Riffed

After much deliberation, Brighton rockers Royal Blood have announced their debut album 'Royal Blood' will be released on the 25th August this year. 

Mike and Ben announced the news via their Twitter and Facebook pages this morning:

"Our debut album ‘Royal Blood’ comes out 25/08. Pre-order now from iTunes (US coming soon): http://po.st/RoyalBloodAlbum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3CawE0TNag..."

The news was welcomed with many jubilant replies and it's no surprise as to why. Royal Blood are a band that has grown hugely in a short space of time, RIFFED saw them on their first tour, it was a free entry and only around 20 people rolled up. 9 months down the line they're supporting Arctic Monkeys at Finsbury Park and are set to play Glastonbury this weekend. There has been plenty of hype surrounding Royal Blood's debut album, as they recently told NME that it was set to be released 'August time', it also featured in our top 5 albums to look forward to this year a few weeks ago (http://riffed.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42361834-albums-to-look-forward-to-this-year) before it had even been confirmed. But now Mike and Ben have broke the news to us, what can we expect? Well if we are to go by previous releases such as 'Out of the Black', 'Come on Over' and 'Little Monster', we are in for one heck of an album. Well, a loud one certainly. 

Pre-order Royal Blood's debut album 'Royal Blood' via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/royal-blood/id891695026

RIFFED x

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Fancy going to this years X&Y Festival in Liverpool? We teamed up with X&Y to give away two tickets to help promote ourselves and themselves. So, here's your chance to win 2 tickets to this years fest worth £20 each. For your chance to win follow these steps:

1: Follow our Twitter: https://twitter.com/riffedonline

2: Retweet this tweet: https://twitter.com/riffedonline/status/481112622058979328

Or Like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/riffedonline?ref=hl&ref_type=bookmark

And Like and Share this post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=536087356513407&set=a.536087453180064.1073741828.528095180645958&type=1 ;

Competition closes 30/6/14. Good luck!

RIFFED x

Arcade Fire bring their Worldwide Reflektor tour to the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury this Friday, but RIFFED discovered 10 facts you probably didn't know about ths years Glasto headliners.

1 Arcade Fire named themselves after a story that lead singer Win Butler heard from a childhood friend about an arcade catching on fire.

2 When the band appeared on the Conan O'Brien show, they were almost a member down. As Will Butler had to ask his teacher at Univeristy for permission to miss class, but luckily he made it.

3 Win Butler’s full name is Edwin Farnham Butler.

4 The band has started a trend of "ripping" things during their Saturday Night Live Performances. On their debut appearance Win ripped the strings off his guitar and repeatedly beat it on the ground until it was in pieces. Their most recent performance incorporated Win coming very close to the camera to rip off his shirt.

5 'The Suburbs' was released with eight different cover designs worldwide.

6 Barack Obama is an Arcade Fire fan. On January 1, 2009 Arcade Fire and Jay-Z were the musical guests at the Obama Campaign Staff Ball by request of the U.S president.

7 During the downtime between the recording of 'Funeral' and 'Neon Bible', Arcade Fire purchased a church. The band later converted it into a studio.

8 The first song Win and Regine ever wrote together was called "Headlights Look Like Diamonds."

9 Arcade Fire play a maximum total of 16 instruments. 

10 Arcade Fire teamed up with Google to create the first HTML5 - powered music video for their single "We Use to Wait." The video is created using images of their hometown via Google Maps and Street View.

RIFFED x

The Whereabouts chatted to us yesterday. The lads appear to be following in the footsteps of fellow Irish band The Strypes, are they set to top them? Here's our interview with The Whereabouts:

1) Who are The Whereabouts?

We are are four lads who want to show and express our music and play and make it their career.

2) You played Liverpool Sound City recently, how did that go?

It went really good yeah, we met Attorney for the 2nd time and he gave us some really good updates on the band and what he has coming up for us. Also the club we played was really welcoming, and looked after us like we were some famous band! The club was packed and and we played a 40 minute set which went down a storm.

3) You are a young band from Ireland, similar to The Strypes, have they inspired you?

The Strypes are another great band outta Ireland but we aren't inspired by them no, but we are inspired by what they have done..

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Hard question to answer but we hope to be wowing crowds and sustaining the importance of old school rock "n" roll maybe? But we're confident in our ability that we can do it... "WE'LL DAMN GIVE IT A GOOD GO THOUGH"

5) What's next for The Whereabouts?

Well what's next is that we'll be playing several festivals and releasing an EP very soon.

Big thanks to The Whereabouts for the interview.

