Stranglers frontman, and former Toy Doll, Baz Warne has been on a punk journey for the best part of four decades. Strongly rooted into his current roll, Warne’s aggressive guitar playing, and emotive vocal delivery, blends perfectly in an outfit known for their punk sentiment and experimental sounds. Damian Robinson caught up with Baz to find out more about playing live and the rumours of new material.
It seems almost a guarantee that The Stranglers pass through the North East about this time every year. What keeps the band motivated to keep touring?
There’s many ways to look at it but the most important way is that we’re all still enjoying playing live together. As I speak I’ve got all of the band in the same room as me and we’re all really good friends. The minute we’re sick of touring we’ll stop; but I hope that’s a long time off.
How does the North East compare to other gigs on the tour? We see Glasgow tends to sell out first and then we’re usually a close second.
Glasgow’s always been one of our favourite places to play, as has Dublin, which I think has something to the Celtic genes. The North East is always a favourite place for me as I’m from the region and I know how much the region loves live music. I tend to get a bit of stick at the Newcastle gig but it’s always a good vibe and the band really enjoy coming up to the North, which I’m proud of as I’m still a huge Stranglers fan.
There’s some rumours on various sites that you’re working on new material. Is that something you could confirm?
It is true yes, we’ve been starting to record some new demos and we’re hoping to bring some new tracks out on the tour with us. The new music is sounding really strong and its been interesting to listen to the demo’s and start to get the feel for them.
Is there a date you’re working towards in terms of releasing the new material?
Not yet there’s not. Our plan is to road test some of the material on the tour and see how it sounds live. I think the longer-term plan is to play the tracks live on tour, let them breathe a little, and then see how they come back to us in the studio. If the songs are up to our satisfaction, and people seem to enjoy them, then we’ll start looking into thinking about how we release them. The most important things for us as a band is that we’re writing, that the songs sound good, and that we should have new material for the tour. These are all good signs.
The Stranglers play Newcastle on 14th March details can be found at http://www.thestranglers.co.uk/