The Struts… Going Strutospheric

Interview: The Struts

Published on October 25th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams

Emergent Derby rockers The Struts are set to release their second single “Could Have Been Me” on November 18th, so we thought it an opportune time to get all inquisitive up in the face of front man Luke Spiller…

Is there an album on the way, and would you say that “Could Have Been Me” and “I Just Know” are good indicators of what we can expect from it?

There’s a great album on the way, and we’ve also got a third single coming out in the new year. If you listen to the tracks then you’ll hear a gradual progression to what the album has to offer, because the album itself is quite an eclectic collection of songs.

By the time the third single comes out I think everyone should have a great idea of what the album sounds like, because this next one is a bit more of a Rolling Stones/Primal Scream kind of thing, whereas “Could Have Been More” is more theatrical like Queen, very crowd-driven and anthemic.

So yeah, when the next single comes out I think it’ll add another colour to the palette, so to speak.

Who are you working with on the album in terms of production?

We’ve worked with a few producers, but mostly two guys: a guy called Ray Hedges over in Jersey, where we’d go to record ideas and lay everything down – we’ve got a few tracks on the album from him – and the rest were done in Bournemouth with a couple of guys called Red Triangle.

Red Triangle are up-and-coming, haven’t done a lot of big things but they’re really talented, know exactly what they’re doing and they’re really great to work with, so we’ve been lucky.

How did you come to the attention of Virgin, and how did the Primark Denim campaign come about?

Our manager invited someone down to a gig we had at Barfly, we absolutely nailed the performance and they said, “Yeah, let’s get them on board.”

A few of the production company linked to the Primark team are located in Derby. We had “I Just Know” floating around on the internet for about eight months before that even happened.

They needed a soundtrack for it and one of the team had apparently been to one of our gigs, said, “I know the perfect song.” He played it there in the meeting and they were all nodding their heads!

Were you playing festivals over the summer or gigging much?

Yeah, festival season’s great because there are so many in this country. We did Boardmasters, went to Leeds for the weekend which was really good, and played Y Not in Derbyshire which I reckon is one of Britain’s best-kept festival secrets. That was great.

We also played a French one called Les Transmusicales, which was amazing; there was a big fuck-off aircraft hangar thing, three thousand people there and we played at about two o’clock in the morning. They love that out there!

Finally, which have been your favourite albums from 2013?

I’ve got some that I’m looking forward to, like the Temples record. The second Vaccines album was great too, we all love them. Apart from that, I’m more of a ’60s/’70s man myself.

Luke Spiller, thank you.

For more information, please visit The Struts’ official website.

Artists: the struts

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.