Three-piece rockers The Rills have announced debut album Don’t Be A Stranger, out in November. Along with the announcement came lead single ‘Your Dad’s Car’, a tenderly bittersweet song inspired by the band’s first tour van that vocalist Mitch Spencer bought off an ex-partner’s father. Now, it has been followed up by ‘Angel In The Snow’, which shows their striking virtuosity in full force. The band chatted to us about how Formula One influenced the album, small-town living, and their goals to break America.
How has 2024 been so far for you?
Every year is a blessing, but this one’s particularly special. We’re all buzzing to get the album out and everyone’s moving in the same direction! We got to film some amazing music videos with Ace Bowerman, who is an unbelievably inspiring person to be around, and we’ve pulled a brilliant team together with Serena at AWAL, Katie at Yes Please, Charlie on radio, and our booking agent Zac!
What has the process of putting an album together been like, in comparison to releasing standalone singles and EPs? And what was it like working with Dave McCracken on the project?
The approach was completely different to anything we’ve done before and that was mostly down to Dave’s patience. I spent a lot of time with him in a tiny studio just trying songs and getting a feel for what kind of record we wanted to make – we threw away a lot. In the end I wrote 133 songs for it. When you approach it like that only the best songs survive – in the past I’d write maybe 20 songs and five would make it.
In the studio with the band it was different, too. We recorded the album in two sessions – the first all the way back in February 2023. There was a lot more time to experiment with this. We knew we were making a record when Dave accidentally played this very digital sounding sample over a break in the song ‘Mistake’ – it was totally different to anywhere we’d been before. We all kind of looked at each other like “what the fuck was that? Let’s do more of that.”
How would you describe the project in your own words?
It feels like a romance story between two rival F1 drivers. That wasn’t the intention when writing it, but there’s all this romantic energy in the lyrics and an inescapable amount of driving references. I think it was all the touring we did in the years leading up to this record, I did the majority of the driving and it’s found its way into the fabric of the record.
Can you expand on the influence Formula has had on your creative output here!
The influence grew gradually. There were all these driving references in the lyrics, they informed the sonics in ways we didn’t expect. We started to notice how much the beat in ‘Drive’ motors, how the guitar in ‘Angel In The Snow’ whispers a note until it roars through the speakers, similar to the old Fleetwood Mac F1 theme ‘The Chain’. There were all these symmetries revving – creating a visual world with the artwork, videos and press shots put them into gear.
Quite simply the inspiration came from a photo of Niki Lauda and the burn mask under his helmet looking into the photographer’s lens. The whole Formula One thing is a deep memory from my childhood, being at my nan and grandad’s with the Grand Prix on and having a Sunday roast. There are some really nice nostalgic memories that developed into character centres around this lost driver looking for another version of himself, or for a lover, whichever it is he’s lost something that he’s sort of looking for.
The first song you released from the album, ‘I Don’t Wanna Be’, is a defiantly brazen anthem, inspired by outgrowing the limited mentality of small-town living. How did that track come about and what made you decide to release it first?
It just felt like a bit of a statement, a “fuck you” sort of song like we used to write in the early days. Growing up in those towns never really leaves you, you always have this underdog feeling about whatever you make or do and I feel like the song set the scene for what we’re about and what we’re doing now.
Speaking of small-town living, Callum and Mitch, you met as young teens. What is it like being in a band with someone you have known for that long, and how has your relationship evolved over time?
Quite honestly I don’t think we even really noticed each other when we first met skating in Lincoln. But we’ve all been in this band for quite a while now and we’ve developed this sort of beyond-friendship, beyond-brotherhood sort of thing, where there’s an unspoken language between each other.
The second single from the album, ‘Your Dad’s Car’, also harks to the past, telling the tale of your first tour van. What is it like to write such a vulnerable song about such close memories of yours, from a retrospective perspective?
Yeah, it’s certainly got a foot in the past, but sonically it feels very new to us. It’s not something we’ve typically done, a ballad, I guess? I was just listening to my intuition while writing these songs. When you do that you have to be brave because all these very real feelings come up that you would usually be afraid to share. They’re like strangers standing in the street at night under the lamplight, fucking scary at first, but as they come closer you realise they’re just old friends you’d forgotten about. Like how ghosts have unfinished business, a lot of these songs needed to be written for the feelings to finally go away.
