Newcastle Think Tank. 09/12/17
Now this band are on a high. Roam have just recently released their newest record, Great Heights & Nosedives, supported New Found Glory’s headlining UK tour and are currently in the middle of their EU/UK headlining tour. It’s safe to say they’re going into 2018 on the back of their best year as a band. Tonight they play the Newcastle Think Tank as part of their headlining shows. I sat down with Alex Adam to chat about the bands last few months.
Hey Alex, you and the lads have had a mammoth few months, supporting New Found Glory. How does it feel to be headlining your own UK tour?
“It’s amazing. Like you said, we came off the back of touring with New Found Glory in America and the UK as well and we haven’t headlined in a while, so it’s really nice to come back and headline and see the progression we’ve made and the fans we’ve picked up on those tours. And definitely, see how the new album goes down live because the reception to it has been amazing.”
Speaking of the show in London, I’ve seen a few pics of the night and it looked absolutely mental.
“It was amazing. It was a sold out show which is awesome for London and a huge milestone for us but it was constant stagediving and the room was packed.”
On the new record, I’ve seen a few comments online saying you’ve changed you’ve changed your sound drastically from backbone to great heights, what do you make of that?
“I think it has, not in terms of the band because I think we’re the same band. I think we were able to get the songs in how they were able to sound. The songs on Backbone are great but we went into the studio and recorded them as we wrote them whereas on Great Heights we demoed them ourselves, changed the demos and we had ten different versions of every demo and fifteen different songs but we only put out eleven then when we went into the studio with Kyle Black we completely changed that all again so we refined the songs completely and there’s a great progression between the albums but I don’t know that it’s necessary ridiculously far away from the first album.”
But with the freedom you had from the writing of Backbone to Great Heights, would you say you had a better experience writing?
“Definitely. We had more time, more resources and it was like we needed to absolutely smash it or it’ll flop kind of thing. And I think once we had got the demos together, redone them and gone through them with Kyle and sat through pre-production again we were in a really strong place with it.”
And off the new record, what’s been your favourites to play live?
“Flatline, just because the crowd reactions have been really cool every night and it’s just a sing-along kind of song and I think a lot of people really relate to it, so I really love playing that song live. I enjoy all of them, but I can’t say a favourite personally because all of them are great to play.”
I have to say two of my favourites are Open Water and Playing Fiction.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had very little time at home, we haven’t been back in about eight weeks and even then we were back for one week or two so we didn’t have time to practise all of them off the album, including Open Water properly yet properly as a band, so we’re not playing that on this tour but Playing Fiction’s definitely in there. “
I’m hoping for a good reaction for that one, but I do admire that the fans have their personal favourites.
“It’s awesome to tweet what do people want to hear and every song’s completely different and then we see someone wants one song in particular and we’re like really? You want to hear that one because not a lot of people want to hear certain ones. It’s this and that but as you see every single song gets chosen at some point so we’re going to have to learn them all very well and get used to playing them, so we can change up the sets.”
And apart from the album dropping, what’s been your personal highlight from 2017?
“I mean last night was a very big night for me. I mean we played Underworld in London on the last tour and the last headliner we did which was a bit smaller, a bit more intimate and it wasn’t sold out. Then to go from that and bring the record out and for it to sell out this time around, the first song we played was Alive and everyone was just singing it back which was great so that in itself was a highlight for me.”
And being on the road what’s the best things for you?
“You get to see a lot of things you’d never normally see and eat a lot of things you’d normally never eat.”
I did hear a mention of Burritos earlier.
“That’s the thing, you’re in a different city every night and you don’t have access to a kitchen or anything you have to eat out, so we go for dinner every night which is amazing because you get to try so many different foods and all this stuff. It gets hard, because we’ve been away for eight weeks and we’ve all got family, girlfriends you know and it’s very much you miss home a lot but that’s the worst part because you’re constantly moving, with the same people and you want a bit of space.”
Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to argue on that.
And do you have any secret talents?
“Well, I’m getting into drawing at the moment, I don’t know if it’s a secret talent, but I’ve started doing that and you can see there are some people asleep and that’s pretty much your only option when you get to the venue it’s like; should I sleep? Should I scroll through my phone which I’ve been doing all day? Should I go out but it’s like almost -5 degrees outside and I don’t wanna do that but most of the time it’s like we should stay here, wait for food or just draw.”
And after the tour what’s the plan?
“We finish in about five days in Cardiff, then we drive home for Christmas which is nice and the next thing is the Knuckle Puck and Stand Atlantic tour in Australia in January. That’ll be nice because it’s freezing here and it’ll be very hot over there but we love it over there in general. We’ve only been to Australia once but the shows were really good over there as well so I’m looking forward to going back.”
And out of all the crowds you’ve played for, who’d you say is your favourite?
“Well, they’re all a little different because you get a little bit from each different area and you learn new stuff like in America they’re really big on putting one arm up in the air and slapping it down again which you don’t see much of over here, but we try and bring it back over here which is really cool.”
I think British people would feel too awkward to do that if you ask me.
“Oh yeah, and they do it without even asking which is cool but at the end of the day I’d say our favourite is the UK because it’s the place where we’re the biggest and get the best reaction and the best size of crowd.”
And are there any last words you want to say?
“If you don’t know who we are, check out Great Heights & Nosedives. It’s on Spotify, Apple Music. It’s everywhere so check it out. “
You can find Roam’s music on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Spotify.
You can also follow them through their social media accounts via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
You can view Roam’s most recent music video for ‘Alive’ below.
Roam will be the main support for Tonight Alive’s upcoming 2018 UK tour.
Here are the dates.
March 2018
6th – Manchester O2 Ritz
8th – London Koko
10th – Glasgow QMU
11th – Nottingham Rock City
12th – Leeds Stylus
13th – Bristol Motion
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