ROYAL BLOOD
PRIMAL DUO
N
o artist can accurately predict just how successful its upcoming album will be . Especially if you ’ ve thrown out the aesthetic rulebook , like Royal Blood anchors Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher who – three years ago – had grown so disgusted with the conventional quartet format they stripped everything down to a primal duo , with Thatcher on Brontosaurus drums and Kerr on squealing bass and feral vocals . In a post-Britpop era when rock and roll wasn ’ t selling , their sonic barrage of an eponymous bow for Warner Brothers not only caught on in their native Britain , its debut became the fastestselling one in three years and eventually won the Brighton duo a 2015 Brit Award for Best British Group , presented to them by Jimmy Page . Royal Blood also raked in two 2014 NME Awards , and scored trophies from Q Magazine and Kerrang , as well .
Thatcher says that he still has this sneaking suspicion that he ’ s gotten away with something . He was pulling pints at a local pub when his childhood chum Kerr -- a trained chef – returned from an Australian sabbatical in 2013 and suggested that they make music just to please themselves , not record companies . He tries not to examine Royal Blood ’ s unexpected stardom too closely . “ But if you really stop and think about it , we can ’ t believe how surreal our lives have gotten ,” he admits . “ But now it ’ s just our everyday kind of thing , and we ’ ve gotten used to it . And gotten used to the madness of being on the road . So I think in the end , we just laugh at how far we ’ ve gotten with this .”
The band ’ s list of accomplishments keeps growing longer . And stranger . The members have palled around with heroes like Tom Morello , and – on their first visit to San Francisco , opening for The Pixies – been picked up in their dressing room , post-gig , by Metallica ’ s Lars Ulrich for a personal midnight tour of town . “ Now we ’ ve met Lars quite a few times ,” Thatcher is proud to relate , “ And one time were at ( SF venue ) Slim ’ s , Lars was in the crowd and we got him to come up onstage and play with us – we had a bit of a jam with him .” Ditto for Led Zeppelin legend Page , who – a year ago last February – broke bread with Thatcher on his birthday at a London restaurant . “ It was a quiet little restaurant on a Wednesday afternoon , so nobody was really bothering us ,” he recalls . “ And at first , yes , you do think , ‘ Whoa ! Jimmy Page !’ But we ’ ve seen Jimmy quite a few times , and after a bit you realize that he ’ s just a regular dude who ’ s quite chilled out , and he likes listening to music so much he ’ s a music nerd , really . And he ’ s a fan of Royal Blood and we ’ re huge fans of his , so it ’ s nice to have a guy around to talk to that knows so much about rock music .”
Royal Blood got so caught up in its own whirlwind , it ’ s a wonder that its new sophomore set , How Did We Get So Dark ?, got made . The team toured so doggedly behind Royal Blood , logging over 236,380 miles over two and a half years , both Kerr and Thatcher wound up in the hospital . Twice . Thatcher still uncomfortably remembers his scheduled appearance on a daytime talk show for Italian TV . Kerr couldn ’ t make it – he was hospitalized at the time – and the percussionist himself was experiencing severe food poisoning . “ I was seated in between two lovely Italian ladies , trying not to let any fluids come out of any of my orifices ,” he shudders . “ We were just working our asses off , really . And doing that , you can get exhausted and get ill . And when you ’ re still working , you don ’ t actually have time to recover . We ’ re only human – we got ill , and ended up in places where we didn ’ t want to be for very long .”
One of Royal Blood ’ s last shows on that particular juggernaut was at Austin City Limits , in October of 2015 , where Kerr grew so frustrated he smashed his bass into ten shards . It felt like an ending , a finale . It was time to close the door on Album No . 1 and return to Brighton to consider Album No .
Continued on page 46
By Tom Lanham
20 illinoisentertainer . com august 2017