With enviable slots supporting the likes of Miles Kane, The Courteeners and Jake Bugg under their belts, indie-blues rockers The Family Rain have been gaining momentum and notoriety throughout 2013. The band, made up of Will, Ollie and Tim Walter who are all brothers, are now embarking upon their own headline UK tour and simultaneously putting together there first full debut album, set to be released in early 2014. I recently caught up with Will from the band to discuss how they are getting on:
So Will, what can you tell us about the origins of The Family Rain?
The band was a long time coming actually. We have all been into music since our early teens. We were all in bands that eventually dispersed and got proper jobs. Just the three of us were left so we decided to take it seriously about two years ago. The rest is history!
How are you feeling about your upcoming headline tour?
The tour couldn’t come at a better time! Fifty dates in total, including the Jake Bugg and Miles Kane support shows and then the final headline tour. We are just taking it show by show, playing each one and trying to stay alive during that period!
How was touring with the likes of Jake Bugg, Miles Kane and The Courteeners?
It was the first big tour we’d been on and it was really nice the way the whole thing worked out. The whole tour was really inspiring. It was great to try and step up our game and see what things we could improve on each time. More than anything it was just really fun. They were really fucking good to us. They supported us massively and gave us loads of encouragement and it was a great experience. We’ve been pretty lucky with the bands we’ve supported, in terms of bonding and stuff; they’ve all been really good to us.
How is the new album coming along?
In terms of the EP, we are just really excited about getting as much music as we can out in the next few months. Everything we’ve recording with Jim, we think is mind blowing; we can’t wait for people to hear it.
Obviously your putting the finishing touches to the new album at the moment, but are you still writing new material?
We are pretty much nerds in a sense! We get obsessed with the music around us and then we write new music. It’s a continuous process when we are on tour. We are touring with Miles Kane at the moment and watching him every night influences us. The first thing we want to do after the gig is go away and write a few tunes. Even in between the busy year we’ve had, we’ve already written another albums worth of songs. It won’t necessarily be the second album, but we’ve got all that, along with a huge backlog of other tunes. We just like writing music and playing music and as long as we’re still interested in doing it then we won’t stop!
What can we expect from the album? Are there any major influences on your music?
We were brought up listening to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles on vinyl. We would just run around like aeroplanes listening to ‘Back in the USSR’. We had quite a good musical upbringing, listening to early Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac. As we’ve grown up though we’ve gotten more into our own stuff. Tim and I listen to a lot of 80’s hip-hop. We really like De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest. Basically if it’s got rhythm, we dig it!
As you are all brothers, the band must be a tightly knit group. Are there ever any tensions?
It hasn’t been a problem yet! It’s pretty crazy because the three of us are brothers, and then our front of house and his son are the guitar techs, so there are two families on tour at the moment. It’s an insanely tight unit so we are pretty brutal to each other. We say exactly what we think and there are plenty of arguments but they are always resolved in seconds. We like to think that if you keep it in the family then things are resolved quicker. Plus nobody can escape! You can leave your friends but you can’t leave your family!
