Gallows

After laying waste to stages across their native England, “Gallows” (that’s Gallows, not THE Gallows) are set to show Australian audiences what they’re capable of on this year’s Taste Of Chaos tour.

Bass player Stuart was able to spare a few minutes during the chaos (pun intended) of the US Warped Tour.

Killyourstereo 

Interview with Stuart (bass) of Gallows (UK).

By Cameron Chambers.

How are you this evening man? 

Good thanks Cameron, how are you? 

Bit early over here, but good nonetheless. Where are you calling from? 

Detroit. We’re out here on the Warped Tour. 

And how’d your set go down today? 

It was really cool. We were first on so we haven’t had much to do for the rest of the day but it was really good – probably our best set so far. There were heaps of kids there early because I think they were expecting “Bayside” to go on but we had a circle pit open up and yeah, it was great! 

A lot of bands say the Warped Tour is pretty brutal – are you looking forward to spending 2 months playing in the scorching heat? 

Well, it was quite hard for the first couple of weeks we were here but we’ve gotten used to it. It’s been pretty brutal here and there. Today is actually the last show in a 12 day run which was harsh – it’s easily the longest touring run we’d done so far – but we get a break shortly which we’re looking forward to. 

Are there any bands on the tour this year that you’re going to be checking out on a regular basis? 

There are a lot of good bands on this tour. I’ll definitely be seeing “New found Glory” a lot. “Funeral For A Friend” as well – they’re friends of ours from back home.   

In the last couple of months I’ve spoken to everyone from “Tiger Army” to “Bad Religion” to “Alexisonfire”, and every single one of them has said how blown away they are by “Gallows” – anything you’d like to say to that? 

Really? I’m very surprised to hear that but that’s so nice of them to say. That’s so cool. They’re all really nice guys and really great bands but I’m just so surprised and grateful for them to say that. 

Tell us how the band started man – was it just a bunch of friends jamming or did you take a look around and think, “fuck it, I’m sick of what I’m hearing at the moment, let’s do something about it”? 

Frank actually wanted to start a party band – you know, something like “Head Automatica” – because he was getting bored of a lot of the live music at the time.  

The other members of “Gallows” (at the time) had their bands break up so Frank asked them to start jamming. Then Lee and I got involved and we starting practicing a lot more than the other guys and it kind of changed from this planned party band to a heavy, darker style of band. It’s still definitely something you can have a laugh with though. 

You guys put your initial demo out in 2005, is hard to believe that 2 years later you’re touring the world and playing one of the biggest festivals the US has to offer? 

It’s very hard to believe. The thing is, we’ve done bands since we were little. We’ve played the underground circuit and we know how hard it is to make real progress. We are still so surprised at what we’ve achieved in such a short period of time. 

Was your contract with Epitaph a full deal or a licensing agreement to get your existing record out to a world wide audience? 

It was something we really wanted to do as a band. We respect Epitaph so much and love so many bands of the bands on their roster. At the time we were getting a lot of label interest and Epitaph felt as strongly about us as we did of them. Brett was a big fan of ours and we are all huge fans of his, so it worked out well. 

Given that your debut Epitaph release was a re-issue of “Orchestra Of Wolves”, how long will it be until we see a new record from you guys? 

God knows. We have so much touring ahead of us this year. We want to tour on this record as long as possible because we’re really proud of it. At this point, I’d say you’ll be seeing a new record in late 2008, maybe early 2009.

If the rumours are true, you’ve got a fairly huge budget to work with thanks to the people at Warner Brothers – will you be shopping for a particular producer? Is there anywhere specifically that’d you like to record? 

It’s definitely nice to have the freedom that a bigger budget is going to afford us. We’ve been signed to Warner Brothers for a few months now and we’re still touring the UK in our crappy van. We don’t stay in hotels that are any better than a travel lodge. 

We’d rather have the money in our pockets. Our first album was recorded for peanuts so we’d rather do another record as cheap as we can, still achieve a good sounding album and then pocket the change. We still like to be able to buy a few things here and there. 

What are you hoping to achieve sound wise on your next record? 

Just something that’ll gain us a similar response to the last album. That would make us all happy.  

For the next record we’ll be able to spend a lot more time on it. There were so many outside pressures while we were recording our last album so it’ll be good just to focus on the record itself. 

What’s been your favourite Gallows tour up until this point? 

Our recent tour with our friends in The Scare, who are an Australian band. That’s definitely been my favourite so far. We also did another tour around the UK which was cool because we played a bunch of places we hadn’t been before, and to see how we were growing crowd wise was really exciting. 

Who’s the best live band that you’ve seen? 

Easily the Suicide File and JR Ewing - both bands were great. 

Who are some bands that you’d love to play with but haven’t had the chance yet? 

Crikey. A lot of bands I’d like to play with are already broken up. There’s a band called “Lakes” who are coming out of the UK – they’re fantastic! I’d love to tour with them! They’ve got their own thing going on and are really busy though, so it’s a bit hard at this point. 

As you mentioned earlier, you’re friends with “The Scare” – have they told you what to expect from your Australian tour later this year? 

Not really. They said it’s going to be a lot of fun and really hot and that there’s a lot of distance between each show. We’re not doing small shows though on this tour – it’s an arena tour, so I don’t think we’re going to really experience what touring Australia would be like normally. We’re just hoping that there are some people coming out to see us. 

I think it’s safe to say that you guys are definitely the hype band of the tour. 

Ha ha, what makes you say that? 

There are just a lot of people talking about you guys and our main punk/hardcore radio show gives “Gallows” a lot of play. 

Awesome! That’s really cool to hear. At least there’ll be a few people there to see us then. 

Coming down here as part of the Taste Of Chaos is a pretty great way to introduce yourselves to our country – who are some bands on the tour that you’re looking forward to checking out each night? 

I’ve never seen “Rise Against” live and I really like that band so I’m looking forward to watching them. We’ve played a few shows with “Aiden” in the past so we know those guys and will be watching them. We also know the “Escape The Fate” guys from Warped Tour so we’ll check them out as well. 

If you could put together your dream line-up, who would play and why? 

Can they be broken up? 

They can be broken up, dead, alive… whatever you’d like man. 

Ok, we’d have “Deadguy” opening the show. Then “Converge”. Then I’d have “Tears For Fears” come on and play a few songs. We’d follow up with “The Suicide File” and then “Gallows” can headline, ha ha. 

Which member of Gallows has the worst habits on the road? 

Me actually, ha ha. The rest of the band is looking at me knowingly. 

That’s it man, anything else you’d like to add? 

Thanks for the interview and hopefully we see you in a couple of months. 

Take care.

For more information on Gallows, head to: 

http://www.gallowsrocknroll.com