Posted on Dec 1, 2007 by DevotedToMusic

The Blackout are a post-hardcore band from South Wales. They are currently signed to Fierce Panda records and are already a huge success in the UK.

They have just been on the Taste of Chaos tour throughout the UK and Europe and recently realesed their second album ‘We Are The Dynamite’ which has landed at number 8 in the UK Indie charts.

I Alexandra McLoughlin was very lucky to have the opportunity to talk to Sean and Gavin about boobs, kneeing yourself in the face and more…

Hi guys how are you today?

Sean- Um..I’m ok. Good, good. Bit tired today though, last show of Taste of Chaos.

Has the tour flown by for you? There was quite a few dates.

Sean- It has. Tours always fly by for me. The first 5 days we were like “Ohh this is taking ages” but then before you know it…

Gavin- We’ve done 17 shows in 3 weeks and It feels like we’ve done about 2.

You serious?

Gavin- Yeah seriously.

Sean- Yeah. We’re kind of sad it’s the last day but all the other bands, because they’ve been doing it for 2 months they’re like “yeah! We get to go home!” We’re a bit disappointed that we get to go home because we want to keep playing.

What’s the most insane thing that’s happened on this tour?

Sean- It’s probably when I broke my nose when we played because I kneed myself in the face so at the end of our set I was covered in blood and spitting blood all over the kids.

Gavin- Which was nice.

Sean- Which was nice. …What else has happened?....Our bus broke down in Switzerland so we had to wait about 5 hours for another one to pick us up. Switzerland happened to be a very bad place really.

Gavin- The show was god though.

Sean- Yeah.

Gavin- That’s about it.

How did you manage to knee yourself in the face?

Gavin- If you actually go now it can actually reach his face..

Sean- It does actually reach my face. I think it was in some sort of jump. In some sort of leap and my nose and my knee had a meeting and they decided that my knee won. So my nose was a little bit red, a little bit sore for a couple of days.

Is it better now?

Sean- It still hurts a little bit but it’s stopped bleeding finally.

What was the best show you played of Taste of Chaos?

Sean- Leeds was really good the other night.

Gavin- Leeds was funny.

Sean- All the UK ones have been really good. Switzerland was awesome.

Gavin- We’d never been to Italy or Switzerland ever before and to us such a good reaction from all the kids at the show was amazing. That’s why it was so good, because we had never been there before.

Sean- We played a 1 off show with Aiden in Prague and that was amazing. Cologne was amazing. Vienna…did Vienna suck?

Gavin- Vienna’s Gasworks.

Sean- It didn’t so much suck. The kids didn’t know who we were so they didn’t really join in. (Joking around) So Austria sucks… We’re going back.

(Laughs)

Gavin- This is europunk you do realise that!?

Sean- Yeah. We’re going back in January so we’re going to give a run 2 and if they don’t get it this time I’m going to kill everybody.

Why did all those gigs in Europe suck?

Gavin- They didn’t suck.

Sean- It was only 1 or 2 of them. It didn’t suck it was just kids didn’t know who we were or what we do so…

Gavin-…or what we do so they didn’t have respect for us.

Sean- They were kind of just watching. Its like if you go to see a band and you don’t know them you can’t dance along or sing along unless you kind of know the gist of it.

Gavin- We like people at our shows just to have a good time an dance around and just spend as much energy as possible rather then just standing there and nodding along.

Pretending to know you?

Gavin- Yeah.

Talking a bit about your new album ‘We Are the Dynamite!’ How long did it take you to write?

Sean- Err 4 minutes which is strange because most of the songs are longer then 4 minutes. I think we wrote it in a period of 2 months.

Gavin- Yeah like we started writing in January then we went off on tour and we went back in the studio writing, when was it?

Sean- I have no idea.

Gavin- June? April?

Sean- I fell asleep, woke up and an album was there.

(laughs)

Sean- That’s all I remember.

Who designed the album cover?

Sean- (Joking around) A pervert. (laughs) A sick minded individual because there’s some big boobs on the front and they have nothing to do with us.

Gavin- Ahh it’s a guy called Chris from South Wales. We didn’t see any of the album until it was done.

