Interview with Villains: Camden Barfly 20/01/13

 Villains are an upcoming rock band from Essex. Bella managed to catch a quick chat with Matt from the band, before they supported Blitz Kids at Camden’s Barfly. They released their new single ‘The Fall’ on Friday 17th January and already have over 23,000 views. Their debut album, ‘Villains’, is due out Monday 24th February 2014.
Congratulations on over 20,000 views in 48 hours on the new music video for the new single ‘The Fall’, must be very exciting!
23,000 now! It’s blown our minds to be honest, as much as we have done loads beforehand, we are now a new band, we’ve made a new album and a tiny band like us, getting 23,000 views on a video in 48 hours is mad, we are really blown away.
This must make you guys a lot more excited for the debut album next month?
Yeah we are, it’s been a long time coming, us as band, we have been together for ages, but as Villains we’ve only been together for a year or so. For the last 10 years I’ve been waiting for this, it’s a major thing ticked off the bucket list. I’m not gonna lie, I’m proud of it, I think it’s a good album, I’d like it if I listened to it. I do like it! I just hope people are open to it and appreciate the work that went into it.

I can’t wait to see.

Villains – The Fall on MUZU.TV.

How would you describe the sound of the new album?
WICKED. Nah but seriously it’s a varied rock album, everything we do is about writing a good song, but we wanted to have a couple slower songs, then have a couple more up tempo songs. It’s a punk rock album with an edge, big chorus and great songs! I’d say that pop rock is coming up a lot more with bands like Mallory Knox, Blitz Kids and Young Guns, they are definitely the benchmark. They have all worked hard to get the great results. So, at the end of the day, I love being in a band, and I’m proud of the album we’re about to release. I get to play places like tonight, in front of like 200 people, I’ve got work to do tomorrow but I don’t really care, we just want to enjoy ourselves.
Who gets the most starstruck out of the band?
Depends how drunk they are. I remember at Download Festival a couple of years ago, Tom met Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth and for the next 4-5 hours he wouldn’t shut up about how he met him and I was just like ‘I know mate I know, I was there when you met him’. But I dunno really, depends who it is. I’m a massive The Who fan and when I met Pete Townsend, I cried, I dunno if that counts. I have met a few people from bigger bands and you do get a bit starstruck because you know who they are. We toured with Fozzy, and that’s Chris Jericho! Renz, our lead singer, is literally like the biggest WWE fan ever, so you can imagine. Just for clarification, Jericho doesn’t like it when you walk in on him doing yoga. If you ever see Chris Jericho doing yoga, don’t go and say hello.
Who are your main musical influences?
Erm, how I see it, is that we all have very different music tastes over the board. I am a massive fan of The Who and that era of music. Drew, our drummer, listens to like heavier stuff like Devil Wears Prada and The Ghost Inside, Architects, all that kind of stuff. Renz likes pop music. However, it all comes together, the way I look at it, our favourite bands are our band. Everything we like comes across in our music, that’s what we aim for, we throw everything in.

What would be your dream tour line-up?
The Who! That’s my personal view, I’m pretty sure they’d turn it down. I reckon I would tour with The Who, Renz would tour with The Smiths, Tom would wanna tour with someone like Ray Charles or something like that. I think we suit bills like tonight’s show, I think we suit that kind of upcoming new wave of British bands, that’s where I would pitch ourselves.
How much are you looking forward to tonight’s show? Will we be hearing any new material?
I am excited for tonight, the last week or so has been mental. The build-up to the video and the single release then there’s tonight’s show; I am looking forward to it. We’ve worked hard the last couple of weeks, we are playing the new songs and the single ‘The Fall’, and it should be good fun!
Thank you Matt and good luck for tonight’s show!
Thank you!

 

Debut Album, ‘Villains’, release: 24th February 2014.

 

Bella Hutton @_m0thership

And now onto the show….. 

Villains – Barfly 20/01/2014

Essex boys Villains were more than excited to be supporting Blitz Kids at the Barfly on the 20th. Their recent release of their music video for the single ‘The Fall’ got 23,000 views in 72 hours got the boys pumped to show people what they have in store for the debut album which is due to be released next month.

Talking to the band before they played, you wouldn’t be able to say they were nervous, they seemed confident to showcase the new material and hopefully gain the interest of the Blitz Kids fans in the crowd. After a couple of drinks, the band was ready to perform. Walking onto stage they looked like they were in their element, Villains have a pure talent of performing.  There is definitely a musical chemistry between all of the members when on stage and the passion from each member is admirable. Renz’s powerful vocals were flawless and his cheeky banter made the crowd giggle but also warm towards to band.  Their set was only 6 songs long but showed the audience a variety of songs and gave them a taste of what they have to offer.

All their songs are good solid rock songs which had the whole crowd bobbing along. It was obvious that the majority of the crowd haven’t heard of Villains before however I believe they have gained a lot more fans since that performance due to the surge of compliments the band got after their performance on social network sites.

A couple of days after their performance they got voted no.2 on Scuzz’s ‘Most Wanted’  just one spot away from Neck Deep who headlined Barfly just one week before. Also Villains have been played on Radio 1’s review show which is huge for the upcoming band and I promise you that these are the ones to watch this year!

For fans of: Blitz Kids, Young Guns, The Blackout and Mallory Knox

Recommended ‘first listen’: The Fall

 

Setlist

Bleed

The Fall

Wicked Ways

Light Out Lives The Star

Come Out and Play

Visions

Mari Lane

Mari Lane

Editor, London. Likes: Kathleen Hanna, 6Music, live music in the sunshine. Dislikes: Sexism, pineapples, the misuse of apostrophes.