Words: Charlotte Whittingham Photos: Chris Green
Before The Answer
made their way onto the stage at Southampton’s venue The Brooke I had a chance
to speak to Paul Mahon and Micky Waters from The Answer.
Charlotte: So you
guys are on tour at the moment and we’re in Southampton at the moment.
Mickey: This
is our first time in Southampton; we’ve been going around the United Kingdom for a very long
time and we finally made it here so it’s
pretty cool to come here.
Charlotte: So how
you liking Southampton?
Paul: We
haven’t actually left the venue today [laughs].
Mickey: I’ve
been here before and it’s a cool town.
Charlotte: According
to your press release there were some towns on your tour you haven’t visited for a few years, which
ones are those?
Paul: Probably
Aberdeen, The Lemon Tree in Aberdeen’s a good one. We started the tour there and it was a full house and
people were very appreciative
that we came back because a lot of bands when they tour in Scotland only tend to go to Glasgow then
head back down south. Southampton;
which we will find out later on, also Hull was really
good and Middlesbrough. They don’t sound like the most exciting places but they were surprisingly good. We
have five shows
in Germany too, which were good, in some of the German backwaters where we had never been to before and it was all
good.
Charlotte: Looking
at your Facebook page it looks like your tour is going very well, the photos show packed
venues.
Mickey: We’re
lucky we’ve a got a great fan base around Europe, it’s great doing gigs like this.
Particularly when the last campaign we only visited
to main cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham and maybe Bristol in the West. This tour was all
about getting to our fans
and touring to more cities so this is a great way to do it.
Charlotte: So the
sold out venues and the positive reception from this new album really contradicts
the theory that rock and roll is dead.
Paul: It’s
a little debate that comes around every few years, if I remember rightly it was around when
we started. There was a lack of
rock and roll bands at the time was one of the reasons so we hope to
re-address the balance.
Mickey: I
think the press are like ‘what are we going to write about next?’ It’s the new thing. Classic
Rock have done the revivalist thing.
Charlotte: You’ve
a got a new single out, New Horizon.
Paul: It’s the title track of our new album;
we’re excited about that one it’s
the first one we play every night on our tour and it’s gone down very well.
Mickey: It’s
a bit of punky one and we really like it.
Charlotte: The
concept of the video is someone being stripped…
Mickey: That’s
a good video; we’re not in it [laughs]. Well make a cameo for like one frame. It was different
for a video, a bit off the wall.
Charlotte: You’ve
got a single bundle coming out soon…
Mickey: Yes
we have or an EP, we’re always recording so we’ve got B-sides that aren’t on our albums as
well as Rory Gallagher covers.
New Horizon is available to purchase now, for more information on The Answer click here.
