ONE ON ONE: AN INTERVIEW WITH BAD NERVES!

HI, I’M TYRA FROM HIVE MAGAZINE AND I’M HERE WITH BOBBY AND JON FROM BAD NERVES. HOW ARE YOU GUYS? HOW’S THE TOUR BEEN SO FAR? I KNOW YOU’RE TOWARDS THE END NOW.

Jon: We’re not gonna start with a moan, it’s been great. It’s been incredible (laughs).

Bobby: There is no moan really, it’s just…

Jon: Just very long…

Bobby: Since the 1st of September, we’ve had, I think, maybe 12 days off and it’s Christmas.

Jon: It’s catching up.

IT SOUNDS PRETTY HECTIC!

Bobby: It’s been one of the best fucking things ever, though, to be honest with you.

SO IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’VE HAD A LOT GOING ON THIS YEAR TOO - SUPPORT SLOTS ANNOUNCED NEXT YEAR WITH GREEN DAY AND WEEZER AND YOU’VE TOURED AMERICA WITH PRETTY BIG BANDS THIS YEAR. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY HAS BEEN YOUR HIGHLIGHT?

Bobby: Do you know what? It is really fucking hard to pick one…

Jon: The Hives.

Bobby: Probably The Hives, yeah, ‘cause they’re one of our favourite bands.

Jon: To be honest, all of the supports have been great. We’ve had really good experiences with all of them, but The Hives - We’ve listened to that band for a long time. We toured with them once in the UK and then they announced their US tour during that and we were like sitting in the dressing room like ‘God, imagine, imagine going to the US with them’ and the next day, they’re like ‘Do you wanna come to the US?’ and we’re like ‘Alright, we’ll think about it’ (laughs).

THAT MUST’VE BEEN PRETTY SURREAL THEN!

Bobby: To be honest, I do think actually, that’s the highlight in terms of support, but this headline tour.. You know, we’ve sold out most of the shows, and the ones that weren’t sold out felt like they were sold out. That, that is insane.

Jon: We never really expected that.

Bobby: Yeah that’s kind of always the thing that you want to do. You wanna get to a point where you can sell out little venues, well, and big venues, but you kind of thing that’s never gonna happen (laughs). To get to that point where you’re selling out… like this place tonight is like 500 people! That’s probably my main highlight to be honest…

Jon: Yeah, you’re right actually…

Bobby: The Hives as a support was amazing but you can’t really explain what it feels like to have a room full of people who have come to basically see your band. It is unbeatable.

HAVE YOU HAD ANY CITY HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TOUR SO FAR? IS THERE ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR THAT YOU’VE WANTED TO GO TO THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ON THIS TOUR THAT YOU MAYBE HAVEN’T BEFORE?

Jon: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the places we have been before but we’ve kind of played festivals in a lot of the countries we went to.

Bobby: Switzerland, I really enjoyed. We’ve been there before but we haven’t been there as much.

Jon: The snow was a little bit intense.

Bobby: Yeah, but it’s kinda cool in a way when you go from driving through mountains with the sun shining and it’s blistering hot, and then the next day, you’re in Switzerland, where it’s snowing.

Jon: Basque Country was pretty special.

Bobby: We went to the Technorama in Switzerland, which is like a big technology museum..

Jon: Mainly for kids, but we were there.

Bobby: That was really cool, I could’ve stayed in there all day

Jon: And we went to a smashing Christmas market in Cologne, so that was a highlight.

THAT’S A GREAT TIME OF YEAR TO GO AS WELL. I FEEL LIKE YOU’RE GETTING ALL THE DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS MARKETS. I LOVE A CHRISTMAS MARKET!

Jon: If you love a Christmas market, Cologne is like, on a whole other level. They have, like, the biggest Christmas markets I’ve ever seen in my life.

Bobby: And the thing is, Christmas is like a once in a lifetime thing isn’t it? That’ll never happen again (laughs)...

Jon: He’s being a bit of a grinch over here (laughs).

(LAUGHS) I’M THE OPPOSITE. WOULD YOU SAY THERE’S ANYONE YOU’D WANT TO WORK WITH IN THE FUTURE THAT YOU HAVEN’T WORKED WITH SO FAR, SINCE YOU’VE TOURED WITH SO MANY COOL BANDS THIS YEAR?

Bobby: Jeff Burke and Mark Ryan from Radioactivity, we love them. We would always love to record something with them. I don’t know whether it would be for this band because we record all our stuff with our good friend, Mike, but I would love to write songs with them. I don’t think that would ever happen though.

Jon: I don’t know, he went and recorded Ditches didn’t he?

Bobby: Yeah, but I don’t think he was writing with them, I think he was recording…

Jon: Basically, what you want is for him to write us an album, you sing over it and..

Bobby: That’d be great. Who else? Jamie Lenman from Reuben for me. He’s one of my favourite songwriters. What other songwriters do I love? There’s a guy who I went to school with actually, funnily enough, called Ben Brown, who I think is a genius songwriter. I’d like to do some stuff with him. The Beaches, I’d like to write some songs with - they write some catchy stuff. Jordan writes some amazing melodies…

Jon: Slipknot.

