Hole_In_Wall
Posts : 111
Join date : 2011-10-10
Age : 40
Location : in my office, in my bed or on the road
![[27-03-2012] A chat with Young Guns for Wuwo Magazine Empty](https://2img.net/i/empty.gif) |  Subject: [27-03-2012] A chat with Young Guns for Wuwo Magazine ![[27-03-2012] A chat with Young Guns for Wuwo Magazine Icon_minitime](https://2img.net/i/fa/subsilver/icon_minitime.gif) Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:21 pm | |
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- Having released their excellent second album ‘Bones’ earlier this month followed by a club tour of the UK throughout February 2012 and a slot opening for Enter Shikari in March, 2012 is shaping up to be quite a year for UK 5 piece YOUNG GUNS. Days ahead of the release of the album we talked to Gus about how the album was made, the tour and what makes the band tick…
With the album so close to release what’s the mood like in the band at the moment?
We’re kind of like a coiled spring at the moment. We went to Thailand, which was such a big thing for us to do, and then the album was sent to America to be mixed and now we are doing all the press for it which is all fantastic but you get to a stage where you are anxious to get it out there. We just want to get started; we have so much ahead of us. Things are exciting at the moment but the sitting around waiting is killing us slowly.
It’s been a little while since you actually recorded the album, how do you cope with the delay between recording and release and is now talking about the record bringing the excitement you felt recording it back?
I think so, when you are in the midst of recording an album it’s such a crazy time. You are being creative and its free form and I suppose quite self-indulgent in a way, that’s what being creative is I think. It’s great but then sitting around waiting for it to get out and waiting for other people to hear it, for their judgements and opinions is kind of a hard process. There are times when you start to think “what’s going on here? Are we getting started or what?” We’re excited, we feel really great about the record so we’ve kept the faith through the waiting.
Second albums are often labelled ‘tricky’. How has putting the album together been?
Ever since we wrote our first EP we’ve lived by this idea that we put ourselves under so much pressure that any pressure anyone else puts on us pales in comparison. Whether or not that’s a positive thing I couldn’t tell you! We live under such a bubble of trying to be as productive and as good as we can be to push ourselves forward as a band so all pressure from any external source doesn’t compare to the grief we give ourselves when we write and record. You have to keep the bar raised high but it does often make it a painful process. Second record there’s all the classic problems, most of which turn out to be true. You question yourself “is this good enough?” because once was good enough isn’t good enough anymore. The second record needs to bigger, better and bolder. Once we had a unified idea of what we wanted to do it fell out quite easily. Going to Thailand to record was a bit of extra pressure, if you are going to go halfway around to do something you better do it good but it was an amazing experience.
You went to Thailand to record, was it a difficult thing to balance being at work with the feeling that you were on a holiday?
It was an amazing experience and its very validating doing something like that. You think “Holy shit we’re on the other side of the world recording an album, something must be going ok!” And that’s inspiring. We tell people they went to Thailand and people say “Oh god, that must have been bliss” and it was great but at the same time if you fly half way round the world to do something you better do it right, we were very aware of that. It was a stressful experience I must say but if you are going to be stressed you may as well be stressed in Thailand.
You’ve just done the biggest tour of you careers, you’ve got a new album under your belts and you’ve decided to do a tour of small clubs. What was your thinking?
We came off our last tour having played venues that we never thought we would be headlining which was quite mind-blowing. But we thought: new record, new cycles, what feels like a new lease of life and we thought it was a nice romantic idea to start again at the bottom. Do some small sweaty shows and build it up again. It’s nice to think of a campaign starting off with something memorable and special.
It almost feels like you are testing yourself going back to club shows?
If you can’t pull it off in front of a few hundred people you have no hope doing it in a large venue.
Do you have any passions in your own life that rival music?
I love to read, I’m reading a book called “Fatherland” at the moment, I just read a book call “Kafka on the Shore”. I like to read fiction but anything really. I’ve recently started getting into motorbikes; I’ve recently bought a motorbike which is great fun. It always comes back to music though which is probably boring for other people but that’s the way it is! The boys really like eating too!
Are Young guns quite the culinary masters then?
Whenever we practice we tend to have a big lunch; we like hot foods and we eat a lot of chilli. On tour we usually spend beyond our means and it all goes on foods. We’re not hugely adventurous with the food we eat because we never have the time but it’s nice to have a bit of down time where you can feel normal and going for food is probably our favourite way of doing that.
Any bands you’re listening to at the moment?
There a band called the Xcerts, who supported us on tour last year. For some reason lately I’ve recently revisited their records and I think they’re criminally underrated.
Are there any clubs you go to that you recommend?
We do like to go out but in terms of specific places not really. We love going out in Liverpool, Manchester. Glasgow is great too.
If there was a signature Young Guns drink, what would it be?
When we’re on tour we tend to drink a lot of Absinthe. We just came back from China and went to this really cool bar there which was set up like a house party. They served us this drink which was four measures of absinthe and a measure of gin; I don’t remember much after that. We also drink a lot of Vodka, soda and lime which is quite unusual. When you drink a lot, as most bands do by virtue of the fact they spend most of their time in venues, it’s a good drink because you get a lot of water and it’s quite light. Not the manliest of drinks! It’s quite a large part of our life drinking so we’ve had plenty of time to work out what works. SOURCE | |
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