At the start of lockdown, 4 piece UK rock band The Struts, consisting of vocalist Luke Spiller, guitarist Adam Slack, bassist Jed Elliot and drummer Gethin Davies decamped across the pond to California. In ten days of frenzied creativity where “it felt like the songs were literally just falling from the sky”, they had laid down their third album ’Strange Days’, which went on to feature a whole host of collaborations from the likes of Robbie Williams, Albert Hammond Jnr, Tom Morello and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen. Now two years on they are touring Europe and the UK before heading back to their adopted home in the US. We caught up with Adam, Jed and Gethin before their Birmingham show to talk about the joy of home comforts, being influenced by The Corrs and setting up a dream deli shop.
How’s the tour going so far?
Jed – We have just started the UK run of the tour with Nottingham Rock City last night. We were in Norway, Amsterdam and Madrid before that. Birmingham has a lot to live up to tonight.
Gethin – I saw a tweet that said it was louder than a jet engine taking off last night, it was 119 decibels and 100 degrees. It was great.
Adam – I’m from Derby so it was kind of a homecoming gig for me. My family and friends were there so it was nice.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
Gethin – It’s nice to listen to Radio 2 now we are back in the UK. We were a bit late today for PopMaster.
Jed – We live in California now so we don’t listen to any English radio. When we are back in the UK we’ll stock up on Greggs pasties and listening to Radio 2. We make a good pub quiz team across the board. Between the four of us we have pretty eclectic tastes.
Any eventful stories from the tour so far?
Adam – Norway got pretty much rained off. We went on stage at 1am and we were due on at 12. There was a lot of rain and the power went out a few of times.
Jed – We had three days between the gigs in The Netherlands and Norway so a couple of us stayed in Norway and took some boats out on the fjords. That was a lot of fun. That’s one of the best things about touring. Touring is a long slog but if you happen to be somewhere as cool as Norway in the summer with a couple of days off it’s amazing. We made the most of it!
You are touring your third album Strange Days. You must be really happy with it as a complete piece of work?
Gethin – For that album we went into the session thinking we were going to come out with three or four songs. It was in ten days we wrote ten tracks and a cover. It was like lightning in a bottle. It was really special. We all really enjoyed the creative process. That was two years ago.
Jed – April 2020 when we recorded it, the start of lockdown. We all moved in together. It’s funny to think that we are technically touring that album now, as we are in the throes of recording a new record. This is more a tour for us less the ‘Strange Days’ record, to reconnect with our English audience because we haven’t been able to come home in two years and to get people excited about new music which is coming very soon.
The latest release from the album ‘Low Key In love’ features Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris. How did that come about?
Jed – She saw us play with Motley Crue in 2015 and she’s a fan. We finally managed to connect and hang out so when we had the track we were like let’s just ask our mate Paris if she fancies it and she did.
There are a lot of collaborations on the album. Albert Hammond Jnr, Tom Morello, Def Leppard. Who would you like to work with next?
Jed – I think we may have exhausted the collaborations.
Gethin – That album was great because everyone was available and everyone wanted to do stuff due to lockdown. It was nice to get everyone who we had met on the road over the past five years to come and join us on a track.
Adam – We had Kesha before that on the last record too so it’s about time that we did a song that was just The Struts sound. We loved doing the collaborations but it’s time to get back to that. Maybe in the future though.
If you could pick any legendary band or artist to collaborate with who would it be?
Adam – Arctic Monkeys or Alex Turner
Jed – Someone who would be the other end of the scale from our music. Something with Daft Punk would be sick. Someone like that, a bit out of the box.
Adam – I was in their fan club when I was thirteen. I had a card and everything.
You have supported some big heavyweights on tour: The Rolling Stones, Guns ’n Roses, The Who, Foo Fighters. Who else would you open for if you got the call?
Gethin – AC/DC would be phenomenal
Jed – Or Paul McCartney.
Adam – I think Oasis if they got back together
Have you got any guilty pleasures, bands that go against the rock and roll image?
Gethin – We’re loving the ABBA revival right now.
Jed – The band that got me into music when I was ten was The Corrs. My parents had the CD (‘Talk On Corners’). That was my intro into harmonies. That led me on to my Dad introducing me to Van Morrison and The Chieftains and Irish folk.
Adam – I’ve been getting into Country music. Not your beer and drugs stuff. There’s a band called Midland that I really like. Our Tour manager is from Nashville and he is really into it. Appreciating the song writing and the musicianship is awesome.
Have you got any hobbies or interests that you pursue when you are not on the road?
Jed – There was nothing to do during the pandemic in LA so me and Gethin got into surfing and making the most of being outdoors in the sunshine. I’ve got some other endeavours that are coming out soon that are in the health and wellness space surrounding music, so that’s taken quite a lot of my time. Mainly the focus has been on getting new music.
So what’s the new music like? Is it more of the same or a different sound?
Adam – We’ve been on a bit of a journey, experimenting and we have fallen into a little place where it is different to the stuff we were doing before, but I think you have to evolve. You can’t keep trying to write the same songs. It’s a bit darker, but I think we have found the avenue to go down now. We have got a song coming out in the next couple of months and hopefully have a record out by the end of the year or early next year at least. The song is called ‘Falling’. We are playing it tomorrow.
Jed – We don’t know when it is getting released, but we are going to throw it into the live sets to see how it goes down.
Adam – I always think of when the Arctic Monkeys released ‘AM’ and it was such a different sound to what they had done before and it was their biggest record. Front to back that album is amazing. I think it is one of the best albums in the last twenty years for sure.
If you weren’t a musician what would you be?
Adam – When I was a kid I used to draw cartoons and I thought I was going to be a comic book or cartoon illustrator because I loved drawing. Recently I’ve got back into painting again.
Jed – I think mine would be in some form of architecture or design but that’s because as a kid I loved playing The Sims and I didn’t prepare for anything else beyond 14.
Gethin – I used to go to the deli at the supermarket when I was younger and see them pack the little boxes with ham and put the foil on. I always wanted to do that and slice the ham. I would have a great deli shop!
What’s your favourite fruit?
Adam – Banana ‘cos I like the taste
Gethin – I’ll pick a nice plum
Jed – Red grape. Grape for wine
Gethin – Fun fact. The flavour of foam banana sweets is based on an old variety of banana that went extinct 60 years ago.