Clash spent some serious face time with all five of British punk outfit Gallows recently, as they began their promotion of their second LP ‘Grey Britain’.
We’ve already run one preview of our full interview, which will run in April – click HERE for vocalist Frank and bassist Stu waxing lyrical about their place in the hardcore world, and on finding a fan in Black Flag’s Keith Morris – and our preview of the album itself, the follow up to 2006’s ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’, can be read HERE.
And here’s another taster of what we’ve got in the full-length feature as and when it runs next month…
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It’s fair to say you’ve stepped your game up since ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’. Looking back, the success of that album must’ve been a surprise…
Frank: To be honest, it kinda blew up unexpectedly. Nobody can expect us to say, “Yeah, we all knew ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’ would be massive”, because frankly we didn’t. I was just writing about being in Watford and Slough, for fucks sake, and nobody can expect that to do well. So this time around we thought: “Fuck it, we’re signed to a major label, guess that means we’re semi-professional, so let’s say something real.” Now everything’s done, and we’re so proud of it that we’re actually excited to talk about it.
And has it exceeded your own expectations for it?
Frank: Well, it’s got a 33-piece orchestra on it!
Stu: I think we’d have been disappointed if we came out of recording with the demos sounding better than the finished thing. Having the luxury of time on our side this time around, I think you can tell we’ve become more comfortable with our roles, with our instruments. We’ve got a focus that we lacked on the first album.
And was the concept of the record in place prior to the writing process beginning?
Stu: It wasn’t so well structured. We were writing music while Frank was doing his lyrics, and when he came to us we chucked a lot of songs away, because they didn’t fit this thing we had. We wanted the darkest riffs, and the heaviest breakdowns, to fit the lyrics. They were really uncompromising, so the music had to be too.
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Read our full interview with Gallows next month on ClashMusic.com. ‘Grey Britain’ is released via Warner Bros. on May 4 – expect a review nearer the release date.
Gallows headline our special Relentless vs Clash show at South By Southwest, Austin, TOMORROW. That’s March 19, from midday ‘til 6pm at the Dirty Dog. Click HERE for full details or click the banner below.
Why not take a trip down memory lane with a video reminder of the last time Gallows played SXSW, in 2007…
