The London-based Indie band, Palace (Leo Wyndham, Rupert Turner, Will Dorey and Matt Hodges), let me quiz them when in Leicester on the opening night of their UK tour.
Having been a fan of them for quite some time, I was excited to meet them in person. Catch the exclusive interview below.
TT: Palace! Guys, thank you so much for letting me chat with you. How are you?
L: Our pleasure. We’re good thanks!
TT: Good! You recently came back from your European tour. Did you have any favourite cities you played in?
W: We always like going to Berlin. For some reason, that always presents some fun experiences. There were some places we hadn’t been before, like Munich. Munich was awesome. Very beautiful, and a very fancy place.
R: Also, there was the weirdest stage we’d played on, almost like some multi-layer staircase.
L: We looked almost like some sixties band playing on different levels. That was really awesome. Milan and Bolognia were also awesome, we’d never played in Italy before. Barcelona as well and Madrid – all the places we hadn’t played before were all just amazing.
TT: How has 2017 been so far?
L: It’s been pretty busy, pretty full on promoting the album. Also just a load of writing for the second album, and a lot of time spent in the studio working on new material, just kind of working out the direction of the second album, I guess. We haven’t done a huge amount of gigs really. We did one charity gig, with the likes of Mumford & Sons and Michael Kiwanuka, called ‘Felix Productions‘ which was nice. It’s good to be back on the road, though, and nice to be touring again!
TT: What can you tell about your new single, ‘Bitter’?
L: It’s a re-work of an old song, one of our very first songs. It’s a song that people like to hear live, and I’d say it kind of sums up our sound in quite a good way. It’s a banger. It’s a big song!
TT: Do you have a favourite song from your debut album?
M: For me, it’d be the the title track, ‘So Long Forever’. It’s really fun to play live, lots of energy. It’s big, so that’s my favourite.
L: Me too, that’s probably my favourite, as well.
W: For me, personally, it would be ‘Live Well’-
M: Oh, good choice!
TT: That’s my favourite as well, I love that one.
R: Um for me, it would be ‘Live For- No, not ‘Live Forever’ sorry, *laughs*, again the title track ‘So Long Forever’ would be my favourite.
TT: Do you have a favourite song you love to play live, as well?
L: ‘So Long Forever’ again for me and Matt.
W: We don’t really play ‘Live Well’ that very often, live, so I can’t really say that one. Let me get back to you…
R: It’s a new song for me, which I think is f*cking banging-
L: It’s quite sexy and heavy. Chunky-
R: Sexy and sludgy *laughs* Those are two words, I would have never put together.
L: That’s the name of our new album *laughs*
TT: Sexy and sludgy, I like it!
L: Playing any new song is very fun. All the new ones are really fun to test the water with.
TT: Is there any highlights so far for you from being in the band?
M: We had a really good festival experience, I think it was two summers ago? It was in France, called Musilac. It’s on the edge of a lake, and it was really hot and sunny, the food was great. We shared a stage with Alt-J, Paolo Nutini and The Chemical Brothers *laughs* It was kinda weird.
W: For me, it was going up the Eiffel tower with Matt, last week.
TT: Romantic?
W: Very! We had a cheeky kiss at the top. We ran all the way up the stairs to the top.
L: Matt tried to throw Will off the edge, but security got to him just in time.
W: We did what we promised to do, though, which was to tie our pinkies together and throw pennies off the top. That was really awesome.
TT: Ok, if you could be stuck in a lift with anyone who would it be?
W: George Ezra. *laughs*
TT & Matt: George Ezra?! I was not expecting that.
L: That’s a good question. My choice would be Wolf from Gladiators.
R: Wolf from Gladiator? You’d just have wrestling matches. My choice would be Rick Waller from Pop Idol.
M; Me… Urm, it would be Suzy Denton from Countdown.
TT: And, finally, what’s next for Palace?
L: We’re currently building a rocket to put Will and fire into the centre of the Earth.
W: We’ve got a gig to do first, so after the gig.
TT: Sounds great *laughs*
M: After our tour, we’ve got big plans. It’s going to be a big summer of fesitvals, loads of festivals. We’re starting to write our second album, so we’re going to get back into the studio and crack on with that as well. We’re looking forward to getting out to some sexy European festivals too-
TT: Sexy and sludgy European Festivals-
R: Yeah, exactly! Hopefully, mostly sexy, but we wouldn’t mind either way.
TT: Awesome. Thanks very much for the interview!
L: No worries. Great to meet you!
Palace’s debut album So Long Forever (2016) is available on iTunes and Spotify.
Dates for the rest of their UK tour are as follows:
10 April Ruby Lounge, Manchester, GB
11 April Buyers Club, Liverpool, GB
13 April Voodoo, Belfast, GB
18 April O2 Institute3 Birmingham, Birmingham, GB
21 April The Bullingdon, Oxford , GB
27 April O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London, GB
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