2019 was a big year for Red Rum Club, which included playing at Glastonbury. In October their follow up to Matador, The Hollow Of The Humdrum will be released. With this album, Red Rum Club are widening the spectrum of their sonic, this record varies from acoustic ballads to disco themed festival anthems. Theatrical brass and pop choruses are infused with rumbling bass lines, western guitars and Latin percussion and it reflects upon the vices and virtues people use to escape the mundanities of everyday life.

The identity of Red Rum Club is still very apparent but The Hollow Of Humdrum marks the band’s natural evolution from their debut album. I had the pleasure of talking to Fran Doran, the bands charismatic frontman, again, and asked about their phenomenal year and the new album.

(Paul Lyme)

Last time we met you told me that you did three festivals in 24 hours, Y Not Festival, Kendal Calling and Truck Festival. I was at Truck and you blew the top of the tent off, so how frustrating is it, especially at this time of year, not being able go on tour?

It’s horrible especially after the 15 months that we’ve had, with the live shows which are our biggest asset. We make a lot of noise, there is a big trumpet that gets attention. Playing live is what we enjoy the most, it is what we recommend. I think a lot of artists put music out from their bedrooms and putting demos out, that’s them being an artist. For us it was always about jumping in a van, going and playing a few shows, having a few beers with a few people, and that being pulled from us was is scary to be honest. It had never happened before and we thought is that us then, is that it? Have we got 12 months where we are out of the picture of the people’s consciousness?

But we’ve adapted and worked hard behind the scenes and during lockdown we have done Instagram Live and staying active to stay positive and it’s come back in. The feedback and and the attention is still there, which has been amazing. It just took us to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and stop sulking and to go on and do music however we can.

The Live At Liverpool LP is a great live album, was the gig as fun for you as it sounded?

Yeah, with home crowds we’ve got a little bit more pressure because you know who’s coming, you know there will be a few family and friends there. It’s a bit daunting at first, you think I just want to get it right because the show was a sell out  five months before it happened. With all that expectation we know we had to try and put on a good show.

But the funny thing was that we forgot it was being recorded. So we’ve been told a few weeks earlier that we’re going to record that by the record label. We thought OK then, yes, sound, and then we didn’t mention it all, you know since then, or even on the the day. But if someone had said to us five minutes beforehand ‘Oh boys remember this gig is being recorded’, I think it would have come up with totally different product.

You know, I certainly would have got my breath for a few of the lines. The lads would have probably had one bottle less before going on. But it came out great like that and I think, probably, it’s a blessing in disguise that we forgot about it because there’s a lot of energy in it, because, you can sort of hear and feel that we are having a good time as well as the fans.

With a live album, you don’t want it to sound like it’s coming out of the studio, do you? You just want it to sound like it would if you were the gig?

Yeah yeah exactly. I mean you want to sound close, Not miles away, but we want it to add something different. Absolutely, definitely. I always say to the lads when we are practicing when maybe when we get sort of hung up on something, you know about a certain way when we are practicing for our live shows, I would say ‘Boys we’ve got two versions of every song. It’s not gonna be exactly the same. You know, live as it is on record. First of all, because I’m singing it and there’s no auto tune on it. So it’s that thing isn’t it? That you have got to take the pressure off, a little bit and see it for something different. It is a record but it’s a live record. Because it’s a live representation.

(Paul Lyme)

So obviously the zombie apocalypse has had a big effect, especially with an album out and everything else but how has it affected your plans, and what have been the positives?

It has effected our plans simply by pushing them back for 12 months. That has been the bad bit, and the bad thing is we sort of panic about it. As I say we’ve always been face to face with fans. We’ve always been in the van and on travels. The biggest fear was that we would just fall out to people’s minds, you know, and we’d be like oh yeah remember them what happened to them? The bigger bands or the bands on bigger labels or bigger budgets will probably be able to bide their time a little bit more and be able to throw a bit of money behind it once they are back on the road. But from our point of view we were very aware that we’ve made a good impact and we’ve got a really good nucleus of fans across the country. We were always growing and we felt like we were stopping and generally standing still.

So I think we all had that worry, management and us six lads we’ve we’ve all talked about it. And that’s probably why we just went ahead and put the album on hold for two months, but then we were like right let’s just go for it, you know what I mean? We have to keep active in some way and if  we have to release an album, without playing a show before, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just put all our efforts into the online stuff, and hopefully, hopefully, the songs are big enough on the nuclease of fans, they’ll respond to it and spread the word. So it’s been really strange for us.

Also, then the positives are that this is the first time we’ve had off since Matador, before that we were gigging a good 12 months.  This is the first time we’ve been able to stop and find things, because we haven’t been having to worry about the live things.

We’ve been able to be like, let’s get some good press shots, let’s really think about the artwork for this album. Let’s really think about the approach as well as being able to think about the songs you know put on the album, like thinking about where to put the slowies. Maybe we wouldn’t have written them songs if we were all of us in a room thrashing about. It might have changed that a little bit, changed our focus a little bit, but I think it’s been for the good. You know, I think has been a positive thing in the end because we’ve been able to plan.

And you need to find positives don’t you from a situation like this?

Yeah, yeah, exactly and there’s been plenty. We were worried, as I say, about slowing down and things are quietening down on our socials and stuff like. But then we took the risk got a good plan behind us for the next 12 months, and then put for Eleanor out, and that has just been amazing.