Bobby: Slipknot. I’ve got this fantasy of joining Slipknot. This whole band is actually just for me to get close to Slipknot.

Jon: It’s like a segway.

I SEE, MAKING CONNECTIONS (LAUGHS)…

Jon: He’s gonna ditch us losers, put on the mask.

Bobby: I’m waiting for Shawn, I’m waiting for the clown to throw the towel in. Eventually, you know, he’s knocking on a bit now so (laughs)... and I mean that with respect. Sometime soon they’re gonna need Clown 2.

Jon: You’ll put the clown mask on.

Bobby: I’m gonna be Clown 2. Make sure you put that in because hopefully they’ll see it.

OKAY (LAUGHS). HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CROWDS IN THE US, UK AND EUROPE AT ALL?

Bobby: This is the first tour I would say, where in England, the crowds… We always used to kinda slag England off a little bit. It felt like in America and Europe everyone went nuts…

Jon: It’s like, you go to America and they treat you like you’re the royal family or something, so it’s kinda hard to beat that and Europe was kind of where we started getting a following, so we would come to England and no one would really care. But now, it’s changed - our fanbase over here is awesome.

Bobby: It feels like finally England is starting to wake up a little bit that this is where we’re from, if you like this sort of music. For the longest time, it was Europe, but every time we’ve gone to America, it’s been unbelievable. But we’re very lucky really - everywhere is pretty great now.

Jon: We’re very lucky with the people that come to see our band. It’s like, pretty much everyone is cool and respects each other.

WITH THE NEW ALBUM THAT YOU’VE RELEASED THIS YEAR, WOULD YOU SAY THAT THE FAN REACTIONS ARE DIFFERENT TO THIS ONE THAN TO YOUR PREVIOUS ONE?

Bobby: I think it’s always gonna be different in the sense that it’s a different album - it’s slightly different to the first one, but not so different that it would scare people off. But I think people like it. There’s a couple of things on there that some people that love the first album might be a bit like ‘eh’, but there’s also things on there where I think it branches out a little bit more than the first one did. I think you need that with a second album really though.

WOULD YOU SAY THE WRITING PROCESS WAS ANY DIFFERENT THIS TIME AROUND?

Bobby: I mean, it was in a way, because with the first one, me and Will jammed a lot of stuff together and on this second one, we didn’t have time to do that really, so I did it sorta mostly alone in my dad’s garage (laughs). But it was the same sort of idea and process…

Jon: With just added pressure (laughs).

Bobby: You just sit and write whatever comes really, without trying to judge it before it’s come out, ‘cause that really does fuck you up when you’re trying to write stuff I find, but just write whatever you like really - that’s what I always find is the best way to write, even if it’s not ‘Bad Nerves’, just write everything that comes.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PERSONAL FAVOURITES FROM THE NEW ALBUM, OR FAVOURITES TO PLAY LIVE?

Bobby: Favourites to play live from this album for me are probably ‘USA’, ‘You’ve Got The Nerve’… And I hate the rest (laughs). I like the ones that are easy and fast and that I don’t have to think about the lyrics and that aren’t really hard to sing.

Jon: I tend to enjoy playing ‘Antidote’ a lot, it’s very hard, but it’s quite fun watching people run out of steam in the crowd. They’ll go really hard for like 60 seconds and after that, they are just out of it.

Bobby: Yeah, not many people make it past the middle-8 of that song.

Jon: We can gauge the fitness of the audience.

Bobby: (laughs) People do get tired jumping around to this music.

Jon: We need to hand out oranges or something.

Bobby: I feel like I need to stop myself from teasing the crowd and be like ‘How are you standing still?’.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU GUYS? DO YOU HAVE ANY SORT OF THINGS COMING UP (THAT YOU CAN SAY)?

Bobby: Christmas.

Jon: New Year.

Bobby: Christmas and New Year (laughs). We’re doing a big London show in January, that’s like the next big thing after the last few shows this week. We’re doing Electric Ballroom, which is the biggest London show we’ve ever done, which, it’s not huge, but for us for a headline show, it’s quite a big deal. We played Old Blue Last about a hundred times a few years ago to no one, so this is pretty crazy.

Jon: We’re gonna take a couple months off to write a new record and then we’re hitting the road for the foreseeable feature.

Bobby: Yeah, and then we’re going back to America and we’re playing with Weezer and Green Day, which is absolutely amazing. I mean you don’t really have to big them up, do you? They’ve already proved themselves (laughs). So yeah, some pretty crazy shit coming next year again for us…

Jon: Punk Rock Bowling in Vegas… I kind of think of next year as this whole other thing. We’re just trying to survive this year (laughs).

IT DOES SEEM LIKE YOU GUYS HAVE HAD A LOT GO ON THIS YEAR (LAUGHS).

Bobby: Since August last year, we’ve not stopped.

Jon: It’s cool though, I think people recognise it, you know. I hope they do (laughs).

JUST TO ROUND UP, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC TO SOMEONE THAT HASN’T HEARD IT IN THREE WORDS?

Bobby: Better than all the other band’s you’re gonna listen to.

Jon: That’s more than three words!

Bobby: Better than all.

Jon: Good, no, great.

Bobby: Mine would be great, no, incredible (laughs).