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There’s a lot of scope on ‘One More For The Road’, a lot of different sounds. For instance, the string arrangements on ‘Fight You Leaving Me’ were really effective. “Thanks. That was actually one of my first tries. Bands like Aerosmith always use strings on their ballads, so I always had that ear for arrangements. When I grew up, in the nineties, it was very common, every ballad had strings in it, nowadays not so many people use them. I was always familiar with strings, so it wasn’t a real scientific journey to work them out. We needed strings, so I sat down and composed them. We used them slightly, early on in our career, but now time has advanced.” Technology has moved on, and it’s easier to use them? “No, it’s us getting better! Every record is a snapshot of your abilities, and with this one we had just improved. With the next one, we will improve even more, hopefully!” ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ is a personal favourite from the new album, and in particular, the John Lee Hooker inspired vocals… or were they just a coincidence? “Not intentionally that particular part, but the thing is that I love to combine different eras from music. The ‘how-how-how’ that John Lee Hooker does on ‘Boom Boom Boom’ is a classic blues thing, and I really like that. The song was finished, without the part that you are talking about, and I felt that there was something missing. First we tried it on the guitar, by just adding a little melody, then I thought that I could add some humming, then it turned into the vocals that you can hear on the album. I feel that is one of the main parts of that song now. When we play it live, the crowd love that part.” You mentioned Hellfest earlier. It looks like you had a blast taking part in the ‘All Star’ jam of ‘Walk This Way’. “We had a lot of fun with that. We started out as a cover band, myself and Urban have been doing this for 15 years, so we have years of playing Aerosmith, AC/DC, ZZ Top, The Beatles, Elvis… we played them all, man! This is what defines us, it defines my voice, I had to be very flexible, needed to be able to sing an Elvis song, followed by ‘Walk This Way’, followed by ‘Let It Be’, so you always had to change from soft to rough, back to soft, then groove into the funky songs.” So the video for ‘Life Ain’t Easy (For A Boy With Long Hair)’ is actually from experience? The car breaking down, rushing to get to the gig, and then walking out into an empty room? “Yeah! It is actually filmed in a bar where we used to play 15 years ago. We called the owner and asked if we could come in and film that funny song about how it all started. He’s in the video. He’s the one that tells us to turn it down, he’s an Irish dude. We grew up in that bar, we played it all the time, four hour sets! Everything is true; someone spitting in the tip jar, throwing coasters at us, all these things all happened!” After a short break, The New Roses are out on the road in Europe with The Dead Daisies. What are you hoping to get from that tour? “We’ve toured with them before, so we know that this is 100% the audience for our type of music. Everytime that we played with them we sold many, many records, and the next time that we played in that town, you could see that the audience had gotten much bigger. This is the best business card that you can give to someone. You go to a show and you have no idea who is opening up, and then they are really good and word spreads.” There was a recent online discussion, where Frontiers Music were saying that there are many ways to support a band. Not just buying the albums or merch, but also ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ a video and spreading the word. From your point of view, what’s the best way that someone can support The New Roses? “Let’s split it up into promotion and financial outcome. The best thing that you can do to support The New Roses financially is to go to the show and buy a shirt. If you order the CD on Amazon or download it on iTunes, we get next to no share of that. I just read how little U2 made from Spotify, and that’s shocking. Millions of streams, but with no financial gain. If you can’t get to a show, order from the band’s own website. If you just want to spread the word about The New Roses, then there are so many ways; you can use Spotify to reach a potential audience. If that makes them buy a ticket, then it’s a fair exchange. Pay nothing for the music, but buy a ticket. Us putting on a good show will mean that you tell your friends, who then tell other friends, and it quickly builds up, but you have to be on tour all the time to make that work. Our responsibility is to give people the opportunity to see us… and when they do, be great!” One last question. I know that you are a massive fan of The Black Crowes, so where do you fall, Rich Robinson with Magpie Salute or Chris Robinson with his band? “Haha! The Black Crowes changed my life, it’s true. I was a kid, and my older brother had the ‘Best Of’ CD. As soon as I put it on, and ‘Jealous Again’ started up, I knew that was it. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was tough and wild, but very well played. They were refreshing as they had hooks, but not hooks that had been overused, like say, Bon Jovi hooks. I was afraid when they started drifting away from their original sound, getting more mellow. Their last few records were super slow in a really stoned way, so I only stuck to the old records. Long story short, I would go for Rich Robinson’s band, Magpie Salute.” Good call! Thanks for your time Timmy! For more information on The New Roses, connect with them here. ]]>
