Gustav Wood of Young Guns
by Cameron Edney
Guest Staff Writer
Gustav Wood Comes Out All Guns Blazing!
Australian music lovers will have their work cut out for them with an ever growing list of confirmed touring artists hitting our shores during September. One band that is gearing up for their first ever Australian tour is English alternative rockers Young Guns. With itchy trigger fingers, Playing alongside rock royalty such as Van Halen, Alice Cooper and Machine Head at this year’s Soundwave Revolution festival, Young Guns are dying to get down under to show the Aussies what the lads in the U.K. and Europe have been raving about. Releasing their debut E.P. Mirrors in 2009 and their first full-length album All Our Kings Are Dead one year later Young Guns popularity is growing rapidly.
‘All Our Kings Are Dead’ peaked at #3 on the UK Rock charts spawning five singles including ‘Sons of Apathy’, ‘Stitches’ and ‘Weight of the World’. The success surrounding the band’s debut album helped land them support slots with Lostprophets and the world’s biggest touring rock band Bon Jovi, not to mention rocking out at the largest Festivals to hit the U.K. and Europe in recent years. Performing blistering sets and the Download and Sonisphere festivals Young Guns also found themselves rocking out on the Main-stage at the 2010 Reading Festival performing alongside Guns n Roses, Queens of the Stone Age, A Day to Remember and NOFX.
With more than sixty bands confirmed for Australia’s Soundwave Revolution, rock music enthusiast will walk away talking about the excitement and energy that surrounds Young Gun’s live performances. I had the pleasure recently of catching up with the bands vocalist and main lyricists Gustav Wood to discuss the bands first Australian tour, most recent album and the vulnerability of writing honest material for the world to hear.
Kick back as this straight shooting Young Gun tells us exactly how it is!
Hardrock Haven: Hey Gus, thanks so much for taking to time out to chat with us today! Let’s kick off talking about the upcoming Soundwave Revolution tour. You guys must be over the moon to be a part of the festival and to finally perform in Australia?
Gustav Wood: First off, it’s my pleasure; thank you for asking me some questions. We’re all over the moon, it has to be said, and it’s certainly the coolest thing that we’ve been able to do as a band so far. It’s quite mad, it really hasn’t sunken in as of yet, we’re all still expecting something to go wrong. To be able to travel so far to play on such a great festival with so many cool bands is quite a phenomenal experience that tells me just how lucky we are at the moment.
Hardrock Haven: Young guns are no strangers to handling the big festivals having played Sonisphere and Download as well as a Main-stage slot at the Reading Festival. Are you a fan of doing the large festival shows or would do you find yourself gravitating to playing those smaller more intimate club shows, they both have their advantages I guess you can say?
Gustav Wood: That’s the thing… they have their own set of experiences. Fundamentally we’ve always said that if anything ever progressed with our band, and if we were playing the massive stages every day, we never want to lose the feeling of playing those small club shows! Its incredible playing a sweaty club show to a couple of hundred people, its futile, it’s in your face and I never ever want to lose that! They both have different things to offer but my heart is with small shows. If I’m being honest, I love the intimacy of people coming over the barrier and the vibe between the band and crowd, I think there is a little bit of magic in that!
Hardrock Haven: I couldn’t agree more… Soundwave Revolution is rapidly approaching and the bill for this festival is mind-blowing. Will you be putting much time aside to check out some of the other artists on the bill?
Gustav Wood: Oh man, we’re going to try and soak up every moment of it! We’re going to try and meet as many people as we can, people that may know about our band and even those who have never heard of us. It’s great cause we already know a lot of the bands on the bill and it will be great to reconnect with them. We’ve toured with All Time Low a few times and Yellowcard as well, and some others. We’re really excited to watch many of the bands that will be playing. We’re kinda bummed that Thrice pulled out but that’s alright; there’s tons of other great bands to watch!
Hardrock Haven: Gus, for the punters that are attending the Soundwave Revolution festivals who are considering checking out Young Guns live, how would you best describe the bands onstage presence?
Gustav Wood: We all grew up going to metal shows, hardcore shows, shows that were based around energy and atmosphere and we try to create that vital energy. In our short career we’ve played with Bon Jovi, we’ve played the small club shows, no matter what we do we try and create an atmosphere and try to make each show and experience. The goal with these shows and every show we play is to try and make it memorable. We want to create that vital feeling… live music, that’s what it’s all about!
Hardrock Haven: It’s funny that you mentioned Bon Jovi, because I did want to ask you about that experience! Bon Jovi are classed as one of the largest touring rock bands on earth, what is the most important lessons you learn when touring with someone like that?
