Monday 9 April 2018

The RPMs - Interview


The RPMs from Brighton are one of the most promising young bands in the country. We caught up with them as they prepare to head to Manchester for the fourth When In Manchester Festival on Saturday.

Hi guys, could you introduce The RPMs and tell us a little of how you got together?

The RPMs consist of Jack Valero on lead vocals, Callum James on drums, Chris Bowden on keys, Miguel Cosme on bass guitar and bv’s and Ollie Summers on lead guitar.

We all came together when Me (Jack) and Callum moved to Brighton where we met Miguel who joined the band as a trio. We then later incorporated Ollie when we wanted to expand the band and soon after we asked Chris to join when he was acting as our tour manager at the time and we just happened to see a video of him playing piano really well while we were at last years Glastonbury and asked him to join there and then.

There's a musical reference in the name of your band (we're guessing), who came up with the idea?

You guessed right. That was me and Callum when we were in Dorset where we’re originally from before we moved to Brighton. It’s so hard to come up with a band name cos everything seems really stupid at first, but this made sense to us cos it was referencing our love of vinyl at the time. Was also much better than our original band name Jack and the Rockets haha!

Do you write songs together as a band or does one or more of you bring ideas to the others?

It’s always a very collaborative process, one of us will bring in a new idea or something will just happen when we’re jamming in a rehearsal and whichever one feels really exciting we’ll start working on.

It’s much better working this way as you just get so much more out of every song and can be much more inspiring writing wise.



You recently released a single Your Ghost. Could you tell us a little about what that's about?

This song is simply about being haunted by the memory of someone and trying to escape it. Like a past lover or just someone you want to forget, but their image still follows you around like a ghost. Aaaah see what I did there ;) 

Prior to that you'd released a couple of EPs. Are there plans for an RPMs album somewhere down the line?

Well I think having an album at some point is in every bands plans so yes, but in this new streaming music world albums don’t quite have the same stature as they used too especially for young bands. We definitely have the material to put one together, but we’re focusing on putting some great singles out for now and then we can do an album.

This weekend you're playing When In Manchester.  Are you looking forward to performing at a festival that's had some pretty impressive line-ups over the past few years?

Oh of course! We’ve played in Manchester a few times and the audiences have always been so brilliant and up for it, but it’s really fantastic to now be coming up in this capacity and to be placed along side so many other great bands as well.



Speaking of urban festivals, you've just got back from the biggest of the lot at SXSW.  How was that experience?

We’ll sum up the experience in three words from a popular American tv show: ‘OH’ ‘MY’ ‘GAWD!’

It was brilliant and crazy and brilliantly crazy! We met so many amazing and interesting people, ate so much as well as loads of sick bands and to top it off we smashed our shows at the British Music Embassy and Xtra Mile stages and all in 36 degree heat. Wish we were still there to be honest.

What do you have planned for the remainder of 2018?

Well we have a lot of summer festivals lined up as well as more tunes to hopefully get on your favourite playlists!

If you had to describe The RPMs to a complete stranger, how would you start?

We’d probably tell them if you like a band that doesn’t just play their songs, but really performs them and puts on a great show with a huge sound that blows your hair back then you’ll love this

The RPMs play When In Manchester (April 14), London Old Blue Last (26), Live At Leeds (May 5), Liverpool Sound City (6), London Roundhouse Frank Turner Lost Evenings Festival (14), Brighton Alternative Escape Shotts Bar (19), Bearded Theory Festival (27), Edenbridge Lee Fest BBC Introducing Stage (August 4) and Cornwall Boardmasters Festival (12).

The RPMs are on Facebook and Twitter.

Tickets for When In Manchester can be purchased here.
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