After seeing Lawson at the 02 Academy in Birmingham, I had the opportunity to chat to Joel from the band about the tour, their new album and how he feels about the charts today.
Hi Joel, how are you?
I am awesome thank, did you enjoy the show last night?
I did, it was so good.
Really? Oh that's awesome. I love that venue, we had a really good. It was a big honour to headline.
When you are gigging, do you find at different venues you get different responses?
The first ten rows back are intense the whole time, which is amazing. It's what you want. Then, sometimes its weird because different places we've been, the audience has changed. This tour especially, its been more of a mix, like some older people are getting on board, because we are a band, our influences are old school, like we love older bands. We love the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, people like that and I think people are picking up on that. People love Juliet which is out at the moment, its quite like the Police. It was a Police vibe to it. Our audiences are getting onto it and we are loving that at the moment, thats what we want.
If you can attract the older audience, people are respect you and see the musical side, not just as 4 great looking guys, but that you really bring something to the table that people can see that, actually you are all bloody good musicians and its not just that one dimension.
Thats it. We've been trying to get that across for a long time. There are still a lot of people who just see us at four faces that sing pop music. There is a lot more too us. We've been doing this for a long time, gigging up and down the Country. I really hope people see the musical side because to us that is what really matters. I know it sounds cliché but it generally does.
I think it was you last night who said how it was good to see a band who play there own instruments in the charts. That's what its about. Have you heard this 'The Fox' song?
The Fox song? What's that?
Two comedians have released this song and its basically them singing and dressed as a Fox and its gone viral on Youtube and its in the charts.
You're kidding? Oh my god. That's exactly what I mean. I imagine it'll be massive and there will be knobheads walking around with it on there phones, laying it full blast. But like I said last night its cool to have bands in the charts. Like One Republic are in it at the moment. We're honoured to be up against One Republic this week. There are a great band. Even since we started bringing out music, its not all about the boybands anymore. It's about time. A bit more substance.
As a musican, is it more rewarding for you to get a number 1 or have a sold out show?
It's all about the gig. As much as we'd love to have a number 1, of course we would, every band would, its a massive honour to be the highest selling single that week. It's incredible. It's always been about gigs for us, its always been about playing. I think we sound quite different live than how we do recorded. Not that its a bad thing. It's still got to fit in on radio but I'm glad we have that other dimension. For us that is the most important part. It's a tough one but I think a sold out gig is a lot more important to us.
You are re-releasing Chapman Square. What led to the decision to re-release the album with additional material, rather than release a new album?
This year we have done quite a lot of different place. South East Asia, Australia, we've just come off a big tour in America and we kind of wanted everybody to be on the same page. We didn't want to bring out a second album here and still have to release the first album in America. I want the fans to all feel like they are in it together, everyone can have new music at the same time. Everybody can jump on board and its important to do that. I don't feel like we are ready for album 2, Chapman Square has a lot more to give.
How do see your sound developing?
I think being more raw, more like Juliet. A rocky sound, the four of us. I have always said, when we started we wanted to make the sort of music that we wanted to listen too. We wanted to play music, that we wanted to hear.
Thank you for talking to me Joel and good luck with the single and album!
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.