Interview – Glamour Of The Kill
For many bands, splitting from their label can mean the end of their existence, but not for Glamour of the Kill. The York metallers dusted themselves down and came back roaring with the brilliant new EP After Hours, which was funded by their fans through Kickstarter. Now, they’re back on the road in support of those songs and the future is looking rosy. We caught up with singer/bassist Davey Richmond before GOTK’s recent gig in Nuneaton to talk crowd funding, pasta shapes and why last year was probably their best yet.
How is the tour going so far?
It’s been great – we’re nearly at the end of the UK dates now and then we go to mainland Europe, but it’s been awesome. It’s nice to be headlining again and play a longer set. That means more songs, which is really good.
Any particularly good stories from this tour that you could share with a family audience?
You know what? There haven’t been that many stories – I’ve been quite old on this tour! Because I’m doing a longer set I’ve been going to bed and looking after my voice a lot more. I think the best story is…actually, I don’t think there is one! That’s bad isn’t it? Haha!
You seem to be giving the Midlands a proper service on this run with gigs in Wolverhampton, Stoke and Nuneaton – what do you enjoy about playing in this part of the world?
The crowds are great here. We’ve played Stoke a lot of times and we’ve played Wolverhampton a lot of times too, so our fanbase is pretty good there. This is our first time in Nuneaton so we’re very excited to be here and play.
How is the new material from last year’s After Hours EP going down?
It’s been fantastic. With it being called the After Hours Tour, we’re obviously playing songs from the After Hours EP – in fact we’re playing all of the songs from it. They’ve been received really well and it’s nice to have written these songs, go to a load of different cities and have them sung back at you. It’s great!
The new EP was crowd funded, how rewarding was it to know your fans had your back like that?
Yeah, it was crazy. We set a target of £7,500 and we actually met that within three days – I think in the end it went up to £11,000. The fact that we hit that target in three days with the help of our fans is just insane for us. We’ve got a really loyal fanbase and when we announced the Kickstarter it just shot up straight away, which was crazy.
What did the extra money allow you to do? Record more songs?
When you make an EP you have to spend a lot more than just the studio time – artwork costs money, producing CDs costs money – so with the extra money we were just able to do a better job of everything.
The band’s story is one of a lot of success early on in your career – so splitting from your record label must have been a tough period for you?
We did get a lot of stuff early on, when we were kids – when I say we were shit, haha! But, right now we’re still getting some awesome stuff and last year was probably our best year yet; we toured Russia and Japan for the first, we did two tours of America, the UK and Europe so it’s still going strong. We got some amazing stuff early on so I’m excited to see what the future brings.
And are you now touring as an independent band?
Yeah, we have some people looking after us a little bit in the background, but right now it’s all us.
Given the recent demise of bands like Lostalone and the upcoming farewell tour of The Blackout, was there ever a chance that Glamour of the Kill would throw in the towel?
Not really, no. We all get on really well and still have a lot of fun. We are getting older, but it’s not like we’re too old – we’ve some years in us yet!
Having now had a successful Kickstarter campaign, do you think crowd funding could be the future for rock bands?
I think it’s definitely an option for us, given how successful it was. I do still think it’s nice to have that label behind so they can reach out to better things and push for more, you know? There’s only so far you can take it when you’re doing it yourself. The good thing with Kickstarter is that you can use it to do anything – the Blackout have just used it to do a DVD, so maybe we could try using it for something like that. It is a really cool way of doing things.
What’s next for Glamour of the Kill in 2015 after you’re done on this tour?
We’ve just announced some dates with Heaven’s Basement in May, and then I think we’re going to knuckle down and write and release a couple of singles, and keep pumping out songs. We’ve got a lot of demos floating round for the next full length, which we want to release in September.
To finish, we asked our followers on Twitter and Facebook to send us their questions for you, so here’s a few of the best of them…
From Marina Denise: After the UK, where would you most like to live?
We went to Japan last year for the first time and that was incredible, we really loved it there. The cities are really clean, the culture is awesome and everyone is super kind, so I’d probably say Tokyo.
From Simon: What are your and the rest of the band’s favourite pasta shapes?
Wow! Deep question! Mine’s probably spaghetti – I loved spaghetti. As for the rest of the band I really don’t know.
Is there a go to pasta shapes when Glamour of the Kill tours? Or is it just spaghetti?
Haha! Probably just spaghetti – we love spaghetti and meatballs.
From Dave: who is the best Birmingham band of all time?
Best Birmingham band of all time?…I don’t know.
Do you know any Birmingham bands?
No, haha!
Well there is this little one you may have heard of called Black Sabbath. And then there’s Judas something or other…
Oh yeah of course! Haha! Sorry, I had a brain fart! Definitely Black Sabbath. Haha! We’ll cut that one out!
From Jay: can my open for you on your next tour
No. Haha!
From Dan: Oasis or Sleaford Mods?
Oasis – I love Oasis.
From Joe: Beans on toast or cheese on toast?
Beans on toast with cheese on top.
From Ellie: White and gold or blue and black?
I saw it as white and gold.
From Steve: Best gig you ever played?
Japan in October last year. We played a festival called Loud Park Festival in front of 25,000. It was mental!
From Hannah: best piece of advice to unsigned/upcoming bands?
Stay out of my way! Haha!
See our review and photographs of Glamour of the Kill’s gig in Nuneaton right here.
Interview and photographs: Dave Musson