Interview - Ben Thatcher, Royal Blood

‘A lot of people have boxed us into the rock and roll thing, but Mike and I came from a pop background; pop and funk. This new record shows some of the other influences that we like in music.”

“Mike was always a fan of having an instrument and making it sound like another instrument; in the first band I was in with him, he had a keytar that he made sound like a bass. Then he had a bass that he made to sound like a guitar, and now he’s got it sounding like some keyboard.”

We don’t hear much about the keytar nowadays, so to hear it played a formative part in one of the biggest bands in the world is a surprise, but it shouldn’t be: Royal Blood defy expectations.

A duo consisting of bass and drums shouldn’t work, and yet the evidence suggest that it palpably does. After two wildly successful albums, Royal Blood have broadened their palette to incorporate French disco and The Bee Gees as influences (among many others) for new album Typhoons.

When I caught up with drummer Ben Thatcher for the second part of our Royal Blood double-header, he explained how the duo used the last year to their advantage.

https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/04/royal-blood-interview-2/