The Inspiral Carpets are without question one of the most important and beloved bands to come from Manchester’s 80’s musical boom. After a long 8 year break, the band are back with a massive, career spanning box-set and a near sell-out UK tour. Gigslutz sat down with guitarist Graham Lambert to chat about the bands longevity, their excitement at being back and what the future holds.

So the tours kicking off this month, how are you feeling?

Yeah, we’ve already been rehearsing in the evenings, all year really. 2 nights a week so we’re stepping it up a bit, getting some more gear involved, getting some new technology for monitoring systems so we’re all really excited.

It feels great to be playing the songs again. It’s a really exciting time to be back up there doing what we used to do years ago. It’s a great feeling!

And are the nerves starting to kick in a bit?

Uhm, that’s a good question ahaha. We’ve never really suffered much from being nervous, because we’ve always been well rehearsed going into a tour. We just know what we need to do.

We’re playing 18/20 of our songs, and we kind of know the songs inside out so we never really get nervous.

To me I get more nervous when we put a tour on sale and wondering how it’s going to do. Do people still want to come? And sales for this one have been really good, I think more than half of them have sold out and the rest are all doing really well! So once we get good sales we’re good to go!

So why is now the time to come back after 8 years away?

A: Everyone (in the band) has to be into it. You have to feel like you wanna make a go of it because you have to put a lot of other things in your life on hold. Even though we don’t make records one after another these days you have to buy into it full force.

So everyone has to fancy it at that time. The time’s always right if everyone wants to do it for the right reasons. Basically to stand there and play our songs again, be that in Leeds or in Lincoln or in Spain, Italy or Australia you’ve gotta want it… and everybody did!

There’s been times where somebody’s fancied it and the rest haven’t or two of us have fancied it. I always though it three of us fancied making a go of it then it’s probably worth pursuing, and that was the case this time.

We’ve got it all rehearsed and on sale and it’s going great! And we’re going over to Australia and New Zealand which is very exciting.

I bet, have you guys toured over there before?

We played in Australia in 1993 so that was 30 years ago, and we’ve never been to New Zealand before. We’ve just been over there the once but it was really good, the crowd loved it!

When you look at bands such as yourselves, or James or the Happy Mondays, that Madchester mindset seems to really be making a comeback in recent years. Why do you think that is?

For me, being in on it, it never really went away. Because you had different bands from different eras, one being The Charlatans, that keep going so it kind of never goes away. It rears its head, and this time were there! There’s just that many bands from that neck of the woods that there’s always someone, somewhere doing something.

And don’t forget the new bands as well! In the past few years you’ve had bands like The Courteeners or Blossoms coming through.

Definitely, even bands like Afflecks Palace are coming through now and making massive waves.

That’s right! They get loads of play on 6 music and they’re great, I really like what they’re doing! if ever there was a Manchester band, it’s Afflecks Palace.

What’s been good to see is that the kids are getting involved with it as well. When you announced the reunion, there was a lot of people 20 and younger getting excited.

You’re absolutely right. You can sort of gauge what people are saying on social media, and I’m looking at it thinking, “bloody hell, not everyone’s 55 years’ old who are wanting to see us, there’s a lot of people in their 20’s here.”

A lot of the people in the band have children now as well and they’re really into it! Some of them are teenagers, some of them are in their 20’s and they’re well up for it.

It’s quite interesting when it’s my job to order the merch and I’m having to think about styles and sizes because not everyone is gonna want a 3XL t shirt. You’ve got to cater for people all across the board.

And for you guys it’s doubly exciting with the boxset coming out as well.

Yeah, I mean that’s the definitive release of the singles. The vinyl’s made up of a double album with 24 tracks on, then there’s the remix CD that has god knows how many tracks on ahaha. So it’s so exciting, there’s something for everybody there.

For me personally the vinyl’s my little thing being an avid vinyl collector. It’s great that all the singles are all in one place, and in a nice package that’s in chronological order. I’m loving that!

I mean there is just something different about physically having something on record.

You’ve just got a 12” piece of art. We’ve spent a lot of time kicking about the design and the cover. I personally wanted it to have quite a retro feel on the inside. One of the discs has a blue note and ones got a maroon one like you used to have for stereo and mono. It’s been a little pet project of mine, getting the art work all sorted so we’re really happy with it.

Are there any specific songs that you’ve listened back to on the boxset that you’ve reassessed or you’ve found a new appreciation for?

Yeah, we had to listen to it when we got the vinyl test pressing. I was listening through to it from start to finish and every song I thought, “I remember doing the guitar on this” or, “ahh we dropped one of the verses from this and did a double chorus” so I’ve got distinctive memories of recording or playing them live.

So every song really has a special element for me. Even when you play it live it just comes flooding back to you, each one’s a snapshot back in time to something we were doing 35 years ago.

And now it’s there forever. Whatever anybody does or says it’s there, it’s on vinyl, you can have it forever.

So we’ve touched on your Australian tour, are there any plans to take the Inspirals anywhere else?

Yeah, we’re going to Australia and New Zealand in July and August, and then social media people keep saying Japan, Argentina, America.

Which are all great ideas but one person saying it on social media doesn’t mean that we can go do it ahaha. We have to check there’s a demand over there and promoters want to put us on.

But these people know we’re doing stuff. We’ve probably turned away two offers for every one we’re going to do because we just can’t fit them in.

I’d like to think we could get to America at some point, maybe next year. But a little run in America of 7 to 10 gigs would be amazing really. We’d love that.

And the last thing from me, are there any plans for new music?

We’ve not discussed that really but it’s only a matter of time before that rears its head. I would’ve thought we’d do something at some point, and I’m sure we’ve got stuff in the vaults we can take a look at.

But we haven’t really thought about that, we’ve just been making sure that we’re all really up to speed and confident for the tour, and after we’ve done a few gigs people might be thinking, “Okay I’ve got an idea here, who fancies meeting up for a song writing session?”

I wouldn’t rule it out for sure.

Tickets for the Inspiral Carpets are available to buy here.