For a band as busy as Aberdeen’s finest rock trio The Xcerts, getting ill and having to cancel shows is one of the worst things that can happen.
Yet, despite these unfortunate setbacks, the band power on with their headline UK tour which turns out to be their biggest and best yet, with plans to reschedule the cancelled shows, of course.
On the final night of their tour, a sold out show at Glasgow’s King Tuts, itm? writer Nina Glencross caught up with Murray, Jordan and Tom to discuss their plans for the months ahead, being offered to tour with their heroes Brand New in February and why mum doesn’t always know best…
So tonight at King Tuts is your last show of the tour. Besides having to cancel two shows, how has it been overall?
Murray Macleod (vox/guitar): It’s been great. I think it’s definitely been our best headline tour so far. It’s the first time where people have turned up to every show.
Any highlights?
Jordan Smith (bass): Last night would be a highlight, our hometown show.
I think that’s always a highlight for every band.
Murray: Yeah it was good, I really enjoyed it. I got to go back to my parents’ house the other day so my mum loaded me up with soup.
Jordan (to Murray): My mum told me that your mum said something really funny last night when you were onstage. You were like, “Aw yeah, I cancelled two shows but I’m back, I manned up and I played the show,” and my mum said that your mum was just like, “Aye bloody right, he’s manned up. He’s had half of Boots in him! Of course he’s manned up!”
Murray: My mum was totally giving me grief last night because I had some more soup then I had this aspirin that you put in water and gargle then she was like “Do you want to steam first? Probably best steam first. Yeah, go and steam,” so I did that, started gargling then made a honey and she was like “Oh, making yourself a tea, are you, eh? And medicine?” Just giving me a massive amount of grief for trying to get better. My mum doesn’t know how many people are let down if I cancel.
Jordan: You don’t know, mum!
Murray: But yeah, it should be fine. It held out last night. It’s just unfortunate I got ill before the tour. I’m pretty sure I caught something from our practice room, that’s what I’m putting it down to.
Jordan: Dirty microphone.
Murray: But yeah, Brighton was great too and London was good but it was just quite a nerve-wracking show for us because of all the stuff that goes on in the background.
Jordan: Guest list stuff and the pressure of knowing who’s going to be there so, don’t fuck up.
Murray: But it was great, it was one of the busiest shows we ever played in London.
Glasgow was the first show of the tour to sell out and did so very quickly. So what was your reaction when it first sold out?
Jordan: Woo hoo!
Tom Heron (drums): I think it was a surprise.
Murray: We’ve played here a lot over the years and we’ve always been close to selling out.
Jordan: Tantalisingly close, every time.
Murray: The first time we played, we sold about 292.
Jordan: Then we’d just round it up and say “Yeah, it’s pretty much a sell out”, but this is the first time it genuinely is a sell out. It’s a pretty big occasion, big milestone.
Murray: It’s weird because we’ve done a lot of support tours but before Taking Back Sunday, we’d never supported a band in Glasgow apart from Get Up Kids and Charlie Simpson. So it’s nice to see from the support shows that we’ve done, that it actually worked and we translated well to bigger crowds.
So what are some of the best memories that you have from playing King Tuts?
Murray: The last time we were here was with Dinosaur Pile-Up. That was really great, just because they’re some of the best people we’ve toured with and we’ve been friends ever since.
You’ve been touring with old friends Flood of Red, how’s that been?
Murray: Awful. I wish we had never taken them out.
Jordan: All we can say is it’s the last show, so thank God for that.
Murray: Not many people know but Flood took us out on our second ever support tour. The first band who took us out was a band called Breaks then after that, Flood of Red took us out on tour and we were always exceedingly grateful for them doing that because they liked us. Their fans didn’t. I think we were like a real novelty band on that tour because every other band on the bill was a metal band and we were this pop band. But since then we’ve remained exceedingly close.
Jordan: Then we did it again two years later, a Christmas tour with just us and them. That was like a rotating headline and now we’re doing this. We’ve known each other for years.
Murray: We were all quite nervous about asking them on this tour because we thought they would say no but fortunately for us they said yes. It’s great because we love them as people, we hang out like the best of friends and then we’re also massive fans of the band, they’re one of our favourite bands in the UK without a doubt.
Jordan: It’s amazing to be on tour with your peers, people you admire and respect, rather than sitting in the dressing room moaning about how the support band sucks.
Murray: Now we just moan about how the support band steals our rider…
So have you been playing any new material on the tour?
All: One song.
How’s that been going down?
Murray: Amazing
Tom: It’s got some good reaction.