You can find all of The Whereabouts' tracks and socials via their webpage: http://www.thewhereaboutsofficial.com/

RIFFED x

Cardiff lads The Cradles chatted to us this week. Supporting Professor Green on his Cardiff date last year is the highlight of the rock band's career to this day, but The Cradles could well have a huge future ahead and for this reason we grabbed an interview with them and here it is:

 1) Who are The Cradles?

We're a rock band from Cardiff formed in the summer of 2012 made up of Joe Norman (vocals), Toby Andrews (Guitar), Kieran O'Brien (Guitar), Luke Haines (Bass) and Declan Andrews (Drums).

2) You recently supported Professor Green, how did that go for you?

We're not big fans of Professor Green's music so it was a slightly strange scenario to be acting as his main support but it was a good night. It gave us the chance to play a venue as good as Cardiff's Great Hall and also to a large audience. That's something you want to be doing every night so you don't rest contented with having done it.

3) Who are the biggest inspirations for The Cradles?

Any bands and artists with great melodies and lyrics such as The Beatles, The Kinks and Arctic Monkeys always have a big influence on what we do and aim to do. We also draw a lot from bands such as Pixies, The Strokes and The Doors when putting music together.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

Glastonbury. Hopefully not as spectators.

5) What's next for The Cradles?

We play Dempseys in Cardiff on the 5th of July and The Fleece in Bristol on Thursday 10th of July. After that we'll be gigging regularly across the UK and should be recording a couple of new tracks in July.

A big thank you to The Cradles for the interview.

Listen to The Cradles via Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Spotify:

https://soundcloud.com/the-cradles/sets/the-cradles

http://vividriot.bandcamp.com/album/the-cradles-do-you-wonder-why

http://open.spotify.com/artist/0DP6Mke28ThoHShGLmCfkr

Follow The Cradles on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCradles

And like their Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCradles?ref_type=bookmark

RIFFED x

Recently we chatted to Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods. The Mods have recently released their latest album 'Divide and Exit' and have commonly featured in NME of late, 3 albums down and it appears the Mods are on the rise. Jason was on hand to tell us a little about 'Divide and Exit' and what the story is behind their inventive name this week. This is how it went down:

1) Who are Sleaford Mods?

Jason Williamson (vocals) and Andrew fearn (music).

2) You've recently released your new album 'Divide and Exit', tell us a little about that?

It's an account of our little lives under the weight of England in 2014. It's hard and funny and progressive. It's important to aim for new forms of music and in part we have acheived that.

3) What's behind the name, Sleaford Mods?

Nothing really. I'm an old mod and Sleaford is a town close to Grantham my home town.

4) What's next for Sleaford Mods?

New album, more gigs more recognition.

Big thanks to Jason of Sleaford Mods for the interview.

You can find all of Sleaford Mods music, socials and purchase 'Divide and Exit' via Sleaford Mods' webpage: http://www.sleafordmods.com/

RIFFED x

Klaxons recently announced tour dates to coincide with the release of their 3rd studio album 'Love Frequency', but this is not just any tour, everything you see on the tour, barring yourselves, the band and the venue, will be made via 3D printing.

Hard to believe yes, but all instruments, amps, mics, everything! Will be created via 3D printing. 3D Printing is a new technology of which images can be processed and printed just like a usual printer, but the outcome will be in 3D form and Klaxons are set to put technology to the test and themselves in the spotlight by using 3D printed instruments. If you'd like to catch Klaxons on their 3rd dimensional tour, the dates are a follows: 

Oct 25 Sat - Norwich - The Waterfront (NR1 1QH)

Oct 26 Sun - Leeds - The Cockpit (LS1 4AG)

Oct 27 Mon - Glasgow - O2 ABC Glasgow (ABC1 & ABC2) (G2 3JB)

Oct 28 Tue - Manchester - Manchester Academy (M13 9PQ)

Oct 30 Thu - Brighton - Concorde 2 (BN2 1EN)

Oct 31 Fri - Bristol - Thekla (BS1 4RB)

Nov 01 Sat - Birmingham - O2 Academy Birmingham (B1 1DB)

Nov 02 Sun - Nottingham - The Rescue Rooms (NG1 5GG)

Nov 04 Tue - London - O2 Shepherds Bush Empire (W12 8TT)

You can purchase tickets for Klaxons' 3rd dimensional tour via this link: http://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/Klaxons

Purchase Klaxons 3rd studio album 'Love Frequency' via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/love-frequency/id848421551

RIFFED x

The Sales of Germany spoke to us this week, the band may be of German ethnicity but when listening all that springs to mind is Britpop. Here's how our interview with the Germans went down:

1) Who are The Sales?

We're an indie band from Passau, Germany. We play indie/alternative/post-punk stuff, somewhere in between probably. We formed in winter 2012 and did our first professional recordings in 2013 in Berlin.

