Stage Invasions and Spaghetti North-Western: A Chat with Red Rum Club

Red Rum Club are a band that have increasingly garnered attention. With four studio albums, a headline sell-out at Liverpool's arena, and an induction into the Cavern Wall of Fame in Liverpool, this sextet are quickly adding notches to their belt. I sat down with guitarist Tom Williams and trumpeteer Joe Corby ahead of their performance at Leazes Park on Sunday 5th May to discuss life so far.

Sat down on a bench in Leazes Park, the backdrop to our chat was the mighty St James' Park and the sound of UK festivals returning for the summer. What could be more fitting as I asked about their recent successes?

You've just headlined a massive gig in Liverpool at the arena, have you managed to process any of it at all?

Joe Corby: I feel like I’ve just about managed to come down from the arena. I think the trick was with that not to have too big of expectations. The members of the band who were building up, I think they struggled to process it whereas if you just went into it with a fresh head, I think it was just a really wholesome night really.

Tom Williams: I think I underestimated it really. I didn’t know what to expect because we’ve never played headline shows that big before – we’ve played to bigger crowds but never had that many people come to see just us. So, I was blown away. I’m usually the pessimist of the band as well.

JC: We’d sold out all the standing as well so to see that part of the arena, even that would be amazing. When we actually walked out… it was blackout when we first walked out as well so literally as soon as we played the first note and just saw everyone it was just like AH! Yeah it was crazy and great at the same time.

The headline show was in your hometown as well, did that have a special element to it?

JC: Yeah course, I mean that venue’s always something that we’ve always had as an aim but never as an expectation just something to aim towards. It’s kind of weird having done that now I mean we still obviously tried to sell it out and stuff like that but to actually say we’ve done that is a very big moment.

TW: Yeah it’s strange because we remember it being built. My first show was there - I went to watch Oasis in there on their last tour.

JC: Wombats opened as well the Capital of Culture when it was open and we had literally just a US tour with The Wombats. So, it’s kind of weird. I don’t know if you just make these connections because you can but it’s kind of weird how it came about, and it’s definitely been like a journey.

TW: We didn’t even know if we were ready to play it when we got offered it but we were like someone’s offered us this and we may never get the opportunity again - even if it’s just all our mum’s and auntie’s let’s just do it.

If you can just sell it out with mum’s and aunties, then that’s still perfect I guess?

JC: You can with your family Tom…

You're known as a touring band and your music works so well with live crowd interaction. What's one of your best stories at a live show?

JC: Ooo that’s a tough one. I mean the early days were always fun because we started getting this feeling after our Pirate Studio competition where we had to prove ourselves to get into this cool club - they were the ones who got you into festivals and stuff. You go through these hard yards and then you get a bit of a leg up and when we got the deal with This Feeling it was great because we did a sold out tour with them - I think every gig on that tour we’d have stage invasions there.

TW: We opened that tour in Newcastle in Head of Steam. There was a stage invasion because the stage is basically on the floor, and we broke like £500 worth of equipment.

JC [laughing]: We were so skint at that point as well and we were like what are we gonna do? Just keep doing it! Luckily, we were alright for the rest of the tour - I think Neil was hugging his drums a bit tighter. It can’t have sounded good though with all those people.

TW: Yeah, they just took the mic off Frankie, and he just stood there unsure what to do.

I've always thought it's a bit dangerous how close the stage is to the crowd there...

JC: People always put their pints down on the stage as well. They were fun gigs though, it was a little bit of our calling card you know, you try anything at that stage to get yourself a bit of a name about but that was fun. I think it probably the last time we did it as well, but they were always good fun.

TW: This Feeling let us headline their stage at the Isle of Wight Festival as well and it was the birth of a new rule for live shows: no alcohol two hours before stage time because we were headlining so we had to get there at 9am for soundcheck and the stage was sponsored by Red Stripe and there was just a lorry full of Red Stripe behind us. We were on at 10pm and we just started drinking all day.

TW: We thought it was the best gig of our lives but the next day the manager was on the phone like ‘what was last night, I’ve seen videos…’. I had the bass player on my shoulders. It was a baptism of fire.

JC: It had been raining all day and the thing was the crowd must’ve done the same cos they had been drinking all day because there was nothing else to do.

TW: Yeah everyone was like: you were amazing.

It was the birth of a new rule for live shows: no alcohol two hours before stage time

Tom Williams

You're playing Newcastle tonight and America next week. What's it like over in the States?

JC: We get to 1000 capacities in each city in UK now but going back and doing those 100 capacity room is nice, you almost miss that because you can’t have stage invasions. It makes you feel young again doing all that. One of the best things about them days is that you get to go out with the people who come to watch you and have a bevvy with them so we get to do that again with a crazy culture of people who are some of the best. They’re just so eccentric.

TW: This tour’s a nice one though because we’ve actually sold tickets. There’s a few cities that have sold really well so I’m looking forward to them… Chicago, Brooklyn, L.A’s always good as well.

JC: I’m looking forward to Boston at the start we’ve sold quite a few tickets there.

TW: We always struggle in Utah. The Mormon’s don’t dig it really.

JC: They’re a keen crowd though, the one’s that turn up. They're cool venues though as well, dead rough and ready.

Are there any particular songs that you really look forward to playing on tour?

TW: I mean ‘Hole in my Home’ has kind of taken on its own life. For some reason, we didn’t instigate it, but everyone will just start singing it back to us after we’ve finished the song. They’ll start singing the chorus again and we’ll kind of just get to revel in it for a bit. So that’s a nice moment as well.

JC: I like ‘Last Minute’ as well because I get a little break.

