07 December 2022
Newsdesk
Rag’n’Bone Man’s interview with Shaun Keaveny on The Line-Up With Shaun Keaveny podcast which landed today. Rag’n’Bone Man talks about running a café on Sundays selling bacon baps at his son’s local rugby pitch and lots more...
Shaun Keaveny: you are an extraordinarily difficult man to pin down, though, because it's been a kind of nuts a couple of years, it’s been nuts since about 2016 really, hasn't it?
Rag'n'Bone Man: Yeah, man. And also just like being a dad at the same time, it's like I'm really sorry I can't do the podcast because we've got to take the boys of rugby or something like that. You know, it's very boring. I'm not a party with Mick Jagger. I'm taking the boys to rugby.
Shaun Keaveny: Is Reubun a rugby boy then? is that he's his favourite sport?
Rag'n'Bone Man: Reuben isn't but I’ve sort of acquired more family now, so we've got two older boys, which are 12 and 13, and they are fully invested in rugby. So, you know, it's like it's training twice a week, games on a Sunday. I've recently been roped in to running a cafe by where they train and do their matches. So you can find me on a Sunday at the local rugby pitch serving bacon baps. It's not how I saw myself in my mid thirties, but that is what I'm doing.
Shaun Keaveny: That’s such a beautiful thing, though I I love that. The sort of prosaic, normal nature of that. Like you said that, you know, I'm afraid I can't because I'm flying out back out to Nashville to record the vocals for the album. No, I'm just serving up bacon and sausage baps down at the local rugby pitch.
Rag'n'Bone Man: Exactly.
Rag’n’Bone Man says he thinks he said the word human too may times in his song Human:
Rag'n'Bone Man… . I've never gone to play a gig and thought, I'm not going to play Giant or I'm not going to play Skin And I'm not going play Human because I'm not at the point in my career where I could do that. And I think even if I had another few hits or whatever in my career then I still would play those songs because they're the ones that people want to hear, which is which is okay, because there are people in that audience that want to hear songs like Perfume or Circles or whatever. You know, the songs that aren't so widely known. People still sing along with those ones, and that that makes that cool. I do listen to the songs sometimes and think do I say the word human bit too many times in that song, and I think the answer is yes. But I think I recorded this and wrote and recorded that song, pretty much in one day. And if I was given the opportunity to go back, I probably would have messed it up by over thinking it, you know, I would have gone, let's change that part, the middle parts not quite right. I said Humans six too many times, let's take those out and then probably wouldn't have been successful. So in hindsight, I'm very grateful for the song because, you know, immediately turned my audiences from, like, 1800 capacity venue somewhere to play it like the Zenith in France to like 11,000 people. Yeah, you can't not be to be grateful for that.
Rag’n’Bone Man talks about drinking a lot before going on stage with Rum Committee:
Rag'n'Bone Man: Yeah. I mean, there's not many times where I don't at least have one before I go on because it settles my nerves a little bit, and I used to drink a lot more before I went on stage. I mean, hence why we were called the Ram Committee. So there was a lot consumed in those days. I do take my own lessons, and I watch some of those videos back and realise how sloppy we were at times. I was talking to Gi3mo not long ago, and he was like, do you think we ever did a gig sober? And I don't think we did. But I remember the one time where Pharaoh Monch was coming to Brighton and we got the gig to support him at the Concord 2, and it was probably the only time we rehearsed as a group like properly. And we all met up at Bukioe's house and we all just we went through our verses and I think someone just piped up and said, “look, guys, do you reckon maybe we should save the rum until were on the stage?” and I think we all actually stayed fairly sober, at least for the first four or five songs. And it was one of the best gigs we ever did it….So I am wary of how much I drink before I show I'd never usually have more than two before I go on now.
Rag‘n’Bone Man talks about no longer using social media:
Rag'n'Bone Man: I don't have social media anymore because I am that sort of person that looks through 300 comments for the one bad one, and I realised that about myself and then like a year ago, I thought, I don't really have to have any of this on my phone, do I? I really don't have to and everyone's like, “no, it's what you pay us for, what we do that”. So I don't have it. I don't have any of it on my phone. No Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, anything like that. I just don't need it. And as soon as you don't do it, you're like, Oh, life is so much better without all of that. And then I'm like you, I do the French exit a lot, but often I've got quite comfortable with just saying “I'm going now” and I'm not giving a reason or it's okay to just say you don't want to go to something and not saying “Oh, sorry. I can't come because” it's no, I'm not coming.
Rag’n’Bone Man talks about watching System Of A Down with Liam Gallagher and Seasick Steve:
Rag'n'Bone Man: “…. It just doesn't happen very often, backstage at a festival, everyone's together in the compound but really close, and they made it so it encourages sort of people just to sit around. And I ended up sitting around having a glass of wine, and I was weirdly had my dressing room next to Seasick Steve and Liam Gallagher. I was like, this is a strange situation. And then I found myself at the front of the crowd, just with Seasick Steve and Liam Gallagher watching System Of A Down. And I thinking this is really weird. It's quite strange and a great show. Amazing show. And they're both just absolute gems of people. Like really, really nice guys, and they like to party as well.”
The Line-Up With Shaun Keaveny is available to listen to on all podcast platforms now.
