With a new album to play live, English rock band Royal Blood was ready to go when it launched its tour in the United Kingdom earlier this year.
Returning to the road after being stuck at home for nearly two years, the duo played a few successful gigs without incident. However, Royal Blood was forced to cancel a stop in Paris due to a trucker protest. Then they rescheduled dates in the UK and Dublin following a sold-out show at London’s O2 Arena due to bassist-vocalist Mike Kerr testing positive for COVID-19 and losing his voice.
“It’s been great to come back to work and be in our natural habitat again,” drummer Ben Thatcher said during a Zoom interview from his home in Brighton, England while Kerr was at his home in quarantine. Kerr has since fully recovered and the band was able to make up the rescheduled tour dates and are now heading out on the North American leg of the tour, which comes to The Novo at LA Live in Los Angles May 5, House of Blues Anaheim May 7 and Observatory North Park in San Diego May 8.
“We’re in a band because we do like traveling and playing for our fans,” Thatcher continued. “It felt like we were meant to be doing it, and yeah, there have been a lot of ups and downs along the way and we realize from this little run that maybe the world isn’t quite ready for all of this. You’ve gotta take it slow, I think.”
Thatcher said he can’t wait to return to Southern California for a week and soak up a little sunshine, but he’s also excited to be playing so much new music. Royal Blood released its third album, “Typhoons,” in April 2021 after recording demos on their own and sending them back and forth before they were finally allowed back into the studio.
“We had all of these new songs and the whole thing changed and it was definitely for the better,” he said.
Thatcher said they went outside of their comfort zone, creating dance-rock cuts and songs they knew they’d have to enlist the help of others to be able to pull off in a live setting.
“The pressure was off a bit more and it was quite a change from where we’ve come from,” Thatcher said. “We’re using different instruments and it was one of those things where live we couldn’t do it with just the both of us because there are so many more elements going into it and it has a more disco feel. So it was, I guess, a brave move for us, but it felt right. It was fun exploring and it was just a lot of fun making this record.”
To add to the setlist, ahead of kicking off the tour in March, Royal Blood surprise-released a brand new song, “Honeybrains,” as a thank you to all of the fans who supported the band through the pandemic.
“In a time when we couldn’t play, we wrote ‘Honeybrains’ and recorded it,” Thatcher said. “We wrote it, recorded it and did a video all within two weeks. That’s how we used to do it back in the day when we weren’t doing an album campaign or something like that. We’d just write a new song so we could play it live.
“‘Typhoons’ came out a year ago and people haven’t heard these songs live, which is great, but for us, we wanted to bring something new to these shows for us, too, but this one really is for the fans. It’s got a bit of the new sound we’re doing and it’s also back to our roots. We thought it was fun so we just put it out there.”
During Royal Blood’s show at the O2 Arena in London, the guys took a moment to pay tribute to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died suddenly at the age of 50 on March 25. During Thatcher’s drum solo, a photo of him and Hawkins was put up on the large video screen. Foo Fighters took Royal Blood out on tour in 2015 and invited them to play as part of the Foo-curated Cal Jam ’17 festival in San Bernardino. Both Hawkins and frontman Dave Grohl gushed about the band in interviews, telling people that Royal Blood was one of their favorite bands.
“They’re such good liars,” Thatcher said with a laugh.
“But I connected with Taylor on day one,” he continued. “I’m fortunate to have gone on tour with him. All of those guys, that was a life-changing experience, but watching Taylor play every night and being with him off-stage as well, just that energy and that smile he’d give you, there was no one like him. It’s a great loss and it’s really just so sad. He was a great, great person.”
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Royal Blood
When: 8 p.m. May 5
Where: The Novo, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles
Tickets: $35 at AXS.com
Also: 7 p.m. May 7 at House of Blues, 400 Disney Way #337, Anaheim. $32 at Ticketmaster.com.
