Tribes frontman Johnny Lloyd has returned with Band of Revelations, a new project which sees the singer lean into a love of folk and classic songwriting. You can listen to the first taste of the project ‘All the Way Home’, exclusively on Rolling Stone UK.
Lloyd’s latest offering is poles apart from the Camden garage rock of Tribes and instead leans into woozy guitars and Motown-flecked piano as he dissects the end of his long-term relationship, which took place last year.
“All roads have led to Band Of Revelations,” said Lloyd.
“These songs are probably the truest to what I’d grown up on and they arrived at a time when I’d become a better songwriter and musician and part of that was going back to stuff I’d listened to when I was a kid like Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Lynrd Skynyrd, The Band. I’ve become a huge Levon Helm fan too.”
Recorded at London’s HOXA Studios, the project saw Lloyd joined in the studio by a cast of friends and fellow musicians. Mystery Jets drummer Kapil Trivedi is on the drums for this debut track, while future releases will see Mystery Jets frontman Blaine Harrison and singer Jennifer Ball, known as Girl from the Year Above – whose recent cover of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ received a glowing endorsement from the band themselves.
“I got in the studio and it different because there was no sense that I was doing this for an audience and there was no sense that these would even see the light of day in terms of family and friends,” said Lloyd. “It was a tight knit thing, but the songs started arriving and and as soon as the band got involved I realised this was the music I wanted to make when I was in my late teens.”
He added: “When I arrived in London, it was The Libertines and it was The Strokes and it wasn’t cool to play in this slightly looser way. But I was that kid at school who was obsessed with blues, you know, and I kept that hidden for a long time.”
Describing the meaning behind the song, Lloyd explained: “The lyrics are pulling at my own pain, but I felt that grief is the thing that binds everybody together. Everybody loses the people they love. Everybody loses versions of themselves or whatever and it’s just a constant. That’s the idea of the record. Everybody experiences loss, but it binds us together.”
Now, with a record deal under his belt too, Lloyd is excited to embrace a new chapter.
“I made a deal with myself when I was a kid that whatever was going to happen I’d remain a musician, and I’ve done that, and I’ve done that in ways that I couldn’t have foreseen like working in TV and doing film. That stuff’s been cool, but I miss things like touring, the excitement of it and that idea of going into the unknown. I want to make some really, really great records and use everything I’ve learned to this point to do that, and it’s an amazing thing to have another throw of the dice. I feel really, really pleased about it and I’m really looking forward to it.”
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