(Paul Lyme)

I can see what you mean with the momentum. Obviously,  you released Matador and then you hit lots of gigs, then the festivals culminating in the sold out show in Liverpool. It was like it was like a boulder rolling downhill.

That’s what I felt like from the inside as well. We would see our progress through the crowds of people getting bigger, and getting a bit noisier, more people knowing the words, seeing the whites of their eyes, enjoying it. But now we have had to change and adapt, but we have been getting great feedback on social media and multiplying numbers of radio plays, you know we just take the feedback in a different way. We’re also positive now, we’re actually more positive now than ever because Eleanor has done so well.

That’s that’s quite reassuring isn’t it because at live gigs and especially festivals people to go into tents because they hear Joe blow his trumpet and come in. The fact that you’re not you’re not out there and you’re still maintaining that you must take some comfort out of that.

Yeah, massively, massively, you know we didn’t want to be a one trick pony like people see us live and then it’s like oh yeah that’s okay and then that’s all we can sell. We feel that we can sort of have an online presence, as well as a radio presence, as well as a streaming presence. We’ve never really thought before we’ve never really took that much notice of it because we’ve been busy doing other things. But it’s gratifying.

And last year you played Glastonbury on the BBC Introducing Stage which must have been a buzz. What was that like and did it work wonders for your confidence because, t I know you’re all shy and retiring types, you six guys?

Do you know what, It did. I would say that it did because same as the Liverpool home town show, there are certain shows that stand out In the year. You could look forward and say that’s going to be a good one. That hometown show, Glastonbury and an abroad show or something. You think I’m gonna make the most of that, that one’s going to be great. We had played festivals on stages of that size where we got really good feedback, you saw it  yourself at Truck.

We watched Glastonbury approach and encroach on us and we think, oh my God it’s two weeks only, and in the last week oh my God we’re going this weekend, and it was just such a big thing in our head. I think all of us was on stage, we knew it was getting recorded for the BBC which is such a big thing. It may have just been in our heads that it’s a little bit different, and we came off stage and we thought we have done that before haven’t we? If that’s what Glastonbury is then put us on a bigger stage, we have just proved it to ourselves.

You proved your mettle to yourself with that.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You can always say, we have played Glastonbury and just being able to say that, people take you seriously and we have the video evidence to prove it and then it’s sort of, it’s a big rubber stamp isn’t it? A big green tick.

Your first album Matador was a great album and when we last talked you hinted at another album being a work in progress. Did playing Matador live, at those live shows and festivals influence how you approached the second album?

Yes, yes it did, and it was strange because this album was written a lot of the time while we were on tour, or while we were home for a few days waiting for the next show. It was forced upon us, we have to just write the album, slightly differently this time, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It could have been a bad thing, but songs were able to come out. Tom especially, he never had a day off. If we weren’t playing live he was thinking about the second album, a lot more than we were a lot of the time.

And, yeah, as you say the Matador gigs were great and unbelievable, but we needed just a little breather. It was that successful that when we felt when we found ourselves having to fill an hour and a half we all realised we weren’t fighting fit. We would all come off sweating and we’d love it for a moment. I think the crowds were the same, we saw that maybe only once or twice, where we could have done with a good two or three minute break or breather or something like that.

Because of that we we wrote two or three slower songs and I don’t think it’s massively different. I think it’s a bit bigger, like you said, when we came off stage, and festivals especially, we look onto the next big stage and think that’s the next one.

So we thought let’s go away and write an album with songs that are big enough. So we are not just six lads in a band now, we are artists with a big live show, we need to go out there now and write songs and produce songs in a way that could stand up on a main stage. So include a few synths, here and there or few backing vocals, or orchestral sounds a little bit that we weren’t afraid to do it. Matador was always very much of us six getting a room playing songs and that’s it.

With Matador, I assume that you had quite a while to write quite a lot of material to choose from, whereas, since the release of Matador, constantly being on the road and doing the second album, I would imagine that you had less time to create create the songs for The Hollow Of Humdrum?

Yes we did. And like you said, when writing Matador we weren’t  aware, a lot of the time, that we were writing an album. We were just writing songs, and some of them songs, are like, five years old. Yeah, so we just wrote a song and and that was there and then we wrote another song and another song and we had a collection of songs. And it works pretty well,  we managed to get to a point where they all sound very similarly have the same sort of thing about them, and they complement each other pretty well.

This time around we like we’re making an album, so, it’s just a case of, what do we need? So we have like five or six quick high tempo live songs that would be great, people moshing.  Then, we would need a slow one, a bit of a ballad, and then we would need a bit of funk in there. I think we just matured a little bit and have more of a vision for this one.

And the title The Hollow Of Humdrum, is one of the lyrics, and is a great title. Where did that come from?

Well it was sort of, The Hollow Of The Humdrum, a lot of the songs have got a theme about being online or being on your phone. So we found that when we were live when we were on tour, when we were sitting on the bus the the next day, whether we were hungover or not, you wouldn’t speak to the lads, because you were sick of them. So you would sit on your phones or maybe put your headphones on and have that ‘me time’.