Okay, talking about your new album Western Approaches, the trumpet really pulls the band together. Where was the influence of that?

JC: Yeah, to be honest it came before I was in the band I think. Red Rum Club itself was named after The Shining because it was meant to have that cinematic feel, that’s sort of how they pitched it to me. Obviously that trumpet gives it that Spaghetti Western stuff. We used to be called The Scouse Mariachi.

TW: Spaghetti North-Western.

JC: The Scouse Americana that was it.

Plenty of nicknames!

TW: We struggled to give ourselves a genre because even when we were writing cinematic stuff it just came about. There wasn’t really ever an initial effort to do that, it’s just how it sounded and then with the trumpet it was really soundscape. Since then, it’s kind of taken its own sound anyway, I don’t think we sound like that much anymore – we do on instances but what I like is how it’s not forced anymore. We don’t feel like we have to sound like this, it’s just natural.

JC: What’s good about Western Approaches is it’s sort of shared a little bit more between me and Tom with the lead parts you know. There’s a bit more give and take and it’s a bit more thought of and considered. When we were doing this album, it was very much what’s best for the song rather than what’s best for the band which was our mindset before.

TW: And although the trumpet is really unique to the band and that’s our unique selling point, we didn’t want to do something and just put that on the trumpet because that’s what people know us for. So we have done it more subtly I think on the last album. It’s been been a move that comes naturally.

Did you find the recording process much different to the other albums then, considering it's your fourth one?

JC: Very different simply because we had a new producer for it. We had done all the other stuff with Chris Taylor who was great as well. He really helped us become the band we are today. We kept it still in Liverpool but it was a new studio as well because Parr Street had closed down and been turned into flats unfortunately. They’d opened a new one - Kempston Street and Rich Turvey who had been working with Blossoms and Courteeners has really been making a name for himself as a producer. It was nice to go in with him and take on a different approach.

TW: Yeah, and we had a lot more time. We don’t feel like we’re four albums deep because the first album was in 2019 and then obviously lockdown happened. We had the deal for the next album and then as we released that the label wanted another one. And we did have one because it was lockdown, and we were just writing. So then the second and third album came in quite quick succession and the next thing we knew we were doing our fourth album.

JC: I don’t even count them two years. I suppose we did release but we couldn’t tour or do anything.

I guess Covid meant you had to sit and write.

TW: That’s why it felt like a break because we didn’t get to tour the third album and when we came back from Covid we smashed that a bit and then the budget was better for the next album so we had a month instead of two weeks or 10 days like the first one.

JC: It was more of a working day record as well – we made sure we were done by 5pm instead of working into the night. I think the distance as well just gives you a bit of time just to go back the next day and say, ‘oh that sounds a bit different’ or ‘we can tweak that’. It was very different, but it was still nice that we managed to get it in Liverpool. And it was a similar team – we still saw Chris around when we were recording as well which was nice. He was made up for us.

Did you find that you could experiment more with this album then?

TW There was a body of about 13 songs where we were like ‘we know the album is in there somewhere’ but I was personally struggling to find the line through it that made it cohesive. But that’s where Rich came in. We only used about 3 or 4 main sounds on the album. We’d just moved into a practice room on the docks in Liverpool and moved out of these luxurious practice rooms because they were too expensive. We’d moved into this empty warehouse room with rats in it and - it was an old pub/brothel, so we knew the walls had some stories. We were in between the docks with all the shipping containers coming in and a scrap metal yard which was just the loudest thing. So all the demos had this big clanging thing in that ruined them, but then when we showed Rich the demos he was like ‘no that’s the sound of the album’. And then Western Approaches is like the perimeter of the coast in which the dock lines is. It’s a war-room in Liverpool where we used to manage the convoys from in WW2 over the Atlantic – we were back and forth from American all the time so it linked nicely together.

JC: Yeah because we had been touring so much and seen so much of the world it had been like 2 and a half years of touring and that was kind of because we were stuck in lockdown which was our album where we wanted to get away and get out there. This is more about bringing us back in because we haven’t been home in a long time and it just felt right to make it more about Liverpool which was good because those limitations did make the sound of the album as Tom said.

What would you say your favourite song on the album is?

JC: Mine’s ‘Houdini’.

TW: Mine probably is as well but I’ll say a different one. I really like playing ‘Afternoon’ or ‘Undertaker’. Just listening to it, actually I’d say ‘Undertaker’ - it's just a great pop song.

JC: I really enjoyed recording ‘Godless’ and ‘Alive’ because they were the first two we worked on for the record and they were when we were getting excited about these new sounds and stuff. We were recording the drums and we got a bit carried away looking at all these inspirations for the album, so it was quite cool exploring the sound for them and obviously locking them in for the next couple. I think ‘Houdini’ just has this lush soundscape of analogue synths as well and it’s always just funny imagining you and Mike on the floor playing with that little omnichord.

TW: We were just lying on our bellies with our feet in the air because one person couldn’t play it at the same time.

Now, before we wrap this up the final and most important question: What is your go-to Gregg's order?

JC: Ah well, mine is a vegan steak bake as I am slightly limited by the options.

TW: Mine might be a let down because I love the Mexican chicken sandwiches but it’s not really Greggs. I hate to say this but I love a Cheese and Onion pasty but even when I’m eating it I’m like this is disgusting. It’s my guilty pleasure.

JC: I like the idea of it more than eating it.

Controversial answers there...

TW: Yeah not much pastry.

And with that, the discussion turned to the fine-dining Greggs at the top of Fenwicks with the pair wondering if they'd be able to fit a visit in before leaving Newcastle for their tour around the U.S. It was lovely chatting to them, check Red Rum Club out below.