Photography by Mark McNulty
Sou nd of Gu ns Sound of Guns are Liverpool’s biggest sound of the moment - as quoted by the guys behind Liverpool Sound City. And it really seems to be that way, following their massive gig at last year’s LSC the foursome are back to headline St George’s Hall. Following the release of their debut album What Came From Fire last year, these guys haven’t really taken a break, with the follow-up album planned for release later this year. I caught up with frontman and singer Andy, while he was stuck in traffic on the way to do some more studio recording in Bath. - Interview by Dina Karim
How does it feel to be headlining LSC and playing at St George’s Hall?
So, how did you guys meet?
It’s an honour that we’re playing LSC and playing at St George’s Hall. We
Me and Simon were in a band previously but when we left we just carried on
played there a few years ago when we supported The Zutons - it’s this amazing
working on songs. We then met Nathan in a pub round the corner where we
venue with great acoustics, it’s like playing in a mini Albert Hall. LSC have
were rehearsing and he came round to the rehearsal and that night we came
asked us to play this year because we’re a lot bigger than we were last year
up with Alcatraz. Coley saw us do a couple of shows and he joined us - it’s
after the release of our album and the gig we did last year went really well.
probably my amazing voice that attracted him! The name for the band came from the title of a song, an early song that we had. It is a bit surreal just
The planned release for your second album is later this year. You’ve been
shooting to fame like that, but you know we’ve just been kind of taking it in
working with renowned music producer Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers
our stride and you know we want more.
and Idlewild) for the album, what’s it like working with him? The new album has better songs and as a band we’re better as well. We’ve
What sort of music are you guys into, is it all similar tastes?
been on the road for two years now but I think there’s a better balance of who
We’ve all got these different tastes, but at the same time we’re quite similar,
we are in our upcoming album.
like Nathan likes Spandex rock and we all like Led Zeppelin, indie and rock. I
David did our first EP and he was really enthusiastic about us at the time, he
don’t know if we ever made a conscious decision not to sound like that Mersey
loved the work we where doing but we couldn’t really afford him for the first
sound, I just don’t think it was ever us we just had this more universal sound.
album. He’s always been into the band though, and he was the right kind of guy to do this.
Sound of Guns had a run in with the police, in true Rock n Roll style, tell us
He’s been really good for our sound, while we may have dozens of songs we
more.
think could work, he just like rips the sh*t out the album, creating these
Oh yeah, so that’s like hilarious. We’re down at the pub in Wakefield, watching
amazing arrangements.
the match and someone must have heard us talking about Sound of Guns, because next thing we hear is these policemen asking us all about these guns
Why did you build a studio for your first album?
and everything, thinking we were terrorists. We got it sorted it out though,
We built our first ever studio because we thought it would be the best thing
we played Wakefield a month later and I swear one of the policemen was in
for the future of the band, so rather than like blow all the money we got in
the crowd!
advance from the record label we used it to build this amazing studio. We wanted the sound to sound like we do when play live, our drummer recorded
What’s coming up for Sound of Guns?
our early demos so that’s how we wanted it to sound. We’re in a big studio now
Well, we’ve got the album out later this year, we’ve got our headline tour at
recording for the upcoming album because I think it suited it better.
the end of May and we’re playing loads of festivals like Rockness, Scotland, this summer.
You’re signed up with the independent label Distiller Records, why did you sign with them? At the time there were loads of offers coming in, but it was really important to us to actually sign with a record label that understood us and what we were about, giving us the freedom to do what we wanted rather than have loads of money and be limited.
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