After spending the year touring the world, The Vamps are ready to go back into the studio and start working on their third studio album. Currently just back from India, the band sat down to chat upcoming single All Night, relationships and what makes them tick. It’s been a full year for the boys and they keep going on strong. They’re releasing a book next week, working on a third album and also managing their own record label. Busy times ahead, but nothing short of exciting. FAULT chatted to Brad, the band’s singer, ahead of The Vamps upcoming release All Night featuring Matoma, and here’s his take on it all.

 

 

You’ve just finished a world tour and have travelled all around the globe over the past year. What were your highlights?

We recently did a show in Poland and we never ever played a show there. We initially put the show on an 800 capacity venue which we thought was enough and then it went up to a 3000 capacity venue. And we actually sold that out. I think going to a new place and having no idea how you’re going to be perceived by an audience to then go and sell out a crowd that big – that was just an incredible moment for us. That was one of the highlights of the whole year and it was such a good gig.

 

 

Word on the street is that you’ve got quite some interesting pre-show rituals. Care to talk me through them?

We do. We have ‘the chin’. So basically, before every show, we do like a little speech and in the speech, everyone has an object in their hand and nobody can have the same object – so maybe like a cereal box, an orange – and then we rub our chins together. The amount of seconds that we rub our chins together is equivalent to the date that we’re playing the show.

 

That’s not something you hear every day. How did it come about?

I don’t really know! It started with the chin definitely. That was the first part of the ritual. It started at our first gig; we wanted to do something before every gig. So we started to rub our chins together.

 

Chins aside, you’ve just announced a new single – All Night featuring Matoma. This is the first new material that we get from you guys in a while. How does it relate to what’s going to come next?

It’s the first song off of our third album. The album is going to be released in a format that it hasn’t been before, so that’s something that’s exciting for us. But All Night is the first piece of new music off of our next body of work. It’s quite representative of everything else that’s about to come. It’s an atmospheric song. In terms of development of music as a band, it’s very different in the sense that it’s unlike anything we’ve ever done. But lyrically – it’s probably the most mature and self-representative song we’ve written.

 

In terms of new material, you’re currently working on your third studio album – Do you have any other collaborations in mind for the new one?

Not as of yet, we haven’t got anything confirmed. We’ll usually go into the studio, write the songs and then have a look back and think what songs would be fit for collaboration. You don’t want to go in and just do collabs for the sake of doing them, if it didn’t benefit the song. So there are a few songs I’d imagine to have features on, but we haven’t got anything else confirmed.

 

 

Have you shifted gears in terms of sound in any way?

I think we have done that, we definitely have. I think it’s just the nature of musicians really. You get quite stuck in a rut if you keep doing the same thing. So pushing yourself and challenging yourself to do different things is part of not getting bored. So yeah, we’ve definitely changed sonically. Not exactly changed, but we have developed. The album sounds a bit more current. Obviously the whole music industry has shifted a bit. So it’s a bit more current in the sense that it’s a bit more dancy, a bit more Justin Bieber –Skrillex kind of sound. So we’ve taken influence from that but kind of put our print on it.

 

You set up your own record label as well. What drove you towards it?

I think we’ve always been interested as a band in working in the music industry. You’ve got these people there who are heavily involved with your project and your band and they get to experience the whole journey with you as well. They’re just as invested as you are. If you’ve got the right team around that is. They want to see the final project as much as you do. If you find a group or a musician and help develop them and see them grow – and basically the whole process – it’s a very nice and rewarding process.

 

You’ve also got a book coming out next week – can you share with us like your favourite bits and bobs?

You get to see a side of The Vamps that nobody has ever seen before, which is a good thing. People have their own perception of you because of the things that they read and I think it’s nice that they will get to see our take on things, in our own words. There are a few stories, a few drunken night stories in there, we chat about stuff that goes on behind the scenes, relationships and all that.

 

After spending so much time touring, you must have quite a few stories under your belt. What’s one the most ridiculous things that’s ever happened to you lot while traveling?

Somehow – I don’t even know how – we ended up in a leopard printed limousine. I don’t even know how it really happened to be honest. We just went for dinner and next thing we knew, there was a leopard print limousine outside. That’s probably the most rock star thing we’ve ever done.

 

What’s your FAULT?

I’ve got a few to be honest. I’m late to a thing quite often, that’s a big fault. And I’m terrible at texting back.

 

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