Like many musicians, you turned to TikTok, and this approach might not work for all, but for you it did, resulting in millions of likes and thousands of streams. What was that like, as a young band?
It was unbelievable. Genuinely it was the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me. Our final gig before lockdown had five people in the room, I think the other band made up four and the sound tech was the fifth. That’s where we were coming from when we started the videos. There was one I filmed covered in paint from a day of decorating a bungalow (it feels like my whole life has been spent on building sites) and by the time I was home for tea it had blown up. The next day, we put a story up on Instagram asking people where they were from. We had fans in Australia, South Africa, Denmark, etc. I chucked the paintbrush and spent the whole summer smashing videos out, growing the band as much as possible. For the first time ever, it felt like we had a chance in this industry, like we were wanted after all.
What was the experience of crafting a live show like, knowing you had an audience who had expectations? How did you translate your personas to the stage?
I think the expansion of our recorded sound really got my brain ticking. I didn’t want to lose the layers that makes our songs stand out sonically, I wanted to have them at the live shows too. It snowballed from there and I fell down a rabbit hole of wanting to bring a show fit for main stage Glastonbury to whatever room we play. I want our fans to know that when they come to a rills show, they’re getting something so much more than a band playing songs in a room, it’s light years ahead.
I’ve rearranged songs, built transitions that open up the lore of the album, and tinkered with every part to give a different lens to our audience. They’re getting a different story from the record, live. When we’re on stage now, whatever preconceptions you have of the bands personalities, expect them X100. We’re dying on that stage for you every night we play, we take no energy home with us. We know the show will stay with you when the lights go out.
You’ve admitted you want to sell loads of records and break America, which is a bold yet admirable thing to hear a band openly admit to.
It’s never been cool to admit you want to be this big band selling out. It’s even got its own catchphrase! Like, we care about that. All we do is work, work, work on the Rills. No one drags their feet, we have a small team. Every aspect gets covered by us and we’ve all learnt new skills to get this right at this stage in the band’s career. I hope it inspires others to work harder too! It’s not just about playing the instruments anymore, you’ve got to think beyond that. I don’t think it makes us unique, it’s a pretty punk ethos, we’re DIY, but to the highest degree.
How are you feeling ahead of this tour, and how are you planning to bring the album to life in front of a live audience?
We’ve been getting this live set right over 2024 for this reason. Once the album’s out, we’re ready for it. Personally I’m incredibly proud of the live show and cannot wait for fans of our music to be proud. I want them to say “My band’s better live than your band!” At the live show, you will find a deeper dive into the emotions and tales laced within the album, love, loss, that on top of the world feeling, the story will suck you in.
2024 feels like it could be somewhat of a breakthrough year for you. How does it feel from the inside, being part of the band?
I think we’ve always been very internally focused and tried to ignore any hype, but right now it feels great. It’s an exciting time, you only release your first album once and we’ve had to work so hard to get to this point. It’s funny to think back to when we were writing and recording that Don’t Be A Stranger would give me the feeling of anything’s possible, the same feeling my favourite albums give me. We cannot wait to share our best kept secret with everyone and celebrate this achievement together.
Seeing the band grow over the seven years we’ve been together, the trials and tribulations we’ve gone through, to get here now with an album wall to wall with the best music coming out of Britain makes me so proud of the young versions of us. They get to see this for themselves. We’re about to live that first album dream! Start your engines.
Finally, to round things off, if you could pick just one thing, what are you most looking forward to about the rest of this year?
Actually having the physical album in my hands and sharing that moment with friends and family. We have a show coming up in November on release week, a special homecoming one that I feel like will be the culmination of years of hard work. That’s what it’s all been about, making great art that touches people and sharing the moment with them.
Don’t Be A Stranger will be released on 1 November 2024 via AWAL & Nice Swan Recordings. ‘Your Dad’s Car’ and ‘Angel in the Snow’ are out now.
Photo credit: Charlie Barclay-Harris |