Gustav Wood: Well, it has to be said… we only did one show with them, there wasn’t much time to learn many experiences but fundamentally it was really interesting to see how things operate on that level. What a machine it becomes, it was really an eye opener! Just the reality of it though, going from playing one of our shows, playing to a couple of hundred people and then you go and play with Bon Jovi to more than twenty thousand people, you can’t really ever get your head around that! Things like that have been really good for us, even though we haven’t been a band for that long, the confidence that you get from doing shows like that is amazing, it’s something that you never forget and it really makes you a better band. We’ve always had a level of commitment to playing live shows and I think that’s really helped us no matter what the stage size.
Hardrock Haven: Mate, getting away from touring; I wanted to talk you to briefly also about the other exciting side of the business, writing and recording. Congratulations on the continued success you’ve been having with the album ‘All Our Kings Are Dead’. The albums been out almost twelve months now, looking back is there anything you would have changed?
Gustav Wood: Yeah of course! It’s funny because we wrote an E.P. and no one knew who we were and it was received so well that we were snowballed, it was great. We got booked further and further down the line and we were going with it, not really thinking about it. People started asking us where the album was, and we’d been so busy hitting the road that we didn’t have an album ready. We wiped six weeks out of our calendar and spent that time day and night writing and we went straight into the studio and recorded the album. It was really rushed; we didn’t have a lot of time and money. I am really proud of the record and it’s defiantly done a lot for us but I know we can do better. Now the aim is learning from our mistakes and learning from things we wish we’d done differently, whether it is more time or more money. I think it’s a strong album but I know without a shadow of a doubt that we can do better!
Hardrock Haven: I had read an interview where you said that you only write from your experiences otherwise it would all be a bunch of “Fake” songs. Was there a point where you thought that with any of the songs that made the album that maybe you were a little too honest? Once it was out you thought… oh maybe I shouldn’t have said this or I should’ve played it from this angle?
Gustav Wood: Ironically I think the more personal you are the more universal your songs become, everybody goes through the same experiences, and the various things that were a part of me growing up seem to have really connected with people. It was a bit painful writing very personal things but at the same time, I meet people now that have my lyrics tattooed on them and tell me that the things I said really mean something to them and that’s pretty magical, I wouldn’t change that for anything. I’m glad I did it, probably the most personal song of them all is ‘Stitches’ and that’s the song I am most proud of. It’s a bit nerve-racking putting yourself out there but sometimes it’s worth it. I think certainly with the album I made a really specific decision to be as honest as I could and that was for a number of different reasons. I felt that if I made the songs as honest as I could lyrically then no matter what no one could say that we were trying to be anything then what we actually were and that rings true for me. It’s an odd experience being honest about things, it is quite a personal pursuit and I am definitely aware that I put some really personal things out there but people have connected. Certainly over here at home and through all of my experiences people have really connected with the lyrics that I managed to somehow write for that record and I think it’s because I was so honest, about different things I experienced growing up and different experiences that have helped shape me today!
Hardrock Haven: Have you started penning ideas or recording the follow up to ‘All our Kings Are Dead’?
Gustav Wood: Yeah, we’re in the mix of writing album number two right now. We have about three weeks more of writing and then we fly out to Thailand on July 10 to begin recording the second album, it’s all hands on deck at the moment!
Hardrock Haven: Well Gus, that being said, I won’t take up anymore of your time! Thanks again for the chat tonight; we hope you have a fantastic time when you get to Australia in September. Do you have any last words for our readers?
Gustav Wood: I’d like to say anybody out there that knows who we are or that listens to our music, thank you. It’s quite a trip to know that on the other side of the world there are people that give a shit about this stupid little band. We’re very humbled by the whole experience so thank you, and also thank you to you man for asking us some questions, it’s really cool of you to do that!
Young Guns Are Touring Australia In Sept/Oct As Part Of The Soundwave Revolution Festival!
Don’t miss them playing the following dates:
Saturday 24 Brisbane, RNA Showgrounds
Sunday 25 Sydney, Old Kings Oval, Parramatta Park
Friday 30 Melbourne, Tabcorp Park, Melton
Saturday 1 Adelaide, Showgrounds
Monday 3 Perth, Arena, Joondalup
Tix On Sale Now From The Usual Outlets.
Keep Up With All The Latest Young Guns News And Soundwave Revolution Updates At The Following Websites:
Disciples of Metal Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/DisciplesofMetal
Young Guns Official Website: http://www.myspace.com/youngguns
Soundwave Revolution Official Website: http://soundwaverevolution.com