MEET: We speak to Gavin from Lonely The Brave about debut album The Days War, touring, festivals, and more

Lonely The Brave just released their debut album The Days War. Critics in both the rock world and in more mainstream terms have had nothing but good things to say about them. They are people who this time last year, all had everyday full time jobs, and now they are selling out dates on a co-headline tour. Then again, this is not a normal band we are talking about. From their introverted singer who is great divides away from the show-y frontmen we are used to, to the band’s aversion to performance related videos, Lonely The Brave are anything but your usual ‘run of the mill’ band. Drummer Gavin Edgely humbly talks through the first year and a half of his band’s career…

BM: So how has the reception for your album been?

Gavin: The reception has been really good, probably even better than we expected. When these tours get booked and you get told what you’re doing, it’s like ‘Ohhh my god what if no one turns up?’ But it’s been really good; this tour has been amazing, like every night except two I think have been sold out. You can’t really expect much more than that.

BM: What about the first week it came out as opposed to the long run?

Gavin: It’s been completely manic, we haven’t really had time to just sit back and think about what’s going on. We’ve been on the go for about a year and a half two years now, but yeah we were especially busy when the album came out, really manic.BM: So you had to push back your album release by a few months, why was this?

Gavin: We were asked what we thought about doing that, because we signed the deal with Columbia so late, we already had the album scheduled for release the first time. They came to us and said if you have another three months or something, then it can get a lot bigger push and stuff, and a lot of people had pre-ordered so we were like ‘Oh my god, what are people going to say’ and stuff, and worried about upsetting people, but most people were really good about it. And the people that did pre-order, we put on a free show for them in London, as a bit of a ‘sorry, have a freebie’. But it was just something that was put to us, and it was definitely the right decision, but it wasn’t an easy one to make.

BM: Do you think that the reception has been better now people have waited for it longer?

Gavin: Possibly yeah, that certainly wasn’t the plan on our part, but if that was an under-hand tactic from a major label, then bravo.BM: How was your summer? You did Download and things like that…

Gavin: Yeah, Reading and Leeds, Download, Glastonbury and loads of other ones like Y Not and 2000 Trees and that. Loads in Europe as well like Pukklepop and some others. It’s just a blur of festivals all year really.

BM: Glastonbury, that’s massive! How was that?

Gavin: Glastonbury was absolutely mental, I’ve never been and it’s so hard to get tickets so the only time I would probably ever get to go was if we played it as well. And on the John Peel stage, he’s a complete legend. Yeah, just absolute madness! Every time we get booked for a festival its madness.

BM: What about your first festival, how was it playing festivals back then?

Gavin: Nerve-wracking, I find them a lot more nerve-wracking than club shows. It’s always in the daylight and you get really high drum risers so everyone can see you, and I like to be hidden at the back most of the time. Couple of songs in though and it’s always really good. We’re a relatively new band to the festival scene, so I don’t really think we’re drawing in thousands of people. More just a bit of a curiosity to a lot of people; there were so many people that came out to Reading and Leeds and Glastonbury and that, it was really mind-blowing, people coming out and at that time we didn’t even have an album out, it was just the EP that had been doing the rounds for a year plus…BM: So when you first got together, what were the bands that made you want to play and your favourite albums by them, or even just one specific album that you really love?

Gavin: IN this band, we all have a mutual appreciation for certain bands, like Deftones, we all absolutely love them. We moved on to the National, as well. But as for people that gave us the push, they are definitely two bands that we love. We supported Deftones in Paris, yeah we actually got to meet them and stuff, and we played a show with them which was absolute madness. Had a bit of a fan-boy moment, stood at the side of the stage trying to be all cool while watching one of my favourite drummers sound check.

BM: You were all in bands before Lonely The Brave, what were they like?

Gavin: A little bit different I guess, when we started this band off we didn’t have an expectation of anything, like we wanna do this or we want to sound like this… So from everything with our previous bands, all of this was completely fresh. Everything that we recorded just came out of nowhere, I don’t really know how it happened. It was very much a clean slate for us just to sort of go and rehearse and write songs and see what happened.BM: So how have things been on this tour? I know the Marmozets live show is supposed to be one of the best…

Gavin: It’s been really good, we are definitely the elder statesmen on the tour; the uncle or the granddad of the tour! We can sometimes rage pretty hard when we want to… I don’t know if that’s the right word… rage? But yeah, it’s just amazing to be out with two bands, like I hadn’t heard a lot about Allusondrugs, but I absolutely love them, and Marmozets are definitely one of the best live bands around. So we’re trying to keep up… It’s been good fun though yeah, we’ve become good friends with them and it’s been good to get to know them. You could literally tour with bands and not speak to them. It’s just a good atmosphere. All the bands talk to each other and get along with each other.

