The Blinders are gearing up to play Hit the North Festival in Newcastle so Lee Allcock caught up with them to speak about politically-engaged British guitar bands, Brexit and more.
What was it like working with Gavin Monaghan (Editors, The Sherlocks, Goldblade) on your debut album, ‘Columbia’?
We took to calling him ‘the wizard of Wolverhampton’ pretty quickly. We’ve said a few times that the album probably wouldn’t have got finished if it wasn’t for him. Not only is his knowledge of music and all its intricacies second to none, but his experience of working with bands in the position we were was also invaluable.
Why do you feel that it’s important that more politically-engaged British guitar bands, such as yourselves, are breaking through?
It’s maybe just important for society as a whole. It’s important that politically-engaged young people are being allowed a stage to vent in general. It is, of course, inspiring to see other bands doing or saying similar things.
Brexit, should we go there?…
Of course, why not? The problem is: how do you go there? Of course, from my own perspective and from the perspective of young people in a band hoping to travel the world and who hope to see a future with fewer borders rather than more, it would be great to see a second referendum and an end to it. At the same time, this can’t be done without convincing working-class leave voters. An intelligent, well-thought-out argument must be made which convinces people to switch sides. It seems that people must be shown that it is austerity and a political system that wholly supports the elite in this country that is the reason for people’s hardships, not simply the EU nor people coming to the country from the EU. It seems people were maybe sold the lie that leaving the EU would be a magic bullet; it’s clearly not the case. However, you can’t be arrogant enough to just say ‘sod Brexit, put a stop to it’. Let’s start with a general election?
Moving away from politics, you’re set to play Hit the North in Newcastle so what can festival-goers expect from your set?
We love playing festivals and we’ve played a couple of great shows in Newcastle so, hopefully, more of the same. We’ll be bringing the usual circus or blood, sweat and Newcastle Brown. What more could you want?
You’re also heading out to Europe in May, so how are you preparing for those dates?
Right now, our focus is on the UK shows which are our biggest to date but the Europe shows or tour are something we’ve been waiting a long time for. We’ve been eager to go over there for longer than we can seem to remember. In many ways, we are starting again over there so we’ll go over there with the ambition to have the same effect on audiences as we seem to have over here.
Catch The Blinders at Hit the North in Newcastle on. Tickets, priced at £41.25 (including booking fee), are available at hitthenorthfestival.co.uk.