So we made an observation as we were sitting around, I think we all got it, the fact that everyone consumes every bit of information every bit of music now just simply through the phone. And it was like, that was a different world. So like, we’ve got this thing in your hand and you’ve got access to everything in the world, but then you are still stuck in humdrum. You are sat in your Mum’s house having the same tea as you had the week before. You have still got to get up and go to work, but it doesn’t quite feel like that because you listen to different music on this piece of equipment, this phone. So we basically started bouncing around a few ideas of associative escapism, and then Tom just came up with The Hollow Of Humdrum.

Because it’s always the phone, it isn’t always about followers, but it’s that sort of thing. When we just give it to the label we only halfway just mentioned it in passing the head of the record label said ‘Yeah I like it’, because you don’t quite know what it is you talk about it. Also it’s not a well known saying, so it is interesting.

I’ve noticed, you’re tackling some grittier messages within the album, things like social media, etc. Do you think that being an established band gives you a great opportunity to explore those things?

Yeah. You’ve got to represent something, you know, have a say on certain things and connect with people who listen. I think it’s a little bit of a cheat if all you do is write singles about your ex or you sing about your girlfriends. I mean it’s a little bit of an easy way. You sit down with a guitar or a piano, however you write,  it’s very easy to write things that are personal to you, where you know your feelings, it’s a little bit easier. Whereas this one, with some of the topics, sometimes you don’t have the platform to say it and you think you are the only one feeling it.

When you say , isn’t it mad that you feel like this on your phone, or you talk about mental health, or you talk about toxic masculinity of not being able to dance, which the next single is sort of about a little bit. You realise it’s a universal feeling, a universal thought, so it’s more incessant simply more incessant for the listener, rather than just being about the girl next door or whatever.

It is strange, and, I don’t know whether there’s a responsibility to do it. I don’t feel like we have to say things about things. It’s sometimes it’s nice isn’t it? Maybe find something or think about something that other people have felt and don’t realise that other people feel

I remember when we last talked, You said that you felt that your sound was tested and you know what works and what doesn’t work. And I think you actually said, you asked yourself the question would this have made a Matador and if it doesn’t, we’ll bin it? You said you got a bit of a blueprint together so did that make The Hollow Of The Humdrum easy to produce?

No, I don’t think it did. It made it harder to write. If a song hadn’t made it on Matador, then the old stuff was back catalogue. All the songs on the album were written after Matador. So I think when we went into it, we we saw them as new songs on a new album rather than the hangover, or the leftovers after Matador, so we we see that as a different animal. Obviously you still got your nods to it and you can’t stray too far from us because that’s what we sound like and that’s what our fans play and it seems to be working. We cant go playing seven minute long solos .

(Paul Lyme)

I think it’s a little bit of a statement. I don’t know whether you agree, but I think it’s just a statement that we could have a main stage spot anywhere in the world and our songs would fit there. Our songs are big enough. We are not just 3 guitars and a trumpet, a drum kit and my snarling vocals over it. It’s a little bit a little bit more thought out and thought through.

I never thought you were just an indie band. There are so many bands that look and sound the same, but with  Joe The Blow and his trumpet and everything, there’s something different about you. I had had the pleasure of listening to the new album, and with Ennio Morricone dying recently I am glad that there is still some spaghetti western in there. I think that’s what really sets you apart from other bands you’ve got a distinctive sound that I am glad hasn’t gone.

Yeah. We are not scared of adding something different to it, maybe not as a live thing but as far as listening to it on your headphones. If there is a bit of piano, a bit of organ, a bit of synth there now on the second album, then so be it, we’re not ruling anything out. We are not going to just stick to those six components

I once described you as the love child of Echo And The Bunnymen in Ennio Morricone.

Yeah. I will take that.

Kids Addicted was released, quite a while ago and Eleanor seems like a very personal song, with a latin swagger. Tell us a little about it?

Eleanor was sort of, from my point of view, just like thrown together. Eleanor is Tom’s girlfriend, she is a young girl and they just moved into a house together and she was just feeling down a bit. Tom being the good lad that he is had this song that had, El Ea Nor, he had that bit. We thought that was great then in the back of the van coming back from Bath, I think, he sat down with me and Mike and went ‘Here you are, what about this? The El EA bit was only in the pre chorus it wasn’t in the chorus. We said try and get that in as much as possible. Even start the song with it, try and get it in the pre chorus and the chorus, because that is the hook. That’s really, the most we had to do with it.

Obviously when we went in we changed a few sounds and I delivered it differently when we were in the studio. But as far as the writing process it turned up and it was there. I think we had a little bit of input, but Tom, because it’s so close to his heart, just got it done in his own. We were very aware of touching it. We were very aware that Tom wanted it a certain way.

Tom’s a big boy, and we work a certain way, if I bring an idea and then the lads say that’s shit Fran, then that’s it. It’s all for the greater good. This is the first song we did not want to overly have our say on. If Tom wanted a certain way then we didn’t touch, and like I say, it was written on the road, like many of the songs. A lot of songs start with the chorus, like Sex On Fire, so we thought why not?

It was playlisted by Radio 2, which must have increased the exposure and interest in the band.

Yeah massively, as I say every time we are played on Radio 2, you know, Primetime throughout the day. Today we’ve got played, almost just before midday. And I think it just takes you up in the status of the minds of the industry as well. All those people who book festivals and stuff and people who have got the powers and the keys to success. Now if you say you’re playlisted on Radio 2  it’s another string to our bow.

