MASSIVE WAGONS

Now with a Top 10 album under their belt, the quintet have spent much of 2020 keeping their creativity going and remaining optimistic.

Back in June, as their album hovered tantalisingly in the UK midweek chart, Massive Wagons ran a treadmill marathon in aid of mental health charity MIND. The goal was to capitalise on the goodwill generated in the build-up to the release of House Of Noise – fuelled, to varying degrees, by their own mental health experiences.

“It sounds so silly and throwaway, just to be able to do what you want,” singer Baz Mills says over the phone from the Wagons HQ in Lancashire, “but the implications for people’s mental health, being stuck at home… People eat themselves up about these things.”

When the week’s chart was finalised, Wagons were at No.9, neatly sandwiched between Lewis Capaldi and Harry Styles. To call it a surreal, triumphant punch in the air for rock circa 2020 would be an understatement. “We were confident in the material,” guitarist Adam Thistlethwaite says, “but it was the people who like the band and follow the band. We owe it all to them, really. It was them shouting about it, telling their mates about it, playing the singles.”

“You get a feel for it in the months leading up to it,” says Mills. “Y’know: ‘We’ve got a shot at this, the songs are going down well.’ Especially In It Together.”

That flagship single could have been written expressly for March 2020 (it actually came to life precovid), when it first blasted through our speakers. An immaculately timed burst of rock community spirit, its loveable Wildhearts-meets-Darkness-meets-Quo vibe was just what the world needed.

“That was exactly why we decided to go ahead with the release,” Mills says. “We thought, well, this might bring a little bit of sunshine and normality.’”

Since that week they’ve filled the space with regular videos, music and chit-chat on their ‘Wagons

World’ YouTube channel. They played shows, too, most of them livestreams but also two warmly received, socially distanced shows at the Waterloo bar in Blackpool. They’ve also started writing their next album, and are now entertaining the bizarre possibility that it might get released before they’ve been able to tour House Of Noise.

When Classic Rock talks to the band the world is at an odd juncture. We’re in the middle of the second national lockdown, but serious hopes for a vaccine have started to heat up. How optimistic are they for 2021 at this point?

“Doing what we do, you’re kinda forced into being blindly optimistic, because you can’t afford to wait and see,” Thistlethwaite replies. “You’ve got to assume the best. Which goes completely against my nature, because I’m a totally pessimistic miserable git, but you’ve got to be like that. When the all-clear does come, it’s gonna be quick.”

“We’ve got to keep this stuff going, even if it might not happen,” Mills adds. “What’s the alternative? Go quiet for a year until it’s safe to come out again? We can’t do that.”

Time will tell when shows can finally happen again. In the meantime, how’s Christmas in the Wagons households?

“Chaos, kids!” father-of-two Thistlethwaite says with a laugh.

“It’s just been full-on band every day all the time,” says Mills. “We’re fortunate enough to do this for a job. We’re in this unit every day doing band things, so Christmas can hopefully be a time of… Hopefully I won’t see any of the band for a few weeks!”

“Sit in a quiet room…” Thistlethwaite continues, sounding a little wistful.

“Just chilling out with family,” Mills concludes. “Bit of James Bond and chicken sandwiches.”