The Royston Club have spoken to NME about their new album, ‘Songs For The Spine’, as well as their deep connection with fans, vulnerable songwriting, and advice they received from Travis. Check out the full interview below.
Vocalist Tom Faithfull and guitarist and main songwriter Ben Matthias caught up with us around the release of their second record, which is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to ‘Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars’ – their 2023 debut LP, which saw them reach the UK top 20 chart and win over a dedicated legion of fans.
According to the band, ‘Songs For The Spine’ has seen them hone in on their sound more concisely than ever before, and let their guard down to introduce more emotive and honest songwriting.
Created alongside esteemed producer Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Rachel Chinouriri), the album maintains the same indie-rock sound that first put the band on the map, but has brought in more nuanced and raw elements, inspired by the poetry of Nick Cave.
“It’s a lot more live-sounding than the first album, because we wrote it in the practice room and then tried to recreate that live sound that we had,” said Ben Matthias. “Rich Turvy really cultivated that by allowing us to make mistakes and get a lot of live takes.”
He added: “In the debut, we would do take after take to make sure everything was perfect. This time around, we embraced those mistakes and made it feel a lot more natural. In the first album, we had so many ideas, and we would just throw all of them into it… This time, though, we whittled down those ideas, and we knew what we wanted to make it sound like.”
Faithfull told NME: “It was quite nice having someone like Rich who’d done so many albums before. When we were paranoid that things needed re-doing because something wasn’t quite perfect, he’d be like, ‘Nah, it’s cool as it is. You’ll look back at it and be glad that you didn’t overdub too much and re-record over and over again’.”
Check out the full interview with The Royston Club below, where they also tell NME about how they have been finding their intimate album release shows more daunting than their upcoming slots on the Reading & Leeds main stage, how their Wrexham roots shaped their journey, the advice they were given by Travis, and more.
NME: Hi Ben and Tom. You’re back with a new album after reaching the UK top 20 on the charts with your 2023 debut. What has it been like to work on the follow-up after seeing such a big response?
Tom Faithfull: “I think there was always going to be a bit of pressure, but not pressure from anyone else. The label is pretty sound, and it wasn’t pressure chart-wise; it was more from us wanting to make sure we didn’t fall into that second-album-syndrome thing that you hear so many bands going into. Luckily, when we heard the mixes back, we were really, really happy with them.”
Ben Matthias: “[Seeing the response] did catch us off-guard, especially with the demographic. It wasn’t a certain group of people, and it wasn’t just a teen girl fanbase that was resonating with it. We’d have middle-aged men and women coming up to us at gigs and saying how much it had affected them as well. It was really nice to see, and it had a big impact on us.
“It was those people who were in our minds while we were writing the second album. We wanted to write a good album for them… as corny as that sounds!”
There is a big sense of vulnerability in the tracklist this time around; for example, ‘Cariad’ explores the hardships at the end of a relationship. Why was it important for you to put those emotions into the album?
Matthias: “The songs that I’ve always loved growing up and that I’ve connected with are ones where the writers have really laid their heart out. They’re songs where you can see everything that person was going through.
“The writing [for that song] came at a point in my life where I was going through a big change, and I wanted to put all that into it. We didn’t want to hide or shy away from anything. It’s a tough thing to get over at first, really putting yourself out there, but the fans seem to really like it. At our in-store tour dates, that’s been the main song that people are loving. So I guess people are already connecting with it.”
Who were some of those artists that really stuck with you?
Matthias: “For me, it’s always been Elliott Smith, and in my earlier years, it was Alex Turner. I remember watching an interview when I was 12, and he was saying how scared he was about bringing songs to the rest of the band [Arctic Monkeys] because he was being more vulnerable in them. It’s something that, once you get over the [nerves], it’s a really important part of the songwriting process.”
How are you feeling about tackling the main stages at Reading & Leeds this month?
Faithfull: “They’re the shows of the whole summer that we’ve been really looking forward to. There have been loads of great gigs this summer, but that’s the festival that we all went to when we were 16. I know it’s a bit of a cliché that all bands up north say, but it really was the first one we went to and the first one we really loved! We’ve played other stages there before, so to be on the main one with all these other amazing bands that we looked up to… It’s gonna be really special.