You’ve got to build your own CV. That is a big plus on our CV  and being able to brag about that to the people in power is going to help us along in our career. The fact that it is played to over a million people a day, is huge. We were Shazamed last week over 2000 times. Which shows the power of it. There were at least 2000 people that had hadn’t heard of us, and thought what is this song? So they are not just passing trade, they are more likely to book a show, or pre-order the album which is amazing.

We have got a bit of a wait for the album, just before my Birthday in October, guess what is going to be top of my list? So how many teasers are you likely to release between now and then?

The plan was four. But as Eleanor has done so well we’ve pushed back the releases So that four has gone down to three, so we think we may be able to get two other songs out. It’s all changed, it’s all fluid, that’s one of the things we said, that it can’t be set in stone, because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I will be gutted if we don’t get two out as the other two are my favourites. Hopefully we will get one out at the end of August and one at the end of September, just before the release of the album. I think these two are better than Eleanor.

I think we’re going to go with the Elevation just before the the album and we have already shot the video for Ballarino, so if that doesn’t come out that’s money down the pan!

How difficult is it shooting videos at the moment? I know there are lots of animated videos out at the moment?

Well funnily enough with Eleanor, we thought we are going to have to get inventive here, and we found a girl on Twitter who had animated a few things. She said will you all send me three videos of yourselves. So we had to personally, sit, set it up, play in our rooms and film ourselves. I have never felt more ridiculous in my life!

Without being able to play the new tracks at the festivals, how have you had to adapt in promoting the album? Does this make single releases even more important?

Yeah, and getting on the playlist was important. Before that we had a few spot plays on radio and Spotify numbers are OK. We’ve got a nice nucleus of fans and the social media interaction is great and you know, they will follow you to the end. With the playlist things seemed to have picked things up massively. Having a good video is even more important because people discover music by sitting on their phones and there’s a big yellow video that pops up on their feed or on YouTube then they’re more likely to buy it.

I think music now is single based, you know people love an album. Music fans love an album, but the average Joe on the street is not a music fan. They like songs, and if they like one song by a band then that is enough. It’s the hooks and the bass that draws them in. Eleanor has done amazingly, so hopefully the next two releases will do well. We cant do anything else but get radio playlists and Spotify playlists and a whole host of people get onto us.

Having good content on social media and being always active on it. Being active on social media rather than active touring is a big way that we have had to adapt it in this climate. But we have taken to it well and we love it, we love trying to engage with our fans. We used to feel a bit cheesy, you know like, tweeting because we didn’t think people want to hear from us, but now they do I think.

(Paul Lyme)

As a final question, just like when we met at Wilkestock, where I asked about Liverpool winning the Champions League. Were all the band happy about Liverpool storming the league this year? I know you said Simon was pleased, not because he is a Liverpool fan, but because he is a top bevvy head, the lockdown must have taken the edge off of that for him?

Yeah, a little bit to be honest, he has put the brakes on a little bit. Do you know what, Neil has took it pretty well, being the only bluenose. So yeah, he has had to swallow his pride a couple of times but in fairness he has said ‘You deserve it, I am made up for you boys’. We’ve got together a few times outside my flat but he has never joined us! He has never let on, if it is killing him on the inside, he seems fine from the outside!

I sat there just before the Chelsea game and thought, here we are all over Radio 2, the biggest radio station in the country and Liverpool are just about to Raise the premier League Trophy. It does not get much better than this!

Ballarino has just been released and The Hollow Of The Humdrum is released on October the 2nd. If you liked Matador, then I think you will love this. Look out for the release of The Elevation at the end of September. Red Rum Club are a great live act and will be hitting the road early next year, so do yourself a favour and see them, even their ‘slowies’ are good.

As Fran told us, Red Rum Club are more active than ever on social Media. Keep up to date with Red Rum Club on Facebook HERE

Interview with Fran Doran out of Red Rum Club by Tony Creek, August 2020.

Photo by Tina Korhonen © 2016, all rights reserved.

Goldray are releasing Feel The Change on the 31st July, and you will be hard pressed to find a better album than this released in 2020. Eight weeks into lockdown, before the release of How Do You Know?And the Pysch Cosmic Epic, Oz, I spoke with Leah Rasmussen and Kenwyn House, about the singles, the forthcoming album, playing live, and their distinctive style. I was looking forward to talking to the man, who created one of the best riffs I have heard, on Place Your Hands, when he was with Reef.

What I was unprepared for was that both Leah and Kenwyn are not only very interesting people, who know their stuff about music, the arts and mythology, but that they are the type of people you could talk to all night, and not get bored. We talked about festivals, mainstream ‘X’ Factor watered down Pop, Mother Nature putting us on the naughty step, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, artistic creativity. However, just like our chat, I digress.

I have been lucky enough to hear the album Feel The Change and it is absolutely mesmerising and flows beautifully, did you have a concept before you recorded the album or did it evolve organically?

Leah – Oh it evolved organically, the songs kind of speak for themselves and they create the stories

Kenwyn – The creativity kind of leads the way but then you look back on it and go,O Yeah, there is a definite thread in all this. It really did tie together. I cant talk for Leah’s lyrics as much as she can but I noticed that the feeling of the music that I write, she has come up with something exactly right to go with that lyrically

Leah – They both have the same meaning.

