INTERVIEW W/ The Royston Club: "I was shaking for the next hour after the gig"

The Royston Club, a dynamic four-piece from Wrexham, have taken the UK’s Indie music scene by storm. Their debut album, ‘Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars’, released in 2023, made waves with punchy hooks and irresistible melodies while recent singles ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ and ‘Shivers’ have got fans excited for album number two!

However, their strong following has been cultivated thanks to their electrifying live performances which have earned them appearances at Glastonbury and headline slots at FOCUS Wales and Liverpool Sound City. We caught up with the four-piece at Liverpool Sound City to talk about their journey so far and why festival appearances have played such a big part in their career.

Q: How do you feel about headlining Liverpool Sound City, and what does Liverpool mean to you?

A: “Really excited. First festival of the summer and it’s also our first headline outside of Wrexham - in such a beautiful venue too, so yeah we can’t wait. Liverpool is our first home away from home, we’ve had a great time up here. It's where we practise, where we’ve honed our skills as a band, and it’s always a great night out too.”

Q: You’ve got a lot of festivals coming up this summer. How does it compare playing festivals versus your own shows?

A: “I think there's a little more pressure at a festival because at your own show, you know the crowd is there for you and they’re going to love it no matter what. Whereas I think with a festival, you’re trying to win them over. You’re thinking, are they here for us, are they here for the next band, and there’s pressure on who’s going to turn up. But festival vibes are always the best vibes, always a great reminder of summer.”

Q: You’ve performed across many different venues across the UK. Is there a show in particular that stands out to you?

A: “One of my favourites was in London, Koko, which was the prettiest venue, with a big disco ball and three floors. It was one of our biggest shows to date at the time. Also, the first time we played Leeds Festival, we were young pups. The nerves were so real, and then the buzz after it. I was shaking for the next hour after the gig. Selling out Wrexham too, we’ve seen the same faces from our first show to the Rockin’ Chair show, which is great.”

Q: Do you have a favourite song to perform on stage?

A: “52. Yeah, 52 is always good fun. Great to play; fans always love it. ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ as well, since we released it last year. We’ve been opening with it as it’s one of our most current songs, and it sets the tone of the gig really well.”

Q: What first got you into music, and how did The Royston Club come together?

A: “Three of us went to the same school, so we just met through there and started jamming, playing covers of our favourite bands. Then I wrote a tune and decided we needed a drummer to play it because we wanted to start gigging. We knew Sam through a mutual friend, and he was weeks away from selling his drums, but that was it then; we just clicked.”

Q: Your debut album ‘Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars’ is turning two next month. How does it feel to have come such a long way since then?

A: “It feels great, it’s a very seminal point for any band to reach their first album, and there's always that pressure that after you've released it, you're no longer a new band. But I think we dealt with that quite well, and we've come out of it not being a new band but being fairly established now, even headlining festivals!”

Q: ‘Shivers’, your most recent release, is an incredibly strong track. What was the process behind creating a new sound and chapter for The Royston Club?

A: “When we were in the studio, we had a big whiteboard and we wrote de-Indie-fy on it. That was kind of our goal with these songs: to try going in a new direction. I think that with ‘Shivers’, we especially wanted to create this dark, moodier sound. It’s the first song I've ever written in a minor key. We were definitely more patient and calculated with how we worked out the song than we'd ever been before. We want to show that we aren’t the same four teenagers writing these songs, that we’ve grown as musicians, as individual people. As much as we thought about it, it would probably be hard for us to write those tunes on the first album now, just because it would be tricky to put ourselves back in the mindset of an 18-year-old lad at Leeds Festival. The songs reflect where we are at the moment.”

Q: If you could open a show for any artist, who would it be?

A: “If it’s a band playing now, it’d be Fontaines D.C., there’s not really a bigger gig to get than supporting them. Dead or alive, it’s The Beatles, it’s gotta be. Or Radiohead. I reckon the Beatles would be better crack backstage, though, you could have a good drink with The Beatles.”