About a month ago, we sat down with Slough Feg’s bassist Adrian for a chat in Manchester ahead of their excellent show at Star & Garter. See what we asked below!
So you’re currently on tour in Europe, how’s it all been going so far?
Great! Everybody is wonderful, we did London last night which was great with an awesome crowd. We’ve also done Dublin and Belfast, and both of those were really good shows with a lot of people showing up. Muskelrock in Sweden was fantastic too. It’s just been going great! We haven’t been here for five years so it’s nice to be back.
What can fans expect from tonight’s show?
Old stuff, new stuff…a little bit of everything! The only album we aren’t playing anything from is our first album, but we’re playing pretty much one or two songs from all of the other records.
What do you like best about playing shows over here?
There’s always lots of cool people and interesting pubs – such as the Star And Garter! – and we always like trying different beers that we don’t get back home. I wish I could do more sightseeing but we never have time. Our new drummer Addison has never actually been to the UK before and I just wish we had time to take him to the basic places…you know, London, Stonehenge and stuff. Hopefully next time we’ll have more time though, it’s just difficult for us all to get time off work and school.
Is there anything you don’t like aside from not being able to see everything?
Well, there’s always a lot of driving to do. We also don’t make lots of money so we have to get the cheapest plane tickets which always leave at six o clock in the morning – so we’re always struggling to catch up on sleep too! But as soon as we turn on the guitars and start playing, we always get fired up. It’s tough, especially because we only have a small window of time to do this in. Between Mike and Addison’s different school schedules, as they’re both teachers, and my work schedule, it’s tough for us to get away for more than a couple of weeks. If we could get away for more time, then maybe we’d be able to sleep in and travel for a day before playing on the next day, but we can’t do that right now.
You mentioned you’d like to do more sightseeing, but is there anywhere in the UK you’d specifically like to play that you haven’t done a gig at yet?
Yeah! Everywhere that we haven’t played! (laughs) Everyone should just talk to whoever books shows in their local area and get them to send me a facebook message. That’s actually how we sorted all of this tour – this is our first tour where I organised everything. We’ve had a lot of tours over here that have been really tough, where we’ve flown in and have had a show that night, before we wake up the next day and have to drive to the airport to get on another plane. We never had time to rest so we were exhausted.
This time is also the first time we’ve had working visas. Jamie, who is the promoter for this show and last night’s show, organised all that stuff for us, so when we went to customs, we had the proper paperwork and we didn’t have to say anything different. We just said that we were a heavy metal band playing some shows here, and they just let us through! Which was great! So it was our first time doing that, and the first time where I organised the route of the tour so it’s a little better. We have good days and bad days – today we had to wake up at 9:30 but tomorrow we can sleep in until noon if we like! So we have a couple of days where we can sleep in, but there’s also some days where we have to get up at six in the morning in order to get to and from the airports.
If Slough Feg could put their name to a product, what would it be and why?
Probably guitars! I mean, that’s what this band is all about – wild guitar playing! So we could have Slough Feg custom guitars – with a built-in screaming function!
And finally, what’s in store for Slough Feg for the rest of the year?
Working on new material. We’re finishing up a 7″ that should hopefully be out this year. We have most of it recorded, it just needs a few touch-ups and we still need to add vocals and some guitar solos, and it needs mixing. So it will take a little while. And then back home we’re going to be playing the Frost And Fire Festival in California. I’ve actually met people more in the UK who are going to that festival than people from California! (laughs)
It’s funny you should say that – I don’t tend to go to any UK festivals but I do fly out to ones overseas!
Yeah! Actually at Muskelrock we also met some people who told us they’d see us at Frost And Fire, and we were like woah, that’s hardcore, that’s like 3000 miles away!
Muskelrock sounds like a festival worth travelling to!
It is! To be honest, I’d quite like to go there just as a fan, just to have fun and camp – I’d love to do that for a weekend. This year, we only got to stay there for about three or four hours.
Did you get to see any bands there?
Not many, but we did see Diamond Head, and they were awesome. We also saw some weird Japanese prog band that looked all psychedelic – but they were really cool too at the same time! It was interesting to see something different.