Kenwyn  – They do. The music has the meaning and the lyric has the message, and I am very happy with how that has married up on this record.

Like all great albums, it does flow really nicely, and it is not an album to dip in and out of. To really appreciate it, you need to start with track 1 and go in order all the way through to track 8!

Kenwyn – That is amazing to hear because we really did put a lot into this album

The album is shorter than your first album, Rising, and apart from the truly epic opener, Oz, most of the tracks are shorter, was this a conscious decision?

Leah – No, it wasn’t, in fact all our songs are long at first.

Kenwyn – Funnily enough we have to do a lot of weeding and pruning, before you get to hear them. The song Forest and Forest – Part 2 are really the same song, if you put them together then they it is over 8 minutes, but if you put them together they are the same song, just like Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall part 1 and 2.

Leah – The reason we did that is that we would like to release Forest as a single at some point, we have some video ideas, so that is why we possibly separated them.

I was going to ask whether you had cheated and split an epic song.

Kenwyn –  We have been spotted!

Leah – It was written as one song and was always going to be one song, but then one day Kenwyn started jamming a solo for Forest which didn’t have a solo and it was just phenomenal. I thought, oh my God, we have got to have a solo in Forest which made the song even longer, so we thought, right OK we are going to have to chop this song in half

Kenwyn – Leah had the idea and a friend of ours who heard it said ‘that first part has got to be a single’. We thought maybe we should , and the only way you can do that is to code it. You need to code it for radio. However Forest and Forest – Part 2, are the same song in our hearts.

Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved

I personally love the long tracks such as Diamond Road on the first album, and Oz on Feel The Change, and Forest, which is a bit of a cheat. Do you find it hard to make songs fit a time constraint, and if so could we one day see a six track double LP?

Leah – Yeah very much so, and we almost thought of that, as we have too many songs, so we thought shall we make a double album this time because we have so much material. Kenwyn and I write so much stuff and we find it kind of hard to choose which ones to use. We realised it would have taken a bit longer to release the album if we had gone that way, because we take a while to write, record and mix as we want to make sure that the album is perfect. We cannot churn things out quickly and just say that will do. We cannot let it out until we are entirely happy with it, we are both perfectionists, maybe too much so. Even now we could have carried on working on the album, you know forever.

Kenwyn – Exactly, there has to be a cut off at some point. There is a part of us, and especially in me musically, where at some point we will make a double album with six or eight songs. There are so many of my favourite albums that are like that. On the Led Zeppelin Live album, Dazed And Confused, is twenty nine minutes long and I don’t get bored when i listen to it. A lot of Pink Floyd and King Crimson stuff. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, which is a studio album, one of the tracks is 19 minutes long. There is thing that when we have done a bit more, and people are a little more accepting of us we will do some music which is a bit more like that. But this album just seemed to happen naturally and seems a bit more accessible and, without trying to be, came out a bit more commercial.

Leah – And slightly heavier in some ways.

Kenwyn – Exactly, and ended up in a shorter format, than we would have done, so we didn’t fight that. However, the one thing we do find hard is trying to get a four or five minute song into a format for a radio edit, which needs to be under four minutes.

Leah – A lot of our material is very long, so we could do something like that. We have to try really hard to fit it all in.

I guess that that needs to be the format for radio airplay, but if you take a really great song and it’s played live, a three or four minute song played live will last for ten minutes, and the crowd love it.

Kenwyn – Absolutely, and if you look at the most popular music of all time, especially Rock and Roll, they are long. If you look at Stairway to Heaven, it is long, and even Smells Like Teen Spirit which is all over the radio, it’s nearly six minutes long. It is difficult for anything that is not Pop to conform to that. On radio these days it seems more about the DJ talking and the Ad breaks, and oh yeah there is some music as well!

That’s why I love Oz. It is the sort of song that you can sit in a darkened room, put your headphones on and immerse yourself in it.

Leah – That’s it. It is a journey

I think you mentioned it earlier. Feel The Change seems a darker album, than your previous stuff, but it is not mournful like some albums, which I am not decrying, because some of them are brilliant albums. But you seem to have made a darker album which has a really uplifting vibe as well.

Kenwyn – I am glad you noticed.

Leah – That’s great. You know we are in deep times, humanity, and people are going through it in some ways and I think people are doing so well. People are doing so much better than they think they are. Things are a lot better than we think they are, and there is a lot of fear that brings us down in our daily lives. Its about the light and dark, with the light goddess and the light goddess, with the dark goddess not being the wicked witch. Kali the Destroyer, the Earth Mother, who eats her children because they are ill and dying, suffering. Then you have the lights that gives you the hugs and the starlight and tells you it’s alright.

Kenwyn – There wouldn’t be any growth otherwise. I am glad you asked this question, because this album is dealing with darker themes, but what are we meant to do here? We are all given our share of pain and suffering, and we need to transform that into something positive. If you don’t then you just go down.

Leah – You can’t give up

Kenwyn – There are so many stories, like The Hero’s Story which is a really great film. There are not many stories that start with oh yeah I had a really great day today and every other fucking day has been great too, The End! No there is always a Dragon to slay, or someone has to go through suffering and at the end they come out a better person. The painful experiences in my life have made me a nicer person. I don’t mean to be funny, but I think that somebody would be a superficial dickhead if there wasn’t something in life that had challenged them a little bit.

