Interviews: Rock Sound Exposure Tour

Rock Sound sits down for a natter with our Exposure Tour bands Dinosaur Pile-Up, Japanese Voyeurs and The Xcerts!

Posted Thursday, 13 January 2011 in

In a few weeks Dinosaur Pile-Up, The Xcerts and Japanese Voyeurs will be loading up their vans and heading out on the fourteen date Rock Sound Exposure Tour.

The shows are a chance for us to throw even more weight behind up-and-coming British bands that we have been championing and the three hotly tipped acts we picked for your enjoyment are absolutely destined for greatness in the years to come. You lucky things!

As the tour creeps ever nearer we sat down with Murray Macleod of The Xcerts, Romily Alice of JV and Matt Bigland of DPU to talk about the forthcoming dates:

How excited about the RS Exposure Tour are you?
Romily: “My answer for this is ‘fuck yeah!’ even though it was suggested I don’t say it.”
Murray: “I’m just excited purely because I don’t think any of the three bands are associated with any particular scene, and I like the fact that while other magazines focus on a certain dress code to back tours, I like that we’re backed purely because Rock Sound believe in what we’re doing. And that’s what we want from a tour.”
Matt: “Reiterating Murray’s point, I look at the three of our bands and we’re not the coolest around, to have a major magazine like Rock Sound back us is really nice.”
Murray: “I think both bands we are touring with are full of really nice guys so in terms of the camaraderie that’s a massive plus, I won’t have any hesitation in wandering into dressing rooms to say ‘hi’ and that’s really important.”
Romily: “Yeah and the rotating headline bill is a really good idea as well because the crowds we get will literally be a group of people you want to hang out with. That’s something that’s important to me because anyone who likes the music is welcome and it’s not about how you dress or anything like that.”

Romily, with the exception of maybe Melissa Auf Der Maur and Dinosaur Pile-Up you've been playing some weird support slots before this tour...
Romily: “God yes! We’ve gone out with bands like Young Guns because they are amazing guys, but in terms of the musical genres we were so different. And you could tell that some of the kids that were there were like ‘what the hell is this?’ It was challenging, but we hopefully won some people over!”

Did you finish one set with 'so Young Guns are on soon and I know that's who you're here to see'...
Romily: “Oh no! Yeah, I did! That tour was crazy because outside every venue it was literally like ‘ahhhhh’ because kids love that band. I think that as far as we’re concerned we don’t think about what people are looking for, but if they get it and are open to it then that’s cool.”

In terms of sound there are really no other bands around that sound like Japanese Voyeurs - do you see the gap in the market for you at this point in time?
Romily: “I don’t know, gap in the market makes it sound like we sat at home scheming about the best way to cash in on it. But a part of the reason I think we do what we do is that growing up a lot of the bands we listened to were a lot heavier than what is around in the mainstream at the moment. So I think we might appeal to people that haven’t heard heavier stuff before, and if they then get into other music because they like us then that’s cool too.”

Matt, everyone is championing Dinosaur Pile-Up as part of a grunge revival but do you think it's more to do with hitting your stride at the right time?
Matt: “I don’t see it myself, it’s rad that people love the band and people are in to it but the whole grunge revival is just a way of tagging a young movement who grew up listening to grunge. I mean I’m really not a fan of Pearl Jam and I don’t really think we’re reviving anything to be honest.”

You got a whole new line-up between the EP and album, how has that changed the outlook of the band?
Matt: “Well I just wanted to really make the record by myself, but Steve [Wilson] was an insane drummer and he didn’t want to stop being busy, and obviously I didn’t want to stop him being busy either. So things worked out there because Steve is now drumming for Japanese Voyeurs, which I’m really pleased about. And Tom [Dunford] moved to London to pursue his own things. It was scary for me because obviously the EP was out and I found myself bandless. It was a scary situation, but I didn’t freak out about it. What was strange was how good the reaction was to the EP, I was still dicking about with that and wasn’t taking it seriously so that did alright I guess.”

And Murray, what have The Xcerts got planned for the rest of the year?
Murray: “We’re probably going to bring out another EP around February with the stuff that didn’t make it on to the album instead of releasing a few new singles. Our fans are more album and EP listening people rather than just singles so it would be cool to do that. Then we’re touring Europe, and I guess after that I should probably make a start on the next record. That would probably be a good idea.”

To read more from the three pick up the latest issue of Rock Sound. Catch Japanese Voyeurs, Dinosaur Pile-Up and The Xcerts at the following dates on the Rock Sound Exposure Tour:

FEBRUARY
17 - BEDFORD Esquires
18 - BOURNEMOUTH Champions
19 - BRIGHTON Audio
20 - TUNBRIDGE Forum
22 - CAMBRIDGE Haymakers
23 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy 3
24 - LONDON Relentless Garage
25 - BRISTOL O2
27 - GLASGOW King Tuts
28 - NEWCASTLE O2 Academy 2
MARCH
02 - LEEDS Cockpit 2
03 - MANCHESTER Roadhouse
04 - YORK Duchess
05 - SOUTHAMPTON Joiners

Get tickets by clicking here.