Why did he decide to put boobs on the cover?

Sean- Boobs sell.

Gavin- Boobs sell. It’s a love/hate kind of thing. Some people love it and some people hate it.

Sean- I’d rather have had boobs then a willy on the front.

Gavin- Yeah.

Sean- Nobody wants to see a winky first thing in the morning.

(laughs)

I bet a lot of guys wake up in the morning and look at your album and think “BOOBS”!

Sean- Yeah.

Is there anymore boobs inside the album cover?

Gavin- 6 of them!

Sean- There’s pictures of the rest of the band so..

Gavin- 6 pages of boobs.

Sean- 6 tits in this band!

Tell me a bit about the background of the album ‘We Are the Dynamite!’…..

Sean- Um…..I just fancied a pause. Some of the songs are about relationships whether it be between a boy of a girl or friends…All in all we’ve left it open for interpitation as much as it have to do with our lives we’ve left it open for people can think it has to do with them.

Gavin- Some of the songs are a bit of a f**k you to some of the people that …didn’t hold us back In our home town but they, they…as soon as we started getting places they’d try and bring us down, they’d try and rain on our parade. A couple of songs are a middle finger to them.

What are your favourite tracks on the album?

Gavin- My 2 favourite tracks are ‘Life & Death In Space’ the last song because it’s just totally different from what we normally do, it’s got like violins and an orchestra in it. It’s just a lot different to the rest of the stuff we’ve ever done…

Sean- I like ‘Spread legs not lies’. It’s a cornin’ tune with a beautiful chorus and I also like the tune ‘I've Got Better Things To Do Tonight Than Die’ because it kind of sums the album up and what we’re about in the lyrics and stuff.

Just talking a bit about a guy I met recently from Army of Freshmen called Kai. He happens to be a huge fan of you guys. They are a Californian band in case you don’t know. Did you know he’s a big fan of yours?

Sean- Someone told me that he really wanted one of our t-shirts. It was before Army of Freshmen ever came over with Bowling for Soup and stuff. And I saw a picture of him in Kerrang wearing one and I was blown away by that. It’s awesome to think that peers in the industry that we do could like our band as well. I think it’s amazing that he likes us and would show it by wearing a shirt.

Have you met him?

Sean- No. Not yet I’d like to.

When I met him he was actually wearing a Blackout t-shirt. I spoke to him a bit about you guys.

Sean- What t-shirt?

Gavin- Franko.

I’ve got a picture I took of him wearing it on stage. I brought it for you guys.

Gavin- Awww that’s great!

Have you been to America yet?

Sean- We’ve just confirmed our first ever American show. We’re doing South West festival in March. April we do Bamboozle in New Jersey.

Gavin- We can’t wait to go over. Every band we’ve ever played with from the States always say “ohh you need to come over to the states.” Sean’s been over with the Lostprophets over there just teching and stuff and he’s had an awesome time over there. A couple of us have been on holiday there and stuff. We’d really like to go out there..well we are now. We can’t wait!

What are you expectations of how the American fans are going to react to you?

Sean- I think within 1 or 2 shows we’ll probably be the biggest band in the world. We’d be the new Beatles.

(Laughs)

World domination?!

Sean- Yeah easy.

Gavin- Or nothing.

Sean- Or even something in between. Either nothing, something or everything!

My final question for you is what’s next for The Blackout?

Sean- We’re going to take over America next year in a week…

Gavin- …Which we were just talking about. And we come back in January for an extensive tour.

Sean- Going all through Europe, Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Spain, Sweden then we come back to the old UK and we do like 5 or 6 shows. 6 maybe. Yeah just constantly touring until people really get fed up of seeing us if they’re not already that’s beyond me.

Thank you for allowing me interview you.

Sean and Gavin- That’s ok.

Taken At:

Brixton Academy

Taken On:

November 28th, 2007

Interviewees:

Sean- Lead Vocals
Gavin- Vocals

Related Links:

• www.theblackoutmusic.co.uk
• www.myspace.com/theblackout
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blac...

Interviews

Nov 28, 2007 Brixton Academy