The Slow Readers Club

In advance of their Leeds show, Aaron talks to Darren on Proper Sports’ Big Sports Breakfast, about how their previous tour with James came about.

It was an amazing opportunity for us. They tweeted one of our tracks that we performed — I Saw A Ghost — acoustically in Manchester Central Library. It was like a guerrilla thing. We just turned up and did it for a YouTube channel. Jim Glennie tweeted via the James account, and we were like  ‘Christ, gotta get on to this’. Luckily enough for us they had a new album and tour coming up. There’s a guy who’s supported us for years that’s written about us in Manchester that we knew did their sleeve notes and knew the band. So I manged to get a CD to the band via him. Then a week or so later we got a note from their management offering us 14 dates on their tour. We ended up playing Brixton Academy, Manchester Arena, Liverpool Echo Arena. That was massive for us. It gave us an audience all over the UK.

Aaron and Kurtis appear on the It’s Only Rock’N’Roll show on Fab Radio International. On their growing support:

Kurtis: One thing you notice is audience sizes. Going from doing the smaller venues where the odd pockets of people knowing the words, and then getting to the stage where people are all singing it back and chanting ‘Readers’ is a different level.

Aaron: The connection with the crowd is incredible now…David Bowie said, “Don’t play to the gallery”. That sticks in my mind: you get down and sing to those that are buzzing at the front, and you see it roll back through the venue.

On the upcoming album:

Aaron: A lot of the stuff in the past has been introspective and existential (Kurtis: mean and moody!). I wanted to explore different territory anyway and be a bit more positive anyway. But then Brexit happened, and Trump, and the world seems to be getting very polarized. The trajectory of the planet seems to be completely different. So I thought I was important not to be majorly political, but put a positive message out. Songs like Through The Shadows are about getting through difficult times and the most important thing being about those you love. A more positive message than before, but more universal, and bits of social commentary. Whereas, before it was a bit more about my own insecurities and demons…We’ve sold nearly 2000 pre-orders so far. If we get a decent chart position it leads on to other things.

The band are interviewed by Too Many Blogs, talking about their upcoming album, Build A Tower, which will be released on May 4.

The Star Wars thing is just a coincidence, we won’t be doing a gig in Jedi robes or anything.

On songwriting:

We have developed a lot as musicians since Cavalcade, so there is more invention in terms of melody, rhythm, song structure…Some tracks are very personal and explore the feeling of being in love with someone and the delicious fragility of it, the sense that it could disappear before your eyes (‘Supernatural’). Some tracks refer, very specifically, to the external political environment (‘Lunatic’/’On the TV’).  Musically, it’s probably more consistent in terms of style, as the album was written in a tighter time-frame than the last album. It’s pretty inventive – hopefully, our existing fans will love it and, hopefully, it continues the work of the previous album (in winning over most people that hear it).