Following quite a big gap in their music career, Scottish rock anthem heroes, The Fratellis have announced they will be storming back with a new album and tour.
I had a chat with Jon and Barry before their main stage performance at Indiependence.
So, you’re about to play Indiependence- are you excited? It’s a massive line-up and you’d be one of the biggest bands.
Jon: Yeah, we’re excited just to play today. We’ve played Oxegen a few times and done some headline shows here in Ireland as well so it’s always a good crowd. Again, there’s that celtic thing where it’s really similar to Glasgow and Scotland in general. What that means in terms of fans I don’t know really- slightly wilder than everybody else! I think we’re all cut from the same cloth somewhere so it should be pretty good!
You guys have quite a festival sound- a lot of festival anthems- so that would definitely work in your favour as well.
Jon: I’ve heard that we do.
Barry: That’s a nice thing to hear!
Jon: People keep telling us that. It does help, I hadn’t really thought about it until this year when we started playing festivals again and it really helps when you’ve got a few songs that people know. It means you’re starting from… not the bottom!
You were quite quiet for a while, but you’re back having announced a new album, a new tour, and everything’s looking positive. I mean the reaction was incredible! What triggered you to come back?
Jon: We were just bored! You know what- you have to go to your work. I used to dream about having nothing to do, and then when you finally get nothing to do, you realise it’s just terrible. It’s no way to spend your life. For me it was definitely just to have something to do. Plus, there’s far worse jobs in the world!
Absolutely! Do you’ve any surprises planned for the new album or will you be sticking to your roots, keeping the sound familiar and connected to the older material?
Jon: Some people would just be surprised that it’s good! You know what- I think with what we do, there would be no point in us really trying to reverse it and change it to something else. We do something well and I think just trying to stretch that as far as possible seems to be the order of the day. Nobody would understand it if we changed it too much- we’ve no choice!
You’ve obviously had massive success throughout your career, but it would have happened differently from the current path where a musician would throw something up on Youtube and grow via social networking. What was your secret to success?
Barry: I think it was playing lots of gigs. Because we kind of started even before Myspace all kicked off and stuff so we just played a lot.
Jon: Yeah, I think also a lot of it was by accident. By just doing the work, sometimes you’ll get lucky and sometimes other people won’t, you just don’t know. I don’t think we necessarily worked harder than everybody else or anything, we just sort of found luck somewhere. But then maybe it’s not called luck, I don’t know, but there was certainly no plan involved. Can you imagine?! Imagine the plan!
Barry: I’d like to see what would have happened if there was actually a plan!
So you’re at Indie for the day anyway- you guys aren’t playing until close to last. Are you heading along to see anyone?
Barry: I’d quite like to see De La Soul. If I’m at the right festival and that’s where they’d be playing! Bastille are on as well aren’t they? [Yeah, they’re Sunday- they’ll be fantastic!] Aw is that not tonight?! Bugger- De La Soul it is then!
Nice! Thank you so much for that interview- looking forward to hearing the new material!
Jon: Thanks very much!
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