Leah – Do we grow or do we not? Do we stay in our insanity, our madness and our pain and cause more suffering to ourselves and others? Or do we make that change and that is what the Hero’s Journey is about. Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist, discovered that all stories are really the same story.

Kenwyn – Star Wars is Lord of the Rings with light sabres and spaceships.

Leah – We are all stars of our own story, and are we going to make it, and that is really the concept of this album. The Hero’s Journey. It gives you power. You can heal yourself. We are all magical beings, we have just forgotten that.

Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved

Your new music seems a lot more layered and complex now, do you think there is a Goldray sound, or is it more fluid than that?

Leah – There isn’t a sound that we intend, but I suppose there is a sound in Kenwyns riffs and my vocals, where i use a lot of effects.

I think you use your voice as a musical instrument, and it becomes part of the music, which is part of Shoegazing and Pysch Rock, where the voice interplays with the music.

Leah – Thank you, that’s what i like to do, and that’s why we love Psych Rock because that music is about freedom and that translates musically in the freedom to express yourself. That then transcends into freedom in living, like guys dressing up more. In the 70’s guys were much more flamboyant. You see that at festivals, not just Pysch Rock festivals, but in festivals in general.

Kenwyn – Especially as a man, when I look out there it is a quite boring time to be a young man. High street fashion is very muted and lacking in flamboyance. Leah and myself musically and visually have a real influence from the sixties and seventies and even into the eighties. If you look at Hendrix and Plant, they look like they sound.

Hold that thought because I want to come back to the visuals. The singles you have released from the album are very different, Oz is a trippy epic, and How Do You Know? reminded me of Jefferson Airplane, is the idea of the double single release to give people a taster of the album?

Leah – Thank you, great compliment, I love Grace Slick. You are spot on as that is exactly what we wanted to do. If we had just released How Do You Know? then they still would not quite know, and if we had just release Oz, then they would have thought that it was just one long Psych cosmic journey. This album is a mixture of the two. It is light and dark and ying and yang and male and female. It has got that real balance, so we had to show that as a first step out really. We thought, why not give people something as they are a good bunch going through a tough time.

Kenwyn – We realised that this is time not to hold back, it is not ideal and a lot of bands are holding back and not releasing because they can’t tour and the apocalypse thing was a great shock to us as we had to cancel our tour and it changed a lot of things for us. We thought  what are we really waiting for because we were excited to get the music out there. And at this time, when people are having a tough time we wanted to get it out. Music has got me through the toughest times.

Leah – For all we know we might not be able to tour until next summer, and we don’t want to hold onto this album until then. The meaning of this album seems quite current and meanwhile we are going to be getting on with writing and finishing album three.

Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved

That’s the six track double album isnt it?

Kenwyn – I love it! You know what, don’t encourage me. At some stage something like that is definitely going to come out

I absolutely love, Feel The Change, and have been playing it over. I don’t know how you do it, because it must be like choosing your favourite child, but how on earth do you choose which tracks to release as singles?

Leah – Oh it was tough to decide.

Kenwyn – We never thought Oz would be a single, it’s seven and a half minutes long, it’s a prog rock cosmic epic, and we thought was the least likely to be played on radio. We have a friend who is a radio plugger, and he told us that he thought he would be able to get it played on radio, because the audience that we are going for, and the rock audience, they don’t mind a bit of long. There are about five songs that we thought could be singles.

I thought there were about eight!

Kenwyn – Do you know what, its a bit of a choice for us as well.

Leah – We are undecided at the moment ourselves. It is down to videos, we are getting video ideas at the moment and obviously in isolation, it is difficult doing videos. The video for How Do You Know?  was made in isolation, as we only had one day of actual filming. We were supposed to have two or three so it kind of took a change and turn in a different direction, and is actually a lot better than we had planned. It was only a few days after our first day of filming that lockdown happened. Louis just managed to get back to Barcelona, and we were supposed to go over there and join him, we had these great ideas, but none of that happened. So we had to create something different which actually has the same narrative. We think it has come out better. He had to work with the visuals and had to work harder and longer.

Kenwyn – The cool thing was, and it was a great decision, we didn’t realise it at the time, we actually filmed a lot of it in front of a green screen because we were going to add stuff. Then there were going to be other days when we were either on location or using a more realistic background. But we did the day of green screen, which as it turned out was the only thing that worked. Barcelona was on proper lockdown, we could at least go for a run, but he was just locked in. So he worked on our video for six weeks and did an amazing job. Without the green screen this wouldn’t have worked there would not have been enough footage of us, so we lucked out there really.

In terms of visuals on stage , in an age where bands seem to image themselves in Black and White wearing t-shirts, is it your aim to put the Glam back into Rock?

LR – Abso-bloody-lutely!

KH – I have nothing against Jeans and t-shirts but there does seem to be a lack of people pushing the boat out visually.

LR – This is an exciting time for guys in the growing Psych Rock scene as there is a permission to get out there. In the Psych scene you can wear nail varnish and glitter and be free. All we need now is to get Hells Angels wearing sequin biker jackets.

Where do you get your fabulous stage outfits from, do you have to have them specially made?

Leah – We do, we have to make them. Mine have to be made and half of Kenwyn’s is made and the other half altered.