BM: So your video for the song Victory Line, that’s pretty brutal. It’s amazing, but brutal. Is there a story behind it?

Gavin: No, we just basically, the person that made it just had the song and he said he had something to fit with it, and we watched it and we thought yeah it’s definitely brutal, it’s not exactly a happy ending. We did get a few complaints about it but nothing too harsh, but we think it has some good morals to it; don’t leave two pups to die… Otherwise you will die yourself!

BM: A lot of your videos seem to be like that though, very reflective with actors and characters rather than yourselves…

We always made the decision to never have performance related videos, the kind with a little story live and then it cuts to us playing live in a room. If it keeps people interested I think that’s the main thing, and it did cause a fair old reaction, so it’s done its job. I think all of the videos we’ve done for this album have been sort of real thinking videos, like with morals behind them and stuff like that. I think we’re relatively happy with them, which is half the battle most of the time, so yeah we’re really happy with everything we’ve put out so far. We’re not really keen on close up cameras to the face giving it all that, we’re not really that kind of band; we’d rather just not be in them. I think that’s the truth of the matter. We’re just pleased with our videos because they are different.

BM: What are some of your favourite tours you’ve ever done?

This is definitely up there, just for fun and liking all the bands, and everybody being really nice and stuff. We’ve toured with a Scottish band as well called Father Son, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. They’re a really great band we had a lot of fun on that tour. That was our headline run last year, but I’d say this is probably our favourite one so far. We’ve done a few though, not really had any complaints about any of them. Maybe it’s just that every one you do is your favourite, I don’t know. A bit like every new song you write is your favourite one. This one is definitely up there; it has been a lot of fun so far.

BM: Your album has received really good commercial success, but everyone receives negativity. Have you come across any about your band and how do you deal with it?

Yeah, you’re never going to be able to please everyone with what you’re doing with your music and stuff. One way to stop it is to not read YouTube comments, under any circumstances. When I do, and there is something nasty, I generally try and track them down. I find the IP address and if I can get that, then I can get the house address and then I’ll just leave someone else to deal with it… no that’s not true, just don’t read them! If you do see something bad, just ignore it and never reply. Sometimes you favourite them if someone has a go at you on Twitter or something. Just favourite them to show you’re aware of it. I mean, if you’re in a band and your name is everywhere, then you are putting yourself up there for people to criticise you. I don’t know if sometimes it comes out of jealousy or if people just don’t like it and it’s not their cuppa tea then fair enough, I mean there’s a lot of bands that I don’t like and that I’m not a fan of, but I certainly wouldn’t go online to slag them off, whether it be anonymously or not- that’s life. It has got to me before, but you just have to try and not worry about it. At least you’re putting yourself out there to be criticised.BM: What do you do when you’re not on tour then?

I like to go down the local pub, let’s be honest about this. Yeah eat lots of food, got a couple of cats as well so I like to spend time with those. Just anything that isn’t sort of physically music related because that’s like your relaxing time. Like getting drunk quite a lot…

BM: What about the downtime when you are on the road?

We don’t actually get many days off, because when you’re touring around England and stuff, when you do have a day off you usually just have the chance to drive straight home, especially because we live in Cambridge, which is sort of in the middle of everywhere. You don’t really get much chance to look around different cities either when you’re touring, because you get there at about three in the afternoon, you set up and have your sound-check and then you’ve got two hours until you have to play so it’s not much at all but if we do get a day off, we just relax basically. Sit in a hotel watching The Strain or something…

BM: So lastly, how easy is it to stay grounded when all of this is finally starting to work for you?

It’s relatively easy, because you know, I’ll speak for everyone- we don’t fell any different whatsoever, and it doesn’t even feel like we’re really perceived as any different. People stop you now and again to ask you about the band and things, but two years ago, or even a year ago, we were all working full time and stuff, so you know life doesn’t feel that different. It’s very different when you’re outside of the band and you look in, to what it actually is if you’re in it looking out. Nothing really feels any different and I don’t know why it should really.