by Keira Knox
The Royston Club are quickly becoming the most prominent, upcoming indie-rock band around. After their breakthrough album ‘Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars‘ reached the top 20 on the UK Official Album Chart, they sold out KOKO, performed to thousands of people over three performances at Glastonbury, and headlined the biggest event to ever take place in their hometown of Wrexham. They’ve gone from strength to strength in recent years and are now set to headline This Feeling’s By The Sea on the 6th of September. I had the pleasure to sit down with Tom Faithfull and Ben Matthias to talk about The Royston Club’s plans for 2024 and beyond!
Keira : You’ve got some huge performances coming up, including a headline set at This Feeling’s By The Sea in September! How excited are you to headline such a renowned festival?
Tom : We’re buzzing! It’s one of the first festival headlines we’ve done! We’ve done one or two before, but to do one like this as one of our early ones is huge! It’s a great line-up as well, it’s all you need really!
Keira : It’s an incredible lineup that’s obviously set to be topped by your headline performance! Are there any artists in particular that you’re looking forward to seeing on the bill?
Ben : I think we’re just going to go round for the day, having a look, because there’s some bands there that we haven’t really seen before!
Tom : There’s loads of bands that we’ve heard the name of but have never had the chance to actually watch in the flesh! I think when we get there, they’ll be a few that we are pretty excited to see!
Keira : When you’re performing at festivals, do you ever get the opportunity to go and explore, watch new bands or are you moving straight on to whatever is coming next?
Tom : It depends on our schedule really. We always try and watch as much as we can! If you’re going to spend the day at a festival you might as well soak up as much of it as you can! We love going to festivals ourselves anyway, so whenever we are there we’ll try and see as much as we can!
Ben : We have had some tough ones though where we’ve missed Pulp and The Streets because we’ve had to shoot off. That’s really depressing, it’s tough (laughing).
Keira : You’ve got try and not think about that, I think if I missed The Streets I’d be crying for weeks! (laughing)
Tom : It was a very sombre journey home!
Keira : I’ve got a bit more of a fun question for you guys, if you could pick any artist on the bill to cover one of your tracks, who would it be and which song would you pick?
Tom : I know he’s not on the bill but I’d love Flo Rida to do ‘Shawshank’!
Ben : The K’s! What track could they do? I reckon they’d give ‘Cold sweats’ a good go!
Tom : Yeah I’d like to see The K’s do that! I’ll get on board with that one!
Keira : We need that collab now! You’re going to have to get that sorted! (laughing)
Tom : Yeah we’d be game for that!
Keira : Keeping on with the topic of tours and festivals, can we take a moment for your tour posters for each night of the Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars tour. Did you have a personal favourite poster from the tour?
Tom : I had a personal least favourite if that counts! Definitely Terminator, me being topless was comfortably the least favourite! (laughing)
Ben : I loved The Breakfast Club one, that was fun!
Tom : I liked the one where I was pregnant! What was that called again?
Ben : Juno!
Tom : Yeah I loved Juno!
Ben : They are such good fun to do those ones! Such good days!
Keira : What would you like new fans and listeners to take away from a Royston Club live performance?
Ben : Hopefully they’re just having fun and enjoying the music! Then going away and listening to us a bit more!
Tom : Hopefully they hear a bit of the energy! I feel like we put on a pretty decent live show if I do say so myself! So hopefully they do feel a little bit of our energy!
Keira : You’ve just released a brand new track ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ which is incredible! Can we expect to hear any more new, unreleased material from you at your upcoming shows?
Ben : You never know!
Tom : We can say we’ll probably be playing so new stuff! I can’t imagine that it will be released by then but we will definitely be playing some new stuff by then I would have thought!
Ben : We’ve got a lot in the locker!
Keira : What was the biggest learning curve in writing and recording the new tune?
Ben : That’s a good question! I’d say we took a lot of time off after album one so I’d say we learnt just how to get on with it! (laughing)
Tom : Quite a lot of it we were with a new producer for as well! We’d never worked with him before, it was the first time we’d worked with a new producer anyway, so we had to learn how he worked and all that sort of stuff! For us, that was a bit of a learning curve!
Keira : I know you only released your debut album last year but I can’t help myself in asking, when is album two coming?
Ben : Well, we haven’t got a date for you but soon! (laughing)
Tom : Soon! Next year! We’ll go as vague as that!
Keira : I think I’ll be able to wait until then! (laughing)
Keira : If you could create your dream festival line-up, which 5 artists or bands would be the first on your bill?
Ben : Alright, so The Strokes would definitely be on it!
Tom : We’ll go with the basic ones!
Ben : So, The Strokes, Radiohead, Fontaines D.C.….
Tom : Well those were the three I was going to rattle off! Can we go alive or dead? (laughing)
Keira : Either! (laughing)
Tom : Well that’s a whole other ball game!
Ben : You would want someone like James Brown then! In his hey day!
Tom : James brown would be cool! You’d probably whack The Beatles on for the craic!
Ben : Yeah! Why not? (laughing)
Tom : In for a penny, in for a pound!
Ben : There’s so many good ones though, if it’s live then we are going to go with MJ!
Tom : Yeah…. Prince!
Ben : That’s a shout!
Tom : Alive though, we’ll go Fontaines, Radiohead, The Strokes…. I like The Cure to be fair!
Ben : Yeah! we’ll go with The Cure! It’ so tough this isn’t it?
Tom : Hazmat!
Keira : That’s a solid line-up! There’s a real mix of everything going on!
Tom : We’ll include something for everyone!
Keira : You had an incredible debut album released last year, a sold out UK tour and now two dates sold out at Liverpool’s O2 Academy! What is next for The Royston Club!
Tom : We’ve got some more dates that have just gone on sale today! I’m going to do a bit of a shameless plug here! Gigging in Newcastle and Cardiff! Really it’s all going to be based around that difficult second album, that’s at the forefront of our minds at the moment!
Tickets for This Feeling’s By The Sea available below!
BY THE SEA | (thisfeeling.co.uk)
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