Murray: My mum liked it last night.
Tom: Yeah that’s the clincher.
Murray: It’s always weird playing new songs because in a live environment, it can be a bit awkward because we’re having a great time and then you look out and people are like, “I don’t get it…”
Jordan: It’s because they’re hearing a song for the first time and they obviously want to get into it but they don’t know the song so it is kind of awkward for everyone involved except us.
Murray: I think the good thing is, is that this is, without a doubt, the most instant song that we’ve ever written. It’s just flat out… pop, I guess.
Jordan: So it’s not as if people will be talking about the new stuff and speculating about what direction we’re going to go in or anything. It’s pretty immediate.
So after this tour, you’re heading to Europe. I know you’re all fans of touring Europe, will you be going anywhere new this time?
Murray: No, just hitting the same places. Germany, Switzerland, Austria…
Jordan: Yeah, just the same cities we played in November/December last year. We’re hitting them back, making sure they don’t forget our faces!
Murray: Yeah, we made some friends and we don’t want to lose those friends so that’ll be fun. It’s only five shows but we’ll probably take a break from playing in the UK eventually and then head back out there to play more shows.
Yeah, because after that you’re back over here to support Brand New on their UK tour. How did that come about?
Murray: Uh… we don’t fully know. There are a few things…
Jordan: We just paid them.
Murray: Yeah, we paid them an awful lot of money… No, basically we recorded our last record with Mike Sarpone who is their producer. When they announced the tour, he emailed us to say he’d put a word in but it wasn’t one hundred percent set, they were going to think about it. Then we kind of got told we weren’t going to get the tour and that a tonne of other bands had been promised it so we were like, “It doesn’t matter. We still get to see Brand New, we’ll go see them in London”. Then we were on tour in Brighton with our manager and he got an email through from Mike that said “Why hasn’t your booking agent confirmed the tour because you’ve been offered it”, and as he read it out, we were just looking at each other like “Sorry, what??” Then our manager ran off to confirm it, came back and said “Yeah, you’ve been offered the Brand New tour”.
Jordan: We accepted.
Murray: But there was a couple of other things. I know the drummer, Brian Lane is a fan of our latest record and we’ve kind of got links all round because we toured with Manchester Orchestra…
Jordan: …Taking Back Sunday. I think our record got passed around a lot of that Long Island circle and obviously having Mike Sarpone as our producer is like a foot in the door. But it doesn’t feel like nepotism, it’s just the fact that our record circulated among those people.
Murray: Well Andy Hull from Manchester Orchestra said that, didn’t he? He said, “Don’t give Mike all the credit for getting you on that tour, you’ve earned it.”
Jordan: To hear that from Andy Hull is pretty big.
Murray: To hear anything from Andy Hull…
Jordan: Don’t get this guy started…
Murray (to Jordan): Shut up! You were a fan boy so much over Johnathan Corley.
Jordan: Oh, Johnathan…
So, do you have any recording plans for this year?
Murray: We do, but we don’t… There was talk of recording a record in March but that’s not going to happen.
Jordan: March become April, which became, “Hey, it doesn’t have to be April!”
Tom: At some point this year we’ll be recording.
Murray: I never understood why bands were like, “We’ve scrapped a record, we have to go back and re-record it”, but now we’re having that, just on a smaller scale.
Jordan: We haven’t recorded anything yet but we’re just still unsure about what we want the record to sound like.
Murray: So we’re back to telling everyone we’re taking our time with it.
Jordan: Yeah, that difficult third record…
Any more plans for after the Brand New tour?
Murray: After Brand New we are going to…
Tom: Write.
Murray: Yeah, we’re going to take some time off.
Jordan: Shut ourselves in a room.
Murray: There’s talk of doing a wee headline run in May which would involve coming back to Glasgow.
And will you be playing more material then?
Murray: Well, this is the debate because we won’t have a single out so it’s a bit of an ongoing talking point right now for us and everyone involved. We have to reschedule the shows that I cancelled and we’ve been offered a show in London that looks set to go ahead and I think people want us to play in Glasgow at another venue so we’ll just wait and see. But right now, the main focus for us is the shows coming up and writing a new record and trying to write something great.
Jordan: It’s difficult to gauge because you want to play the new songs and get everybody’s opinion and see what everybody thinks but at the same time, you want to keep the cards a little closer to your chest and not give too much away so that we only have these three opinions and no others.
The band’s tour takes them around the UK and Europe in February, including London shows on the 11th and 12th February and Glasgow on the 14th. More at
www.facebook.com/Thexcerts and
www.thexcertsband.com
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