The Blackout Interview
After a successful year of touring following the release of their fourth album ‘Hope’, The Blackout are a band that are only becoming bigger and better. Hailing from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, this sextet are set to wave goodbye to 2011 with a string of shows in the UK and Ireland.
Snapshot Symphony’s Rachel got the chance to catch up with vocalist Gavin Butler and guitarist James “Bob” Davies to talk about their upcoming Irish shows, how they plan to follow up to ‘Hope’ and their Snapshot perfect moment.
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SSP: You’ll be playing Dublin’s Academy on December 17th, and in Mandela Hall in Belfast on the 18th, if you could pick any song in the world to describe how excited you are for these shows, which would you choose?
James Davies, Guitar: Exit Music (for a film) by Radiohead.
Gavin Butler, Vocals: Cyndi Lauper - Girls just Wanna have fun.
Do you have any interesting plans for these shows seeing they’re so close to Christmas?
JD : We’re gonna try and bring as much production from the Hope tour as we can. Maybe we’ll knock up some other surprises. You’ll have to come along to find out!!
GB: We may dress Snoz up as Jesus or Santa depending on how busy the fancy dress store is. Also because we can’t afford a present for everyone we’ll play pass the parcel, then in between every song who ever has it has to try and tear the package open. It’s gonna have to be a small present in a lot of packaging.
Describe what fans who head to see you in Ireland can expect from your live show in two words?
JD: Party Time.
GB: LOUD NOISES!
You released ‘Hope’ back in April this year and have been touring near-constantly since it’s release, have you had fun on the touring run for this album?
JD : This has probably been the best album cycle for us, from a live perspective. We’ve had a blast playing the UK and Ireland. As well as Australia at the beginning of the year. We’ve just got back for Europe and those shows we’re crazy as well. The show at London Roundhouse on Nov 6th is probably the best show we’ve ever played.
GB: We always have fun touring, it’s what the band was born to do. We never expected to release albums we just wanted to play live. The shows we’ve played since the release have been some of our biggest and best.
There’s a good few covers on the deluxe version of Hope, will we be hearing a full cover album from The Blackout any time soon?
JB: I doubt it! We like doing some covers in now and again, we like playing songs we all love or get us pumped. I think if we did a full record of covers the novelty would wear off a bit.
GB: We’ve always done a few covers when we needed to. Basically for b-sides or for a laugh. With all the covers we’ve done we could probably put a compilation together but there are no plans.
The Blackout have announced Belfast and Dublin dates for this December! The Welsh sextet will play Dublin’s Academy on Saturday, December 17th, followed by Belfast’s Mandela Hall on December 18th! Tickets will be on sale through Ticketmaster at 9am on Thursday, and We Are The Ocean will be supporting on both dates.
