Stereoboard Speak To Grouplove Ahead Of Their London Headline Show (Interview)
Monday, 05 March 2012
Written by Ryan Crittenden
After the success of their critically acclaimed self-titled EP, Grouplove released their debut album 'Never Trust A Happy Song' in September and from then they have just gone from strength to strength. The LA-based band that came together in Crete had been touring across Europe and the UK and tonight was probably Grouplove's biggest headline show to date in the capital. They had sold out the Relentless Garage venue in Islington and before the show we got a chance to speak to them about Brussels, Glastonbury and the two girls dressed as tigers that were outside tonight's venue!
SB - Stereoboard. GL - GROUPLOVE. C - Christian, Lead Singer. H - Hannah, keyboards and vocals. R – Ryan, Drummer and S – Sean, bass and vocals.
SB: Nice to meet you guys, thanks for the interview.
GL: No problem, thanks for coming down and seeing us.
SB: So it is the last gig of the tour tonight. Are you looking forward to it?
H: Hell yeah!
C: It’s a real high for us cus it’s the last night and we are in London. The band that it opening for us, we were all at the commune where we all first met each other in Greece, they are playing tonight and we have seen this guys in almost 4 years.
S: It will be a lovely reunion show.
SB: We saw a couple of girls dressed as tigers outside the venue, what can they and the rest of the crowd expect from tonight?
R: Haha really?! Well we usually howl at wolves in our set so they are just gonna have to roll with us on that one.
C: Yeah lots of howling, sweating and growling really. We are just going out to enjoy ourselves and hopefully it will show and the crowd will do the same.
SB: It’s your first tour since the release of your debut album last year so how’s the European tour been? Have you been enjoying the UK shows?
H: I am gonna tell you first off the best thing about touring the UK is the drives are so short, going from city to city in America is like 8 hours and in the UK it’s like yeah we will be there in 45 minutes.
R: Its so weird in the UK because you drive that hour to another city and the accents are just completely different. You have to really get used to the difference.
C: Its been really good to come back and see a lot of new people, we have been here like 3 or 4 times so we have seen gradual growth and this one has been by far the best.
Q: You touched on the growth of the UK crowd, have you really noticed the difference?
S: There is definitely more of them now, which is obvious nice to see.
R: They know the words to more songs this time.
C: We have showed up in some random places on this tour that we have never been to before like Brussels. That was one of the five best shows we have ever played it was insane, kids were jumping on stage, licking us, kissing us. When we get licked on stage it goes top 5 like straight away!
SB: Haha that sounds amazing, a bit weird but hopefully tonight will be up there as one of your best shows, licking or not!
GL: Haha, we hope so!
SB: After the show the European tour is over, so what is in store for the rest of the year for Grouplove?
C: Well we are going back to America tomorrow at 6am as we have another US tour. We are playing with Young the Giant, they are fun guys who we know already so it yeah. After the tour it leads nicely to Coachella and after that we are ready to do our biggest headline run so far in the Sates.
H: We know we are coming back to Britain in the summer but our manager will not tell us what we are doing! We had such a good time last summer playing the festivals so it will be amazing to come back.
R: We played quite a few of the festivals last year, Glastonbury was awesome. It was our first festival so we loved it. The whole thing was crazy, a lot of walking and a lot of mud but it was just amazing.
SB: It must be nice to now be headlining your own shows but who is the best people you have toured with?
C: We have been lucky and toured with so many great bands like opening for Florence and the Machine and playing with Foster the People – that was a great tour for us. We also did this great radio tour in America in the suburbs with a bunch of great bands going round the country. It was the most camaraderie we have experienced, everyone was just hanging out on buses together and enjoying themselves, that was with Cage the Elephant, Young the Giant, Foster the People, Mumford and Sons and Janes Addiction.
R: We got to hang out with them a lot, it was such a great experience.
SB: Finally, if you were to go on tour with any band or artist past or present who would you choose?
R: I wanna go on tour with Elvis because apparently he partied a lot!
SB: Well thank you very much for that and good luck for tonight and have fun!
GL: Thanks for coming along from Wales and we hope you enjoy yourself!
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C: We have showed up in some random places on this tour that we have never been to before like Brussels. That was one of the five best shows we have ever played it was insane, kids were jumping on stage, licking us, kissing us. When we get licked on stage it goes top 5 like straight away!
