Sheggs found to be rather good indeed.
How is the Tour going so far?
Hot! A lot of people turning out and the best tour for a long time because of the album coming out, this tour is all about celebrating that. Yeah, it’s been awesome. It’s been a strange one as before the tour the ticket sales weren’t great but since Kerrang magazine, it’s just been crazy so far.
You did the album through Pledge Music. How was that?
It was awesome, it was really cool, we didn’t know what to do about the new record, so I said, ‘well let’s do it through Pledge’. There’s a guy called Ginger from The Wildhearts, through talking to him and his old manager who said we should go down that route. It’s amazing to think that, you put it up and you don’t really know, then it hits the 100% target and carries on going! We did about 140%. It’s so nice to come to the shows and speak to people who actually pledged. They are like ‘thank you so much’ but realistically I keep saying to them ‘if it wasn’t for you guys we wouldn’t have done this record’.
How has the album been received?
All the reviews have been great; I haven’t seen one bad review! The response has been great.
What was it in your life that lead you to being in a band?
It was just growing up in Corby, there used to be nothing there, not even a train station to leave town. If you didn’t have a car you couldn’t really get out. There was no cinema etc. It was a closed steel works town, though it’s lovely now. That’s the reason why we got in a band. Luckily a guy called David Bianchi (Vision Artists) managed us who came from Corby as well, took us on and it went from there!
What is the wildest thing you done on tour?
There’s loads of things really, throwing tables, setting fire to tour buses (they were cold!), loads of stuff like that! There are so many stories around us! People saying that to me the other day, ‘oh, you’re quite a yobbish band’ and I think ‘are we?’ It makes me laugh to think ‘are we?’. Then I step back and think, yeah we probably are. That’s who we are! There’s loads of stories like that but it’s all been published before.
How has touring changed since your last tour in 2008?
It has got better since the tour in 2008. It had become a bit of lull and we now have more of an understanding that we do have to work. We have got mortgages and kids and stuff. Responsibilities, which I think is good in a way, it has calmed us down a bit. But we let our hair down a bit on tour. We have all grown up a bit. It’s a lot better in my head anyway.
How do you feel about technology affecting live bands, like ‘Phone-in-face’ syndrome at gigs?
That really does my head in. Why can’t people just come to watch a show? Frank in Leeds took someone’s phone off him and that’s the reason why, it really p*sses him off. Having a picture is good but when you’re trying to play a show and you’ve got someone pointing a camera in your face. What I always think is, ‘why do you want to come and watch it through your screen when you are actually at a gig?’ It just blows my mind.
If there was a movie made about you, who would you want to play you?
Oh my God, Phil Collins, hahaha. I always get told I look like Phil Collins so why not!
And the other guys in the band?
Oh, Dave would have to be Jack Black. Small J, the really small guy in Harry Potter, not Daniel Radcliffe! Warwick Davies! For John – Mr T! For Jim, he’s a hard one… Bill Nye! For Frank, Will Ferrell, he looks like him!
Raging Speedhorn: facebook | reverbnation
