We recently had a chat with The Inside Is Live about touring and plans for the future. See what happened below!
Thanks for the interview – can you introduce yourself and tell me a bit about the band?
Hey! We’re an alternative rock band called The Inside Is Live from Nottingham England. Michael sings, Will and Callum play guitar, Elliot plays bass and Tristan drums. We’ve been in bands together since we were kids, but we formed The Inside Is Live in 2012, when we released our debut EP. In August, we released our first full-length album The Great Brand New, which we’re now touring.
Last year, you toured the UK on your first ever headline tour. What did you enjoy about it?
We loved being on stage every night and we were so excited to play Brighton because we’d never been there before and also wanted to visit Choccywoccydoodah. Have you seen their cakes?! It’s like… 100% chocolate. Damn. We also had our friends North Seasons supporting us on the tour and it was awesome watching them every night. And of course we can’t forget Zapatista – they’re a burrito bar in Newcastle, but not just any burrito bar; the best damn burrito bar in the world. Take our word for it.
We played plenty of tracks from our new album The Great Brand New, as well as some blasts from the past off our debut EP, and we even had a few secrets up our sleeves, like a festive number that had everyone swaying in their Santa hats. We also had an acoustic break in the set, a brief moment for everyone to catch their breath amongst the sweaty madness. It was awesome.
What do you like most about touring?
Definitely visiting new places. We’re lucky enough to have been able to tour internationally with our music, which has allowed us to visit some amazing places. We spend lots of time on tour checking out the places we’re playing. We tend to enjoy the travelling too. I know that sounds weird, because most bands hate that, but we always find amusing ways to keep ourselves entertained. On the way to Manchester, we spent two hours playing the most mental game of I Spy you’ve ever seen; I think one of Tristan’s words was “omnipresent”…?! Of course, the time we get after the show is our favourite. That’s our time to hang out with the fans, where Callum will usually end up drawing cupcakes and/or dicks on our CDs.
Is there anything you don’t like about touring?
Having said travelling was one of our favourite things, those super late-night drives can be a real killer. After our Newcastle show, we thought it’d be a fabulous idea to drive straight to Manchester and sleep there – what a mistake that was. We ended up getting to the hotel about 6AM. That was probably one of the most stressful nights, but nothing a bit of coffee and spooning from Michael can’t cure.
Have you got any interesting stories from tours gone by?
There’s one particular story that’ll stay with us forever. When we were touring Poland, we got to our venue in a city called Radom to find out that there was no P.A, lighting, or any crew whatsoever. When the stage finally did get set up, the microphone was electrocuting everybody who touched it (and not just those joke pen style shocks – some real nasty shit, and the metal stage didn’t help). It got to about 10 minutes before doors, and we thought we were going to have to cancel the whole show, because we didn’t want to risk Michael dying or being hospitalized on stage. Luckily, we managed to turn it around at the last minute by performing an exorcism on the possessed microphone, and changing the stage power source. That was a really scary night, but it turned out to be one of the best nights of tour!
If you could tour with any band, who would you choose?
That’s a tough one! There are so many. We’d love to tour with Bring Me The Horizon, we worked with a few of their members and crew on some of our records, so we really look up to those guys. We’re also big fans of Hands Like Houses and all their Australian madness. That’d be one big party, for sure.
And finally what does 2015 have in store for The Inside Is Live?
More tours (both UK and international), more music, more everything! We’re going to melt your faces. That’s a promise.