Kenwyn – You have to go to vintage stores and then get it altered. You just have to work with it. Both the white outfits for this album had to be made. Leah leads the visual side of things and styles us and I think she has done an amazing job.It isn’t in a high street store put it that way

Leah – It takes a lot of work, but it is creative and it is enjoyable, and it would be really great if fashion just got a bot more out there. It would be easier for people to get this kind of stuff, it is almost impossible to get anything different. You have to make it really, and not everyone can make it. Finding a cheap tailor is good, and that is what we have managed to do, and I do a lot of stuff.

Has Kenwyn ever stolen something that you were meant to wear?

Leah – Oh yeah loads, and I have stolen things that he is meant to wear!

Kenwyn – I have to get it altered, because there is a lot of interesting stuff that is made for women, but it is cut for a woman’s shape, so I get it altered so that I still have silk with embroidery in. Look at what Jimmy Page was wearing in the 70’s, these days you have to pimp up women’s fashion.

Well it is a great look and with Psych there is a whole level of freedom to express yourselves in whichever way you like.

Leah – That’s it and we want to feel that when people come to our gigs they can dress up if they want to, not that they have to. There is no pressure, because it is not everybody’s cup of tea, and we don’t expect it to be, because the world is not the same. It is something that is really fun to play with and when you are accessing or triggering all the senses, you are creating a full emotional experience. We look forward to meeting you at a festival around a campfire sinking a few beers.

Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved

I will hold you to that and make sure I am glittered up so that I did not look out of place! How are you staying ‘match fit’ for when lockdown is lifted?

Kenwyn – I play a lot of guitar everyday, and we play together quite a bit, so if we get a date when we are ready to go into a rehearsal studio and play some festivals and gigs, we will not be unprepared.

Leah – A few rehearsals and we will be there, we just need to get in the room with the boys. Kenwyn and I play together, but we just need to get together as a band and get up to that level, which would not take long at all.

Kenwyn – If we got the call to do a gig within a month, then we could do it.

You have played some of the songs live already haven’t you?

Kenwyn – Yes we have road tested five of the eight, and the thing with this album is that every one is a live song. On the first album we had Gypsy, Calling Your Name and The Oranges song that were down played more production based songs.

Leah – In the early days of a new band gigging people tend to want more upbeat songs, so we saved Calling Your Name for later on.

I did think, listening to the album, that if you did a gig, and like Pink Floyd often did,  and said you were going to play the album in order, it would work.

Kenwyn – Yeah I did think the other day, that we could do that

Leah – I think so too we could play the album in order. You are making me want to go out and play live now!

Well if you were playing live tomorrow, what could people expect from a Goldray gig?

Kenwyn – Well hopefully for us to appear!

Leah – We like to take people on a journey. Hopefully people would leave buzzing, glowing and happy. Our job is to make people feel good and to have had all their senses stimulated.

Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved

I think that talking to Leah and Kenwyn was one of the most enjoyable interviews I have done. I suspect that they would make anyone feel like a kindred spirit within minutes of talking to them. This shines through in their music, and Feel The Change has been a constant in my playlist. I think I know the album back to front, however front to back is the only way to listen to it. If you were impressed by the previous single releases they get this on pre-order, because the only disappointing thing about the album, is that the cosmic kaleidoscope fuelled by epic riffs and soaring vocals ends. This is a psychedelic masterpiece which is far too good to just to stream!

I have two post lockdown wishes;

1. To glitter up, maybe even make myself some flamboyant clothes, and chat around a camp fire with this beautiful couple.
2. To get a campaign going, as I know that Leah and, especially Kenwyn, will not need to much convicing. #SixSongDoubleAlbum

Photography by Tina Korhonen

We might have mentioned once or twice, about how excited we are to air the video premiere for the new Goldray single, How Do You Know, which is being released tomorrow along with the epic Oz as a double A side.

The video, which was made during lockdown is very pertinent to these times, when Mother Nature has collectively put humanity on the naughty step and is healing the damage that we have created. Pysch Rock has always had a spiritual link with nature, and when Rockshot recently had a long chat with Leah Rasmussen and Kenwyn House, Kenwyn told us “ With the video you can choose and pick from this. This came about because of lockdown and is the way it is because of the circumstances and its turned out very different and it is more meaningful”

The video is a magical fantasy which starts with Leah in front of a mirror with her image reflecting back a high-priestess-goddess-like- image. She steps into the mirror and the beauty of nature cascades behind her as we start tripping on images and colour. Kenwyn further explained “The theme has a real fantasy vibe, and Louis Rangecroft, our video director,  is our favourite guy for that kind of thing, he is amazing. He is adventurous and has a lot of magical visions in his head.”

Kenwyn wields his guitar with killer hypnotic riffs, pristine in white as Leah eradicates the drab black and white of  a congested road network with vibrant colours of nature. This is the theme of the video, and what a timely theme it is. In lockdown the hustle and bustle of ‘normal’ life has been curtailed. Roads are not gridlocked, cities are not crawling with people and nature is thriving. Not only that but we are more appreciative of nature. We can hear birdsong, with less traffic noise. Browns and greys have been replaced by greens, yellows and oranges. So maybe the new ‘normal’ is not so bad, and just like the Goddess we should rejoice.

