation of the headliners was now six years ago. Have the band lost momentum since then?
DM: We hold our hands up to that. We’ve been through three members since then and now the line-up is stable enough to tour again. It was quite a journey to get back on the right path, but now the people in the band all want the same things. TG: With Mitch it was a rocky road for two years, but he’s gone, we’re focused again, and there’s no animosity towards him. Special guests on these dates are the rejuvenated AOR/pomp band Airrace, which means double duty for you, Dhani. DM: It’ll be good to see my dad [Laurie] let down his hair and play instead of being a manager. I’m just as proud of being in The Treatment as I am of having played on the Airrace album [Untold Stories]. Tequila Mockingbyrd, a trio of hard-rocking punky girls from Australia are the opening band on the tour.
DM: We first met them on a tour with Massive and hung out with them when we went to Australia. TG: It makes for a good bill – there’s something for everyone.
What can you tell us about your upcoming fourth album, which is due to be released some time next year?
DM: Tom will take us back to our classic rock roots. Some people liked Generation Me [2016] and some didn’t, and that’s okay. But we had a singer who was the polar opposite of us and given the adversity we faced, it required a happy medium.
“It was quite a journey to get back on the right path.”
Are there any apologies for its slightly salacious lead-off single, Let’s Get Dirty?
TG: None at all. If only we’d had the money to make the video we wanted [laughs].
DM: It’s a rock’n’roll song – everything that rock is is in that song. DL