“There definitely are going to be some nerves, because of how big an occasion it is for us… and because it’s going to be televised too, but that makes it even more exciting. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
You’re currently on the road for your album release shows. What is it like to be playing in these intimate venues?
Faithfull: “ It’s way more scary [than bigger shows]! The little 100-capacity venues are terrifying. You can see the whites of people’s eyes; they’re always eye-level with you, and you can really see whether they’re getting into it or not. Compare that to when it’s 1,000 or 2,000 people – that’s just a blur of people. But seeing their reactions at these venues is great and a really different feeling to playing at places like Reading & Leeds.”
Matthias: ”It’s also extremely rewarding. For example, we recently played in Bristol and everyone was singing back, they had a little laugh with us, and it was very wholesome. It’s like you’re playing in someone’s living room.”
How did you find it debuting then-unreleased material at these intimate live shows?
Faithfull: ”It’s gone quite well. No one’s left to get pints… yet. So that’s a good sign!”
Matthias: “It’s lovely debuting new material at shows like these because you start to see the same faces you saw on the last in-store tour two years ago, and even people before that. There are pre-COVID fans coming, and it’s lovely to have them on the journey with us.”
What was it like starting out as a band from Wrexham, before Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac acquired Wrexham AFC and brought it to the global spotlight?
Matthias: “People definitely seem more interested when we say we’re from Wrexham now, whereas before, no one had really heard of it. In the town now, it’s very optimistic. Wrexham was a bit stuck in the past [when I was] growing up, and now we’re all finally looking to the future. There are a lot of projects going on there, which is exciting, but I’m not sure how much it has translated into the music side of things yet.”
Faithfull: ”There are some really great people there. A lot of people [in grassroots venues] who know that they’ll make no money from putting these little bands on, but push to create a platform for them anyway. We played loads of little 80-cap venues around Wrexham thanks to people who weren’t really getting much out of it. They’d go out of their way to put bands, so it’s a proper community feel.”
Matthias: “ It definitely doesn’t have that same big music scene thing that you have in Liverpool, Manchester or London, where there are scouts going around venues. You don’t have that in Wrexham, so if you want to make it, it’s purely organic and foundational rather than going straight to any big labels.
“That probably helped us in a way, because we had to do these little venues for so long that we honed our craft bit by bit. By the time we started playing in Manchester or in Liverpool, we felt confident enough in our abilities that it wasn’t as big of a step for us.”
Since starting out, you’ve hit the road with the likes of Kasabian, Travis, Liam Gallagher and many more. Have you taken anything from being on the road with these big names?
Faithfull: “Travis are amazing and [frontman] Fran Healy was such a nice guy. It was really amazing watching them play as well; they sound absolutely amazing. They gave us some really great advice, too, which we appreciated because sometimes when you go on tour with a bigger band, you might get shunned a little bit and have to know your place. But for us, all the band members came up to us and chatted about their experiences and asked what we’ve got going on.”
What was that advice that they shared?
Faithfull: ”The big one was to get to America. Fran lives out in LA, and he was saying that all his best experiences he’s ever had in a band were from doing thousands of little shows in America. We haven’t gone over there yet, but we’re planning to next year.”
Matthias: “ It was great for our ego to talk to him, too! They’re such a massive band, they’ve headlined Glasto, and before we went on stage, he was saying about how great he thought we were! We walked on stage with these massive heads…”
What is one thing that you hope listeners take from the new album?
Matthias: “I hope that they can resonate with the lyrics and really find something to latch onto in some of the songs. Also, I’m gonna sound corny again, but I hope you can feel how close we are as people through this music. We’ve grown up together and, especially over our time in the band, we’ve got so close. We can hear that in the songs, and I hope the fans can hear it as well.”
Faithfull: “I hope you can hear how deliberate some of the parts are, and how much we worked on some of the stuff in the practice room. Like we said before, with the first album, there was a lot of like throwing stuff at the wall and hoping that it sticks, but this really felt like we were being a lot more deliberate with how we did things. I really want people to hear that a lot of thought has gone into it, and tell that we care.”
The Royston Club’s album release shows and festival slots continue throughout the summer, and their headline tour dates commence on November 1. Visit here for tickets and more information.
