Glamour Of The Kill are a band who like to keep busy. If it’s not on their own headline tour then it’s in support of other bands, making connections that have lead to many a collaboration both on their own songs and others. However in the here and now, Glamour Of The Kill are headed around the UK giving all other bands a run for their money in the small show stakes, before taking on Europe in March. Vocalist and bassist Davey Richmond sat down with us for a quick chat before their show in Manchester.
BM: How’s your tour going so far, it’s the fourth date today isn’t it?
Davey: Fourth day today yeah, it’s going really well. We haven’t done a headline tour in a long time so it’s nice to get to play a longer set.
BM: Yeah, in the past couple of years I know you’ve supported people like Escape The Fate and Motionless In White so some headline shows make a change! You had some EPs out before your two albums, and then last year you released another EP, is it important for you to keep getting work out even if it’s just smaller EPs?
Davey: Yeah definitely, I mean I think the plan is at the moment is to just get music out as quick as possible. I think the After Hours EP was kind of a little stepping stone to the full length that we’re going to be releasing this year. I think after this tour, we’re going to release one single with a video, that’s just on its own you know like Bring Me The Horizon did with Drown? So we’re going to do something like that, and then release a completely separate full length as well.
BM: So on the After Hours EP you collaborated with Craig Mabbitt of Escape The Fate, and Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach, how did that come about?
Davey: Well, we toured with Escape The Fate like four times now; three times in the States and a couple of times over here as well and they’re really good friends of ours. We’ve been talking about it for years, having Craig sing on a song. Then we wrote Earthquake and we thought that would be perfect. It was the same with Jacoby, we know the Papa Roach guys really well; we did a couple of tours with those guys and we wanted him on a track and he was down for it, then we wrote Out Of Control, which we thought would have been perfect for him. Chris went to pick him up from Leeds fest! Yeah, he picked him up and then they came to Bishopthorpe and recorded in a little studio. He just smashed it out and then we took him back!
BM: The EP is just as heavy as your other stuff, but there is a lot more clean vocals, was there an idea behind going in this direction?
Davey: I think we just wanted to kind of write some rock ‘n’ roll songs I guess. We wanted to musically keep it heavy; riff-y and bouncy, but just keep it clean vocals and a bit rockier really.
BM: You described it as a bit more like Nickleback…
Davey: Yeah well it is a bit! I mean we all love Nickleback, a lot of people are like ‘ugh Nickleback’, but they’re fun so it’s cool…
BM: Do you get a lot of influence from Kiss then? Live you’ve covered them a few times.
Davey: Yeah, we love Kiss! They’re one of my favourite bands, seen them loads of times. We covered Love Gun before Christmas, we’re doing that tonight actually! Yeah they’re a big influence, I mean they’re a huge band aren’t they so it’s nice to take influences from bands that big.
BM: How do you decide what you’re going to cover, do you just pick your favourite songs by a band?
Davey: Pretty much! I mean years ago we did a cover of Iron Maiden, Two Minutes To Midnight but we were asked to do that by Kerrang! and we were given a few choices so we chose that one. With the Kiss cover, we just did it because we love Kiss.
BM: You’ve talked about Motley Crue in the past as well, have you ever covered them?
Davey: No but I think it’s something we could do, definitely! I love Motley Crue. I wanted to be Nikki Sixx for a very long time…
BM: aside from your covers, how do you decide what goes into the rest of the setlist?
Davey: I mean with doing a support set, or a festival set, you kind of have to throw together all your best songs… Not necessarily your best songs, just the songs that you know are going to hit home. With a headliner set, it’s more about playing all the material you can, off every album and every EP, and just having fun. Obviously with a support set you only get about half an hour, so you can only fit about six songs in there, but tonight we’re doing like 13 or 14 songs.
BM: What’s it like playing venues like this and then supporting bands like Dragonforce?
Davey: Well, I just love playing live. So it’s cool playing smaller venues, and it’s awesome playing the bigger ones. Obviously, its cooler to play like arenas and festivals and stuff, but it’s nice to play little venues like this too.
BM: So what else influences you other than music?
Davey: The way we write lyrics usually is we kind of think of a cool subject. So on the EP, Out Of Control is about a guy getting into a bar fight. A lot of my influences are just everyday life really, that’s how we get a subject. Whether someone can relate to it, or it’s just a cool story; Earthquake is about two people on the run from the police and stuff, like I said Out Of Control is about a bar fight, Lights Down is about sex. But yeah, we just pick a subject and write about that really.
BM: Is that what you spend most of your down time doing in between touring then?
Davey: Yeah I guess so, definitely.
BM: Can you remember when you first got into rock and alternative music?
Davey: Yeah, I was definitely at school. I think a lot of the bands I first got into were a lot more punk bands like NOFX, Rancid and stuff like that. Then I started getting into nu-metal, when I was at school was when Linkin Park were just starting out releasing Hybrid Theory, and I really got into them and Limp Bizkit, stuff like that at first. I think I was probably about 12 or 13 when all of that heavy music started coming in. But when I was younger my step-dad listened to things like David Bowie and stuff like that.
BM: What do you think the appeal of it all is?
Davey: I don’t know… I guess it’s like loads of people with tattoos and stuff. I remember seeing Travis Barker playing drums and I just thought ‘that guy looks so cool’; I knew after seeing him that I wanted to be covered in tattoos. I think it’s just an outlet, for a lot of people- something to bang your head to and drink beer to you know? People just like that kind of dirty rock.
BM: A lot of people tend to say that rock fans are mostly really nice, you go to Download festival and everyone is lovely…
Davey: Yeah, definitely! It’s like one big family really, it’s cool!
BM: Do you have any festivals planned for this year or anything then?
Davey: The plan at the moment is, after this tour, just to crack down and get our heads down to start writing for this full length. We’ve got loads of ideas at the moment so it’s just kind of piecing it together I think, figuring out who we’re going to record it with and stuff. I think we’re going to aim for a September release.
BM: So you’ve not actually started recording or anything yet?
Davey: No, we’ve got a few demos and stuff, but other than that it’s all just sort of up in the air at the moment!
You can still catch Glamour Of The Kill, supported by Ashes, E Of E and The Hype Theory on the following dates:
Saturday February 28th: London Underworld
Sunday March 1st: Bristol The Exchange
Tuesday March 3rd: Wolverhampton Slade Rooms
Wednesday March 4th: Stoke Sugarmill
Thursday March 5th: Nuneaton Queens Hall
Friday March 6th: Nottingham Rock City Basement
Saturday March 7th: Gloucester Guildhall
Sunday March 8th: Milton Keynes Crauford Arms
You can get tickets here.
Photos by Erin Moore at Forte Photography UK
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