Welsh rockers The Blackout are four albums into a strong ten-year career and the band are still growing in popularity. Although, lead vocalist Gavin Butler still can’t believe it. Fortitude Magazine sat down with the singer to talk about the new album.
“Our last album which was Hope was very serious and very thought-out. Start The Party is like a flipside to that. Its our strongest showing to date in terms of sales.We’ve had a really good response from everyone. We’re number nine on the mid-week chart on release week which is amazing. I still can’t believe it!” Said Gavin.
The Blackout’s previous releases are We Are The Dynamite, The Best In Town and Hope.
“I don’t want to say that we’ve had a change of direction but we have blown some steam on this record. When we were recording Hope we didn’t have a record label or management and the band’s future was in the air. I was very concerned about the future of The Blackout.”
“The reception on Hope was amazing with the response from our fans and the help of PledgeMusic and we managed to tour and when we came back we had different attitudes towards everything and a changed mind-set – we were buzzing! We immediately started writing Start The Party. The record translates how we felt at the time”.
The Blackout have released two singles so far off their new album – Running Scared and Start The Party with both of the music videos being filmed in Ibiza. Gavin explained that the band have always filmed their videos in bizarre locations such as cold warehouses in Bolton and fields at midnight in the middle of nowhere.
“We were fed up of being showered with freezing cold water.” Laughed Gavin.
“We wanted a party themed video but house parties have been done a million times. Luckily our friend Pitchard from Dirty Sanchez owns a couple of party boats in Ibiza and he said we could come use a few for a video. We cheekily approached the label and asked if they would pay to send us out to party in Ibiza for a couple of days. Hey came back to us and said that if we shot two videos out there then they’d pay for it and we were like: Done. We had an amazing time…. working.”