This month one of the year’s most exciting tours will be coming to a venue near you! The Roadstars joint headline tour with Broken Witt Rebels and Bad Touch will see blues-rock take over some of the countries finest venues and Stevie from Bad Touch took some time to speak to us ahead of the tour.
So – the Roadstars tour – are you looking forward to it?
Yeah man definitely, we’re looking forward to getting out there with the Broken Witt Rebels. We’re gonna have to step our game up they’re young guys, great band, you know killer sound. We met them briefly before and just looking forward to living in each others pocket and take the UK by storm.
And the Broken Witt Rebels then, have you seen them before at all?
I’ve checked them out, you’ve gotta check out the competition haven’t you. Me and the guitarist went to watch them support Joanne Shaw Taylor at the Waterfront which was cool to see them play and they put the willies up us so we have to pull it out of the bag now. I’m heading to band practice now and we’re gonna get it as tight as possible ready for the tour.
You’re playing some fantastic venues on the tour, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to?
Well obviously we’ve played the Waterfront in Norwich before but I always like going to a new venue – I live for it mate I love touring we all love touring and we’re just looking forward to making new friends. We kick off at the Brudenell Social club, I haven’t played there so that’ll be good.
How are you finding the UK music scene then currently as you embark on this huge tour following the album release last year?
I think it’s quite an exciting time to be in a band because I believe the general public don’t actually know what they want – I think people are a bit sick of X Factor and Simon Cowell and telling them what they should like so I think people are rediscovering themselves, rediscovering music so it’s quite a cool time to be in a band. All you can do is make sure you’re out there in front of as many people as possible and hopefully shine your light.
And touring, is that the best part of being in Bad Touch?
We love it we live for it. We all work I’m a barman personally and standing there pouring pints – people say “ah what you doing” [in a band], you have to justify yourself and it’s really nice when you get out and have a great time and play in front of a couple of hundred people and you can slap it in their face when back.
How do you as a band come to write and who influences you?
I’m not the only writer we all write equally we’re all influenced by different genres. Bass player is a huge British metal fan, biggest Iron Maiden fan you’ll ever find. I love everything from folk to disco. I like everything that makes you wanna dance. We root ourselves in bands like Zeppelin, Stones, Black Crows its all basically about that making you wanna get up and have a lark about.
A lot of those influences clearly come through on the new record, how has that release been for you?
Gone really really well I’ve been quite shocked really to be honest. For a little band from Norwich how well its gone down, how many people have liked it is amazing. You know its not everyone’s cup of tea, but we don’t wanna be everyone’s cup of tea but yeah I couldn’t really of seen it go any better. Obviously it’d be nice to not go back to work but we live in the real world. We just keep putting it in front of people and hopefully they’ll like it and come see us again. [The recording process] was great it was only about 18 months after Halfway Home came out so we had all these songs and we kind of wrote them and just yeah took them to the studio it was very natural we picked the ones we liked. Some didn’t even get finished till the studio but gives you a sense of rawness and I’m really chuffed its gone as well as it has.
What made you choose the two singles you have released as the lead ones for the album?
Erm, just I dunno I think we all just talked about it really and thought which one was the most easily accessible, the one people will like first time they hear them not the third time. There’s so many good bands out there you have to make your mark as quickly as possible so they’re just the ones we thought people would like them.
Obviously it’s had plenty of streams on Spotify and the like, how is it for a small band having that platform to get music out?
It’s a proper double edge sword. I think its great for bands like us to get our sound out there and get people hearing it but regarding continuation of us, they pay nothing it might as well be free. The last quarter the royalties came in and I got seven pence. I’ve not got a huge ego and I know we didn’t have very many plays but I hark back to a time when you used to buy music, have it hold it and keep it and that’s the difference. I mean last year was the first time since 1977 or something vinyl outsold CD people are rediscovering things and rediscovering CDs. Me and my dad talk about it – back when vinyl was a thing, even CDs, just before it was an amount of data on your phone. You had to physically and literally make space for a vinyl go to a shop carry it home and find a space for it in your bedroom it just meant a lot more – I feel that’s gonna be lost they an just type in what they want at that moment and after 60 seconds just turn it off.
Changing it up a little, if we were having this conversation in a years time where would you like to see the band?
Obviously with Harry here it’s sort of stinted the writing process for now we’ve just been trying to get to the point where we don’t go backwards. Harry is an amazing guitar player he learnt all of our songs in about three days so were just getting our stage show fluid and looking to have some real fun on this tour then think about writing some more for the next album. I don’t put too much pressure on myself or my colleagues in the band – it’s hard its completely fluid its subjective sort of art form you can say this is where you wanna be and 9 times out of 10 you wont be there. As long as were still friends and playing shows and I’m not bankrupt then I’m okay.
And just to finish – if you could change one thing about the music industry right now what would it be?
That’s a hard one because what I love about music and art in general is it’s completely subjective and you are allowed to be wrong, you are allowed to be right and nobody can tell you you’re wrong or right so that’s why I’m in it. I’d change the fact that people need to trust themselves a little bit more with regards to what they like they think people won’t listen to things or won’t go out to certain things because they think no that’s not the in thing so I can’t go listen to that. Going back to the X factor thing I think if people stop listen to things what he says is good they might realise what he says is good isn’t necessarily good and they know themselves what is good. Just trust themselves a little bit more, go out and have a good time.
Catch the band on the Roadstars tour with the Broken Witt Rebels. Dates are below and our interview with Danny Core of the BWR can also be found here
Halfway 2 Nowhere 