EXCLUSIVE: The Royston Club frontman Tom Faithful has opened up about the band’s second album, Songs For The Spine, and how important grassroots venues are for emerging artists
The Royston Club star Tom Faithful has labelled the closures of grassroots venues as “depressing”. In recent years, venues such as Sound Control in Manchester, The Rocking Chair in Sheffield, and, most recently, Sheffield’s The Leadmill have been closed down – sparking outrage.
Many musicians and performers have hit out at the closures of venues, which have been vital when it comes to launching huge bands, including the Arctic Monkeys, who were no strangers to The Leadmill stage. But Tom Faithful, frontman of The Royston Club, has revealed that the band, consisting of himself, guitarist and songwriter Ben Matthias, bassist Dave Tute and drummer Sam Jones, spent the early days of their career performing at smaller venues.
He told the Mirror: “It’s such a cliché for all bands to say, but we spent the first literally two or three years never playing to like more than a hundred people max. The first shows are like 40 people, maybe 50, and it would drop down a bit. So all those venues, especially ones in Wrexham that put us on when we didn’t bring more than five people, they’re massive.
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“They’re massive for all bands going forward, no matter what level you’re at. At some point, you will have played those types of venues, so now, they’re pivotal to everything going forward.” Speaking of the closure of The Leadmill, which closed its doors for the final time in June, Tom commented: “It’s depressing. Especially when you play those venues, you look backstage and they normally have names on the wall of people who’ve been there, you’re associating with tiny bands coming up, but everyone started somewhere.
“Even at The Leadmill, there’s always Alex Turner dotted everywhere. It’s really depressing that it comes down to that.” Today, the Indie-rock quartet return with their second album, Songs For The Spine, which they had been sitting on for some time, but created the album as a labour of love.
“Obviously, when you’ve written the tunes so long ago and you’ve sat on it for a little bit and recorded it, the back end of the year, it’s been a while coming,” he said, adding: “No one releases stuff immediately. Really looking forward it.” Although some artists wait years to release material, Tom revealed that the first song they recorded for the record was written at the back end of 2023.
“It hasn’t been stupidly long, but I think it’s more excitement than anxiety,” he said of waiting for the release. He continued: “Just because we’ve been playing some of the songs live for a little bit, putting them online is something we’ve been looking forward to.”
Although the four lads who started the band in 2019 take inspiration from the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, they’re not shying away from sharing their true feelings on the album. “It can be a real cliché that four lads who have sort of always played indie music, it’s kind of pubs, nightclubs and girls.
“It’s really important for us to write about things that actually matter to us and write about the things that we actually think instead of your classic kicked out of clubs and fighting bouncers, which doesn’t really relate to any of us.” One of the standout tracks, Cariad, featuring raw emotions written by Ben shortly after a breakup, shows a completely different side to the indie genre.
Tom said: “There’s been quite a lot of people messaging saying how relatable they found that one. That’s always the goal to have stuff that people really feel they can tap into.” Featuring Ben’s feelings about still being in love with his ex, the song documents how messy love, sex, memory and self-worth can be to an individual.
“He’s really good at putting down on paper his deepest feelings,” Tom said while praising his bandmate. He continued: “It’s a really heartfelt song and we all knew him when he was going through all of that, I think he wrote it beautifully and it comes across really well.”
Despite being on just their second album, the band has almost sold out their upcoming tour in October and November, which will see them perform in cities such as Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, London, Sheffield and Paris. Their current run of their intimate album release events have already sold out.
“It’s been mad seeing the demand for it,” Tom said. He added: “We’ve played tonnes of venues and done every single level up to the level we are at now, it’s never been a meteoric rise, so it’s crazy to see that we’ve doubled or tripled our last tour’s tickets. We feel very lucky to have that many people caring about us.
“It’s been really special seeing that many tickets go. That’s kind of the one thing we really can’t wait for – to get on those stages, it’s going to be amazing.” One performance, this summer, saw them take to The Leadmill Stage at Tramlines Festival, joining the likes of The Clause.
“It was really mad,” Tom joked, adding that the band had played similar tents numerous times, but they instantly knew it was going to be a “mad one”. The demand to see The Royston Club at Tramlines saw festival-goers spilling out of the packed tent, which Tom described as “amazing”. “We came off just absolutely bouncing, we had a great time,” he commented.
However, he admits that there is one stage that they will find “nerve-racking”. Later this month, the lads will play the main stage at Reading and Leeds Festivals, performing to approximately 75,000 each day. “That one’s going to be nerve-racking,” he revealed, before adding: “It’s the thing where you start bands, those are the goals you set yourself.
“To be able to say we’ll have done that, hopefully nailed it while we’re up there. It’s going to be amazing. It’s one of our summers that we’ve all got our eyes on, to be honest. It’s going to be amazing, if not a little bit daunting.”
Songs For The Spine is available on every major streaming platform, with physical CDs available on theroystonclub.com.
