05 September 2023
Newsdesk
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher of Royal Blood join Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1 to discuss details around their new album ‘Back to the Water Below’ which is out now. Royal Blood touch on experimenting with a new sound, new tracks ‘Shiner in the Dark’, ‘Triggers’ and ‘Pull Me Through’ and talk on their Radio 1 Big Weekend performance. Mike and Ben go on to discuss their homecoming gig, their recent tour and thoughts on support act Hot Wax.
Mike (Royal Blood) on experimenting with a new sound...
Yeah, I think it surprised us as well, really. I think we probably had most of the song penned out on piano and then like a lot of the songs on this record, we had two options. We were like, "Do we turn this into a Royal Blood song or do we just follow this song down the rabbit hole?" And probably at the point of the solo, we were like, "Oh wow, we're doing this, are we? Okay, cool." So yeah, it is. We always end up resorting to what the song should be, but sometimes you have to take it through the process of beating it up, pulling it apart, putting it back together. But I would say we did that the least on this album. We recognised a lot that how it sounds at the early stages, we probably got 90% of it right because we have our own studio as we're laying down ideas in real time, usually we're pretty stoked on that first take because it's instinctive and I found that a lot of the demo vocals, whatever you want to call them, the other main vocals because there's a carefree attitude of, "Oh, it's the demo."
Mike (Royal Blood) on track Shiner in the Dark…
No, I think Shiner in the Dark was something we had written and recorded while we were touring Typhoons. Our tour of Typhoons was so broken up, there was these big pockets of time, by the time that tour finished and we went into making new songs, we didn't want that song to hold us back on what else we could do. We didn't want it to become a blueprint too soon. So I think as soon as that tour finished, I think we took a couple of weeks on holiday and something we both find difficult, we're both quite restless people and I found myself writing lyrics and having complete songs of lyrics but with no music, which is something I'd never done before. And I think two weeks was enough time for us to really looking forward to having a blank slate and starting new songs. Some of the songs I was coming in, I was like, "Okay, I've got words but I've got no music." And even that was a really different approach. I was just sat on the beach writing lyrics about coconuts. I think I felt for the first time, the most confident to write lyrics. I didn't set out as a musician, to be a lyricist. It's something I just found myself doing and then began to enjoy. So I feel like I've cut my teeth in public. I would never have done that at the beginning.
Mike (Royal Blood) on track Triggers…
That line in particular maybe was a reaction to how much I had given away over that album. I found myself talking about it at length, which is not an easy thing to do, so I think I just thought it was appropriate to say in the song. There's no going back from that once you've revealed that much of yourself. That's it. No, I don't think so, but I don't think I thought it through as much. So I think that song's being on the other side of that now and dusting yourself off and being like, "Where does that leave me now?" There is a misconception, I think, when you get sober that everything's fine and your life's completely sorted and that's fine, but it's actually day one.
Mike (Royal Blood) on the track Pull Me Through…
There was a theme on Pull Me Through that pointed towards this song of being in a isolating and submerged place in your own mind or in your own life and instead of trying to escape it or run away from it, just acknowledging it and either sitting in it or reaching out. And I think that's a very new thing for me that I'm still learning, but seeing the strength in that, I think asking for help from me, I've honestly just thought it was weak. Yeah. I just thought it was weak. I was like, "If you can't do it on your own, then you're weak." And I've learned that it takes an immense amount of strength to ask for help. It's what I was saying to Ben, we've got heavy songs and then some of these new softer ones, and I think the softer ones is the toughest I've ever felt in a song because I'm not hiding anywhere. I've taken all my armour off and I'm like, "Yeah."
Royal Blood on their Radio 1 Big Weekend performance…
Mike:
I'm not on any social media or anything like that, so I was honestly just getting grass thrown at me and daily updates on the digital weather. It's nothing that we haven't said before about it really, which is that I think we were just amazed of the scale of it and the scale of the story just seems so out of sync with the severity of it. That's not how our gigs go down. That's not our reputation as a band. It's not my reputation as a person or as a front man. Our gigs are really fun. And don't take my word for it, ask our fans. It was a one-off blip. It was an unnecessary roasting on my part, but not something that was noteworthy enough to make national news. We walked off thinking it was great. I thought we played great. I thought the ending was dramatic and pantomime-esque and funny. There was zero malice in it. I think that was our 600th show? That's not my vibe, but for anyone that doesn't know who I am, doesn't know who the band, didn't watch the show, only watch that clip. I completely sympathise why you would've come to the conclusion that we're just being horrible people, but it's not my job to go around correcting anyone either.
Ben:
We had a great gig, we loved it. Like Mike said, we walked off stage and we watched it back and we were laughing at ourselves and then you just get hounded. It wasn't a nice feeling, but also, it's not our reputation.
Mike (Royal Blood) on performing their homecoming gig…
I personally don't find myself thinking about those kinds of things till they're happening. I think for us, when we actually got to the gig, I walked from my house to the show. Yeah. And you're just thinking, "I live here. This is insane." You think back to the beginning really where it all began and playing in pubs and the innocence of where this was going. With big shows, I found this on the Muse ones, which were just insane. There were like 80,000 people some nights. So there is a survival tactic that I think is required to do that because that's not normal. And it's like, "How do you do that?" And I find not recognising too much what's going on is actually a really helpful tactic for performing because we're there to play a show and play well. If I stand there and go, "Oh my God, there's 80,000." If I just say that to myself, I'm going to freak the (F***) out. So I needed to be like, "No, no one's there. We're just in the rehearsal room." This is normal. I think part of your brain has to go, this is normal. You have to normalise it so you can survive in that environment. If you don't normalise it when you're on stage, then I think you start making mistakes.
Royal Blood on their recent shows…
Mike:
They've been amazing. I feel like the chemistry between the two of us is stronger than ever and I'm worried that we're about to get worse because I feel like we're peaking or we're peaking real hard right now. I feel good about how we play. It's great. There's people eating dinner in one corner and then there's hardcore fans that have travelled miles, and then there's people that were like, "You've interrupted their night." And it's like, "Go on then, let's see what you've got." And then you see a mosh pit with all those people happening. I remember seeing one guy who had clearly never seen a mosh pit before. I could just tell he didn't know. He thought it was a fight.
Ben:
It's really strange where the good gigs come up. I remember we were playing in Europe and in between the Muse shows, we were doing our own stuff as well, and I remember getting out of the bus and being like, "Where the hell are we?" There's like a circus tent going on and there was a community festival basically, and I was like, "What are we doing here?" And I was like, "Who is going to come?" We're in the middle of nowhere. There's some guy from the church making bacon and eggs on his little camping stove for everyone for breakfast. And the show came around and it just went off and it was just the weirdest. That's where you try all your new tricks because you feel comfortable enough to try something new.
Mike (Royal Blood) on their tour supporting act Hot Wax…
Yeah. I think that's probably the reason we love it. But yeah, they're amazing and it's really important to us who we bring out on the road. Bringing out amazing support acts is always good for us as well because it - keep you on your toes.
