Lonely The Brave [Interview]
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Lonely The Brave have acquired a solid reputation for hard work and massive rock songs fuelled by walls of guitars and a sense of awe-inspiring epicness. A rock musician’s work is never done – and that seems to be how Lonely The Brave like it. With the band’s latest album Things Will Matter having dropped on May 20, I talked to guitarist Mark Trotter about his band’s evolution, media fearmongering, and more…
Your new album Things Will Matter is out now. What thoughts and feelings are running through your brain at the moment?
I’m just keen to see what people make of it. it’s definitely a different body of work to our first album, The Day’s War, so it will be interesting to see what everyone makes of it.
The early signs seem to be that the fans are digging it, so that’s good. It’s a strange one for me personally – I have a weird relationship with the music that we create in that, once it’s recorded, I won’t really listen to it again.
I guess this is mainly because thus far I have felt that whatever we have recorded is the best possible version of the track/album based on the time we have. After that it feels like the records don’t belong to us anymore; they are for the listener. I’m usually the same with reviews; I don’t tend to like reading them as, again, we have made the best record we are capable of making at that time – and my skin’s probably not as thick as it should be by now!
What first sparked your ambition to become a musician?
I remember very clearly being twelve years old and feeling like I needed something else. Some kind of release outside the normal things that kids do like sport, football, etc.
My sister had started blasting bands through the wall that separated our bedrooms; REM, Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers etc, which subliminally turned a corner for me with regards to the music I was listening to. Then my best mate told me he was about to start learning guitar. It was like a light went on in my head.
Since that day I have cared little for anything else than music and guitars really.
How does Things Will Matter differ from your previous work?
I would say it’s a progression from where we were. When we wrote and recorded the first record, we were a four-piece. Fast forward a few years and we are now a five-piece with a lot more experience to draw from for inspiration: two of us have become fathers in that time, and the day to day lives of every single one of us have changed dramatically.
We also had an 18-month period where we were chewed up and spat out by the music industry, which was a distinct learning curve. All these things have made the new record what it is. I would say it’s a darker, more mature record overall. We’re proud of it.
What was your creative process while writing and recording the new album?
We have no set way of working when it comes to writing music. Generally, a song will start off as a guitar idea and then take form in a rehearsal room with all of us adding our own influence. This to me is the best part of being in a band; you have an idea in your head, in varying states of completion, of how you want a song to end up.
After it’s been brought into our rehearsal room, that initial idea can be warped all out of proportion and the track ends up somewhere else entirely. Some tracks took significantly longer than others to get to a point where we were happy; Jaws of Hell for example has existed in some form or another for over two years, whereas a song like Boxes just appears out of the air in a rehearsal room within a matter of minutes. It’s a strange process, but one I don’t think we would ever change – or even know how to.
How do you want to see the world change?
That’s an all-encompassing question! There are a lot of things that I could say here, but for now I’d go with the end of any “news story” that is just promoting fear.
It’s a powerful weapon and one we are all being exposed to daily to drive whatever political end the powers that be see fit. No-one should have to deal with that feeling everyday. We need to stop being told to be afraid.
Like Bill Hicks said, it’s a choice. It’s just a ride.
What’s the most difficult thing about pursuing a life in music?
The hardest thing by far for me personally is balancing a home life with the life of a touring musician; don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely proud to do what we do, but when you have a young family, being away for months at a time takes its toll on everyone involved.
That and I tend to keep getting ill! I blame living in a bus with loads of sweaty guys for that one!
What are your passions outside of Lonely The Brave?
Apart from my family & friends I really am just a huge guitar geek. If I had money I’d be dangerous. My house would basically look like the Chicago Music Exchange.
I’m also a massive petrolhead, so anything involving vintage guitars and old school cars/motorbikes does it for me.
What do you currently have lined up for the rest of 2016?
We’ve just come off a large European tour, which was a lot of fun. Now we go headlong into festival season, which keeps us occupied pretty much until October. In between we are squeezing in some more recording as we are planning some new music later in the year; more info about that when we have it.
That then leads us onto our next European tour, which starts in October through to pretty much the end of the year. Then I guess we better start recording the next record! We like to keep busy; time to think is not the best thing for us so keeping us occupied is key!
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