Of the video, Leah told us “ The video was made in isolation, as we only had one day of actual filming. We were supposed to have two or three so it kind of took a change and turn in a different direction, and is actually a lot better than we had planned. It was only a few days after our first day of filming that lockdown happened. Luois just managed to get back to Barcelona, and we were supposed to go over there and join him, we had these great ideas, but none of that happened. So we had to create something different which actually has the same narrative. We think it has come out better. He had to work with the visuals and had to work harder and longer.

Kenwyn added “The cool thing was, and it was a great decision, we didn’t realise it at the time, we actually filmed a lot of it in front of a green screen because we were going to add stuff. Then there were going to be other days when we were either on location or using a more realistic background. But we did the day of green screen, which as it turned out was the only thing that worked. Barcelona was on proper lockdown, we could at least go for a run, but he was just locked in. So he worked on our video for six weeks and did an amazing job. Without the green screen this wouldn’t have worked there would not have been enough footage of us, so we lucked out there really.’

Photo by Tina Korhonen

The song itself is very uplifting and Leah’s vocal, as always are stunning, and in this song remind me of Grace Slick from the masters of psychedelic music, Jefferson Airplane. It is loaded with killer riffs as you would expect from Kenwyn. Leah told us “The title says it all How do we know? In the time now that we are in, its how do any of us know? There are a lot of stories going around. The song is about following your heart rather than your mind. Follow your feelings, as the heart seems to know what the truth is better than the head.

As this is a double A release with the stunning Oz, we have access to 25% of their forthcoming album, Feel The Change. Both these tracks showcase the album very well, and the good news is that the other six tracks on the album are as good as these ones.

How Do We Know and Oz are released tomorrow, 29^th May and the Feel The Change album is due for release on 31^st July. Click on the previous link or go here: https://smarturl.it/HowDoYouKnowOz

Keep you eye on RockShot between now and then for further news and an interview with Goldray where we discuss, the album, performing live, and surviving the apocalypse. We will meet again, with friends and strangers alike in a field with bands playing  and glitter on our faces.

Photographs of Goldray by Tina Korhonen, you can see more of Tina’s beautiful photography here: https://tina-k.co.uk

Dark Tides are releasing their first single, Runaway, on 8th May. The single is taken from their forthcoming EP, Venerate, which is set for release this Summer. We are very pleased to present the video premiere, from the East London alternative 4-piece, comprising Dan Butcher (Vocals), Scott Ruane (Guitar), Ian Flood (Bass) and Owain Evans (Drums)

Don’t let the moodiness and darkness of the melody fool you, the track is a song for lovers.  As lead singer Dan Butcher says, “Runaway is a song for lovers longing to escape from conformity and the trappings of societal expectation.”

Driven by the hypnotic rhythm and haunting vocals, the track takes you on the journey of the narrator, begging to be left to the lovers own devices and do things their way. The single is sonically rich and very impressive as a first release.

Dark Tides told RockShot “The song is about preserving something beautiful and unique, even at the cost of leaving everything behind. The dandelion and it’s transition from bloom to scattering in the wind felt like the perfect visual representation of these themes. By manipulating and layering time lapse footage remotely whilst in lockdown we were able to let the song breath visually.”

The official music video was developed by the band remotely during the current lockdown. It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and the video is mesmerising,  Following from the track’s sentiments, they chose the dandelion concept as it evokes making a wish that is then scattered to the wind.

Resembling the sun, moon and stars during certain parts of its life cycle; the band love that the dandelion seeds can travel five miles before they finally reach their place of rest. In a natural kaleidoscope the central plant throbs with the song, and the time lapsed video has been produced just as cleverly as the music.

The forthcoming EP, Venerate, is a collection of five melody-driven contemplations on the pleasures and terrors of life.  As an added aural delight, the band are offering a free download from the EP, Waiting Room as another sneak preview of what is to come and if you like Runaway then you will not be disappointed by Dark Tides gift.

As with all bands at the moment plans for live shows have been disrupted but they will return so make sure to follow Dark Tides for up-to-date information.You can do that on Instagram or Facebook

UK born 24-year old SC. Undercover started creating music in Birmingham as a way of escapism from what at one point seemed to be a permanent road to severe depression and addiction. His latest track Darkness Before Light is about finding closure from his past, where he was struggling with depression, addiction and past relationships. The song also creates hope where he is seeking love and light in a new world which is beautifully produced with several live instruments to create an atmospheric stadium sounding song. We are very pleased to present the video premiere today

Sam told RockShot “The visual itself was directed by Justin Campbell from 4Brum tv. The inspiration was to create a video that really captured the essence of darkness and light from a personal perspective and a relationship perspective. Symmetrical effects were used frequently to highlight the contrast as well as darker and lighter tones during the scenes. We shot the whole thing in an abandoned warehouse as it added a lot of realism to the shoot and was perfect for the opening scene. ”

The black and white video, starts of very dark with impressive use of lighting, and incorporates very clever kaleidoscope effects, which draw you into the song. By contrast it ends with a completely white screen, using black and white to symbolise darkness and light. It compliments the vocal superbly and what a delicious vocal it is, the warmth in his voice is one thing but when he unleashes the falsetto, man, it is worth it just for that.

“Darkness Before Light was a song that I had wanted to do for sometime, I wanted to experiment with something sonically different from just R&B and pop whilst staying close to my roots.” Sam told us about the track.