Young Guns

Young Guns

Entering the dressing room and climbing over instrument cases, suitcases and hair dryers(!) we introduced ourselves to the cheery band, us unfortunately looking very much like drowned rats thanks to the rain outside.

Just as a gentleman would, front-man Gustav Wood cleared space, apologised for the mess and even pulled up a chair beside him, to make sure we felt as comfortable as possible for the interview – how lovely!

Unfortunately for Gustav, he had caught the tour illness and playing a show and partying every night had finally caught up with him. He had woken up with a cold, so was feeling a little under the weather but this certainly did not dampen his spirits during the whole interview!

You’ve come from playing alongside All Time Low at the Kerrang tour to now being a bigger support with them on this tour, do you think that the Kerrang tour opened doors and new opportunities for you?

Gustav: Yeah I do, I think it opened up a lot of opportunities. Apart from anything else, at the time it was the longest tour that we’d ever done and the biggest. I think things like that give you a level of credibility, it’s kind of like, you know, everything to do with the music industry now; the hardest part is getting your first foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and once your on that ladder, it’s easier to climb and people take you more seriously the more credible you are.

Doing the Kerrang tour is basically having a Kerrang endorsement and getting on a big tour with some other really great bands. It was really cool for us to do but we also got to meet the guys (All Time Low), that was fun but more importantly for that we bumped into them a lot over the summer, so it really just sowed the seeds for being mates. They are really nice dudes, I mean they actually personally asked us to go out on this tour and there wasn’t really anyway we were gonna say no![Laughter]

So the Kerrang tour was amazing, but this has to be our favourite tour we have ever done. It’s just been really good fun, you know hanging out with the guys, partying a lot, the crowd’s have been amazing every night. It’s been really great to get out to such big crowds in Europe; it’s been amazing!

You’ve obviously just said the receptions been good on this tour, was it better than you expected it to be?

Gustav: Well, I think we kind of knew that their audience was going to be receptive to us, without being derogatory in a way they are a younger audience primarily and those crowd’s tend to be open to new things, even if they didn’t know who we were they’ve been really nice to us every night. I kind of thought that would happen and we’ve been fortunate enough that it has happened. It’s just been wicked, we are always amazed everyone knows our songs and stuff, the response has been great!

What’s been your favourite date of the tour so far?

Gustav: The first one was pretty amazing in Belgium, just because we were like ‘Wow! This is f*cking cool, we’ve got a month of this – wow!’ so Belgium was great but really they have, without sounding tripe, they have all been pretty amazing! It’s definitely the best tour we’ve ever done, we are all really bummed out it’s coming to a close! It’s been amazing.

So what song in your set has had the best reception?

Gustav: I don’t know [pause] maybe ‘Weight Of The World’? I think it would be ‘Weight Of The World’, ‘Winter Kiss’ ‘Crystal Clear’ and ‘Stitches’ as well! They’ve all gone down pretty well, but I guess those are the ones that are the most-known to people who aren’t ‘serious’ Young Guns fans.

Have there been any venues you’ve played that you would like to headline yourselves?

Gustav: All of them! [laughter] They are all obviously really great shows, so they are great for that and many other reasons. I think the Manchester Academy; the main room. We’ve played there quite a few times and we’ve always supported there, it’s such a great room and the Manchester crowd’s are great so it would be really cool to go back and headline there. We have a show there in September at the Manchester Academy but it’s not the main room, it’s the second room, but the hope is that it will sell out and we’ll get upgraded! You know, we will play anywhere to anyone that’s always been our ethos, we are not terribly fussy! We’ll go anywhere as long as they watch us!

Any tour stories from the current tour that you want to spill?

Gustav: That I wanna spill? Not really! [laughter] I’m trying to think of one’s that won’t make anyone look terrible. That’s really hard as most humorous tour stories involve someone making a complete d*ck out of themselves, so those don’t tend to be the things we talk about! We’ve had a couple of really fun nights, like last night Alex and some of the guys were DJ-ing at the Cockpit (Leeds), just loads of big nights! It’s been one sickeningly nice ‘mass bro-down’, it’s really cool. You know, they like to party but they are sensible guys; they’re sweet and really nice! Everyone on the tour’s like that, it’s not terribly ‘rock n roll’ but it’s just fun, so no crazy sh*t has happened!

You’ve just announced your headline tour for September, what can fans expect from the tour or are you still planning this?

Gustav: We are going to record our new album in July, we fly out on like the 16th or something like that so we are going to go record that. We’re going to be away for a lot of this year really, which is one of the reasons we wanted to book a handful of shows towards the end of the year. It’s kind of just to say goodbye to the first record and play some new songs of the new one. They can expect a bigger production than we’ve been able to do so far, hopefully some really cool lighting and stuff like that and hopefully some tracks of the new record. By that time those will be all done and dusted, wrapped and ready to go! Definitely some new songs, it’s going to be really exciting for us. We love all the music that we have, but after a while you know we must have played the songs thousands of times, so I guess it will be the first chance for people to hear the new tracks! It’s going to be a great show, we’re gonna make sure we’ve got really great support acts out with us. They are big shows and hopefully there is going to be a sense of occasion to them, as we will have been away for a while; in all just a ‘good night’.

Who do you believe at the moment is the biggest competing act for you guys?

Gustav: That’s a tough one for a number of different reasons really because a) you don’t wanna start any sh*t and b) I don’t want to it look like there is anyone that ‘bothers’ us, cause there really isn’t! We’ve got loads of friends bands that we are really proud of and that are doing really well, bands like ‘Deaf Havana’ who I think are going to go on to do really good things this year, they’ve got a great new album! That’s not competition, that’s a bunch of our friends who we think deserve success and they’re gonna get it this year! I think there are tons of good bands in the UK, ‘Flood Of Red’ they’re a great band who maybe don’t get as much publicity as they deserve! There’s no one else that we perceive as competition to be honest with you!

In regards to your merchandise, do you have a lot of input in the design?

Gustav: Yeah, we do it all! I mean we don’t necessarily design all the designs, because we’re not that skilled with Photo shop and ‘all that jazz’, but it’s always our ideas that we give to someone. I mean it’s the same with our videos, our artwork and our merch; it’s always us, just not necessarily us [laughter] like we can’t direct the video, but we can give our ideas, we can’t paint or anything like that but we can give the person that can paint the idea’s that we want. We’re as hands on as we can be without actually doing every little thing ourselves, which would probably be a disaster anyway! [Laughter] We’re very hands on and we like to try and make our merch as good as it can be. On this tour, we were only allowed a few designs but on the September run and just over the summer we’re gonna release a whole bunch of new stuff!

And finally, so where would you like to see the band in 2012?

Gustav: The only thing I really want is just for us to keep on progressing, just moving forwards and not backwards. I don’t have any like ‘Oh I wanna play Wembley!’, it’s more like I just want to continue to be busy. The more you progress with the band, the more you worry; like you get a taste of things going well and you become afraid about not having it you know? There would be nothing worse than to not have it at all, than having a little. Truthfully, all I want is for us to continue being busy I really want us to come out with a record that does something you know, I think we are capable of it! So, hopefully 2012 will be the year we continue to progress, visit some new countries and hopefully gain more fans!

Fingers crossed! Thanks a lot!

2 responses to “Young Guns”

  1. […] including September tour plans, album recordings and an inside look at the All Time Low tour, click here […]

  2. Emma avatar
    Emma

    WOW, i love gus so so much, he might of had a cold when i seen him on thw 11th March 2011 but it didnt affect his amazing voice and personality!! i felt really pleased when he stopped for me after the tour, we had a lovely convo, love you gus:)xxx

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