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The Royston Club have spoken to NME<\/em> about their new album, \u2018Songs For The Spine\u2019, as well as their deep connection with fans, vulnerable songwriting, and advice they received from Travis<\/a>. Check out the full interview below.<\/p>\n Vocalist Tom Faithfull and guitarist and main songwriter Ben Matthias caught up with us around the release of their second record, which is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to \u2018Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars\u2019 \u2013 their 2023 debut LP, which saw them reach the UK top 20 chart and win over a dedicated legion of fans.<\/p>\n According to the band, \u2018Songs For The Spine\u2019 has seen them hone in on their sound more concisely than ever before, and let their guard down to introduce more emotive and honest songwriting.<\/p>\n Created alongside esteemed producer Rich Turvey (Blossoms<\/a>, Rachel Chinouriri<\/a>), the album maintains the same indie-rock sound that first put the band on the map, but has brought in more nuanced and raw elements, inspired by the poetry of Nick Cave<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot more live-sounding than the first album, because we wrote it in the practice room and then tried to recreate that live sound that we had,\u201d said Ben Matthias. \u201cRich Turvy really cultivated that by allowing us to make mistakes and get a lot of live takes.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIn the debut, we would do take after take to make sure everything was perfect. This time around, we embraced those mistakes and made it feel a lot more natural. In the first album, we had so many ideas, and we would just throw all of them into it\u2026 This time, though, we whittled down those ideas, and we knew what we wanted to make it sound like.\u201d<\/p>\n Faithfull told NME<\/em>: \u201cIt was quite nice having someone like Rich who\u2019d done so many albums before. When we were paranoid that things needed re-doing because something wasn\u2019t quite perfect, he\u2019d be like, \u2018Nah, it\u2019s cool as it is. You\u2019ll look back at it and be glad that you didn\u2019t overdub too much and re-record over and over again\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Check out the full interview with The Royston Club below, where they also tell NME<\/em> about how they have been finding their intimate album release shows more daunting than their upcoming slots on the Reading & Leeds<\/a> main stage, how their Wrexham roots shaped their journey, the advice they were given by Travis, and more.<\/p>\n NME<\/em>: Hi Ben and Tom. You\u2019re back with a new album after reaching the UK top 20 on the charts with your 2023 debut. What has it been like to work on the follow-up after seeing such a big response?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tom Faithfull<\/strong>: \u201cI think there was always going to be a bit of pressure, but not pressure from anyone else. The label is pretty sound, and it wasn\u2019t pressure chart-wise; it was more from us wanting to make sure we didn\u2019t fall into that second-album-syndrome thing that you hear so many bands going into. Luckily, when we heard the mixes back, we were really, really happy with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Matthias<\/strong>: \u201c[Seeing the response] did catch us off-guard, especially with the demographic. It wasn\u2019t a certain group of people, and it wasn\u2019t just a teen girl fanbase that was resonating with it. We\u2019d have middle-aged men and women coming up to us at gigs and saying how much it had affected them as well. It was really nice to see, and it had a big impact on us.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was those people who were in our minds while we were writing the second album. We wanted to write a good album for them\u2026 as corny as that sounds!\u201d<\/p>\n