Royal Blood
The hard-hitting turbo-duo return with their most danceable, most feelgood album yet – and one member’s new sobriety.
Two years ago Mike Kerr became a different person. The Royal Blood singer/bassist was in Las Vegas when the dark shadow that had followed him for some time crystallised in one simple decision: he was done with drinking. Amid the neon and noise of the world’s gambling capital, he experienced a moment of clarity and downed the espresso martini that would be his last alcoholic beverage to date. Although that martini was technically a relapse of sorts.
“I kind of had this moment where I was like: ‘Wow, I think that’s it, I think I’m done,’” he remembers today. “And then I was so drunk I forgot I’d already ordered an espresso martini, and the guy gave it to me and I was like: ‘Maybe one more.’ And that was my last one,” he says with a wry half-chuckle. “But I basically immediately failed. It was quite funny.”
Looking fresh and serious, Mike Kerr has the polite, if slightly short manner of someone you expect to make a sarcastic comment at any given moment. Which he does at times, in the sort of deadpan tone that makes even the daftest remarks fleetingly believable. But he’s an engaging interviewee, pausing to consider his answers and seldom fluffing his words. The solemnity of his personal shift, and the weight of the dark places that led to it, sit somewhere behind his eyes.
“I think there came a point where I was… sick and tired of being sick and tired, and bored of the same internal monologue, and I just… Yeah, I guess [pause, small laugh] ironically I gave up, and I had to tap out, you know?”
Ben Thatcher, Kerr’s permanently baseballcapped bandmate, is easier company. Immediately flouting a wealth of ‘silent drummer’ stereotypes, today he’s the warmer, chattier of the two. “I’m quite tame when it comes to all that stuff,” he says when asked about his extravagances since Royal Blood made it big. “I mean, I have a lovely car and a lovely house… and I have a dog. Her name’s Penny, I’ll get her for you if you want?” He darts out and returns with a panting, tail-wagging armful of cuddly cockapoo.
It’s easy to see how Thatcher could be considered to be the rock of Royal Blood. The friendly stabiliser. The anchor for Kerr’s off-thewall, bass-that-sounds-like-a-guitar theatrics.
The propulsive beat-keeper of British rock’s most incendiary two-piece of the last decade, with a slew of hits to their name that were too heavy for radio – then got played on the radio. A lot.
“I think it was just needed,” Thatcher says simply, of Kerr’s decision to get sober. “We were so in the moment and having a lot of fun with it all, it was just something that we knew was coming, and we knew he had to make some changes.”