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

That's not a hard question, since we've only played two gigs just now. Our favorite gig was definitely the second one. We played with two other bands in a nice venue in our hometown called 'Tabakfabrik' (german for tobacco factory). Kind of a run-down place, but pretty cool. The other bands were really nice and good to work with. And the audience was just great.

3) Who are your greatest influences?

Our greatest influence are definitely 'The Strokes', that's quite obvious. But there are many different influences in all of our songs. For example, one with some kind of disco-like 'Daft Punk' influence, or one with a bit of an 'Eagles of Death Metal' sound.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

That's hard to tell. Of course we hope that we'll be successful and maybe even get a record deal, but we won't just wait for that. We work hard and our songs are good, so things will be looking up eventually.

5) What's next for The Sales?

What's next? Gigs, gigs and gigs. As many as we can play. We also want to shoot a selfmade video for our song 'No Mas'. We're no experts with videos, so we don't know how that will turn out but we'll try our best. And since we've just finished setting up a little home-studio, we'll be able to record more of our songs now. So, we will be quite busy the next few months.

Cheers to The Sales for the interview.

Follow The Sales on Twitter: @thesalesband

Like The Sales on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesalesband

Visit The Sales' webpage: http://thesalesband.com/

Listen to The Sales via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the-sales

RIFFED x

Synth-pop fueled band Ballet School chatted to us recently. Ballet School are best described as Haim and 80's/90's pop mashed into one, and are tip-toeing forever closer to the release of their album this September so we grabbed an interview with them on their forthcoming release and much more:

1) Who are Ballet School's biggest inspirations?

The magic hour, like 7-9pm in the summer when the sky turns peach.

A beautiful face. I guess I watched too much Disney as a little girl or read Death In Venice too many times or watched Hustler White too often cos I really have a thing about beautiful boys.

Musically, I love melody. Some people love beats first but for me it's melody first.

Pop music. From every era. And the history of pop music. Owen Pallett and Paul Gambaccini - these are the type of people I'd invite round for tea.

Crossover. Artists and music that began in the underground and translated to the masses. You know the story of Gee Street? Like how PM Dawn sold millions of records in America? It always really moved me that little clip in Live!Tonight!SoldOut! where Prince Be says 'I really, really like Nirvana' Nirvana were the ultimate crossover band. They smashed the door of everyone's heart. I love that.

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

We feel like we're on the rise with our live thing right now so everytime we play it's a new fave. Legendary moments have been Tampere, Finland. Tallin music week, The Great Escape and then our first ever show in New York when the whole Bella Union crew was in town and we played with Marissa Nadler who is a goddess. Omg.

3) Personal favourite of the songs you've produced?

Production-wise I feel that the album version of Heartbeat Overdrive is the best thing we've done so far. Me and Louis worked on it and we were really in the zone. The template was the classic extended mixes that used to be in vogue back in the day before 12" vinyl singles became a specialist purchase. My fave 12" mix of all time is probably The Cure's Lullaby. That one is genius. But because I am the biggest Madonna fan ever obviously I love Madonna's entire extended mix catalogue. And also the one that changed my life is probably Nile Rodger's 12" mix of Carly Simon's Why. I've always thought that Rihanna should cover that. That iconic Bernie Edwards bassline gives me Rihanna-life. Anyway, basically I had all these ideas and Louis was vibing hard with his epic production skill and we just sat in front of the computer for about three nights and bashed it out.

4) Your album is out this September, any plans for the summer?

Yes our album is out in September! And we'll be playing plenty of festivals this summer.

5) Who's on your playlist 

I've been listening to Ellen Alien's Weiss Mix again. And also Mya. She had incredible pitch, on her early records, you know. Great purity and control. I love good singers. Always learning.

Big thanks to Ballet School for the interview. 

You can find links to all of Ballet Schools music and socials via their webpage: http://www.balletschoolband.com/

RIFFED x

He may have just reformed with The Libertines, but Pete Doherty is going solo again. Doherty announced four dates over June and July this year earlier this week and for those who missed out on Libertines tickets, there's a minor conselation for you all. Dates for Doherty's tour are as follows:

Jun 25 Wed - Stoke On Trent - The Underground (ST1 4EZ)

Jul 01 Tue - Nottingham - Bodega (NG1 2ED)

Jul 02 Wed - Oxford - O2 Academy Oxford (OX4 1UE)

Jul 03 Thu - Bristol - The Fleece (BS1 6JJ)

Tickets go on sale Monday 23rd June at 9:00 am and you can purchase tickets via the link: http://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/peter-doherty.

RIFFED x