Carry The News

Despite a well-documented selfish streak (legend has it he once tried to fire bassist Andy Rourke by leaving a note on his windshield that read “Andy, you have left The Smiths”) English pop king Morrissey has a generous habit of taking young bands that catch his eye and spruiking them to the greater public. One such lucky act has been bleeding heart rockers All The Young. After seeing the four-piece at a London club show, Mozz has become an ardent supporter of the Stoke On Trent-based outfit, allowing them to break the shackles of their industrial home town and hit the road to support their debut album, Welcome Home.

“We were playing this gig in London, our first show ever in London and as we were walking on stage apparently some of the band saw Morrissey in the crowd,” explains lead singer Ryan Dooley, down the line from his kitchen in the industrial town in which the band grew up and still resides. “Our drummer was just playing with this big grin on his face the whole show. As we came off stage, one of the girls from our label came up to us and said 'Morrissey's here, I brought Morrissey along – he's come to watch your band, he's in your dressing room now.' So we wander in and he's just sat there in our dressing room with his minder sitting next to him. It was very, very surreal. He really enjoyed the show though. He even said it reminded him of an old Smiths gig. He offered us a spot opening for him at the Victoria Hall in Stoke On Trent – on the spot. He had this big gig planned there that we didn't even know about. So we played the gig with him and the rest is history I suppose.”

History is no doubt an important factor in a group like All The Young's story. Growing up in Stoke On Trent, about three hours north of London, the four lads (Dooley, his brother Jack on bass and their childhood friends guitarist Dave Cartwright and drummer Will Heany) were forced to adopt a sink or swim approach when it came to their future. Either lay down and accept your fate as a working-class Englishman or go all Billy Elliot on everyone, using your dour hometown as a springboard and inspiration to create something relevant, something that equals more than the sum of its parts.

“It's quite a big city is Stoke On Trent, but it's a bit of a forgotten city,” Dooley says through a thick-as-mud Northern accent. “It's got what I like to call an industrial hangover. All through the '60s, '70s and '80s it was very famous for its pottery making, Royal Doulton and Wedgewood and stuff like that. There were literally factories all over the place and there was a massive industry here. That's all gone now, a lot of it moved to China but a lot of it's just closed down so there's a lot of abandoned warehouses, decaying buildings and that kind of stuff. It's slowly getting back on its feet but at the moment it's a bit of a desert town.

“There wasn't really much to do, so that was kind of inspiring in itself. You had to go and get a shit job or play in a band really. It certainly felt like that anyway. We grew up together listening to bands like The Clash, The Manic Street Preachers, The Cure and The Smiths – these important bands. There isn't really many of them left now, especially when you look at what's going on in London and the like. We almost feel like the last gang in town in that sense. There aren't too many bands around at the moment that carry themselves like we do.”

All The Young will be playing the following shows:

Wednesday 29 August – The Loft, Warrnambool VIC
Thursday 30 August – Jive Bar, Adelaide SA
Friday 31 August – The Bended Elbow, Geelong VIC
Saturday 1 September – The Corner, Melbourne VIC
Wednesday 5 September – The Patch, Wollongong NSW
Thursday 6 September – Transit Bar, Canberra ACT
Friday 7 September – The Annandale, Sydney NSW
Saturday 8 September – Hotel Great Northern, Newcastle NSW
Thursday 13 September - Big Sound, Brisbane QLD
Friday 14 September – Miami Shark Bar, Gold Coast QLD
Saturday 15 September – The Northern, Byron Bay NSW