Hi David, 2017 is already shaping up to be particularly busy for The Wedding Present. Coming straight on the back of the September 2016 ‘Going, Going…’ LP, you’ve got a new EP almost ready to go, a UK tour, a North American tour, a 30 year anniversary tour of the George Best album, the release of a new book about the Wedding Present and continuous work on the Wedding Present comic book.
That’s enough to make a workaholic look lazy.
Let’s start with the UK tour. You’ll be playing Stockton’s Georgian Theatre on the 27th March, what can we expect?
I enjoyed the recent ‘Going, Going…’ tour we did, which was a bit different and where we mixed the album’s film and visual work together. This tour will be different again as we’re going back to playing standing gigs and playing more in the style of traditional rock and roll. Live we try to capture the sound of the band in the studio and it’s a different kind of challenge to the ‘Going, Going…’ tour. In the past a few people have told me that the band has made more sense to them when they’ve seen us live, and I find that interesting.
And after that you’re back in the North East in early June playing the George Best album in Newcastle. Your website says that this will be the last time you’ll play George Best live.
I never realised the album was actually 30 years old this year until a few festivals got in touch asking if we’d play the whole thing live. There seemed to be quite a bit of interest so in the end we’ve made it into a mini tour. I’m not really a fan of nostalgia but I do think that it’s a good album to play live as it’s aggressive and I enjoy playing it. It also seems to resonate with other people and their lives and history, so yeah it’ll be a good show and I hope people are happy to hear it live.
And hot on the heels of ‘Going, Going…’ will be your new EP which comes out soon
That’s right. We’ve just finished recording what will be the ‘Homes International EP’. I used to love the Home International football tournament and I wanted to create something out of that feeling, so we’ve written 4 instrumental tracks, one for each of the Home nations. It follows on from some of the instrumentals we wrote for ‘Going, Going…’. At the minute it looks like it’ll be released on Record Store day in April.
With the tour and the creative work, you’re pretty relentless. How do you find time to be creative?
I’ve always been fairly obsessed by music, and I don’t really do anything else. The EP just came out of the blue. We’ve played the Primavera festival before and they asked me if we’d be interested in recording for them on their new record label. It was a nice little challenge so I said yes. When you’re focused on something it’s hard to say no.
And the new book?
That should be out in April also. I’ve written the forward to the book, which is titled the TWP memories, but the author, Richard, has been collecting stories from people who have seen the band, heard some of our songs, and even some ex-band members about their experiences and memories of the band.
That sounds really interesting, I’ll have to get a copy.
And finally, as a huge fan of pop culture is there anything non TWP related that you would recommend our readers checked out?
I think it’s a really interesting period for music and there’s lots of new bands that I like. I think the most interesting work is being done on new technology and in the way music is being promoted, marketed and evaluated. Personally I’ve set myself a challenge of reading all of the Marvel comics in the order that they were released chronologically. I’m up to the mid-60s now and starting to see the development of stories and characters.
Thanks David, and good luck this year with the tour and the EP
The ‘Going, Going…’ LP is available now on Scopitones.
The Wedding Present will play Stockton’s Georgian Theatre on the 27th March and the Newcastle o2 Academy on the 7th June.