In the second instalment of our Extrav 2014 retrospective, SCAN spoke to Welsh four piece My Favourite Runner Up, who performed at Pendle’s T-Rextrav on Tuesday Week 10.
So, you guys just performed for Pendle. How was it for you guys?
It was awesome. The band before us didn’t have too many people, as I’m sure most guests were pre drinking, where as we had the slot where everyone was sort of like “You know what, I’m gonna go out now!” so yeah, ten o’clock.
Yes, same thing happens at every Extrav.
Well that’s just the way it is. The band before us were great, it was just the beginning of the party though. It got crazy though when we started. The band came off, there was an interlude, we came on, and then the moment the first chord was struck, a wave of people appeared at the stage, and the area was filled in no time. It was great to see.
That sounds amazing. Are you currently touring the UK right now? I think you have a few dates set up if I remember correctly.
Yeah, it’s not a consecutive date tour, but every other day we seem to have a gig planned. We’ve got these management label buddies called Out For Tomorrow, another great band, and so we’re playing a lot of dates with them.
Where’s the next gig then?
Norwich on Friday, at the waterfront. Playing with some good friends. Then Manchester, which is always great. You can get all the dates on our Facebook anyway, just search our name, you’ll find it.
Yes, it looks pretty busy this summer! And you guys just toured Europe as well, right?
Well, it was last year. But yeah it was awesome, we toured a lot of Switzerland, Germany, and France. We had a great time, greatly appreciated the free cider in Switzerland where it normally costs 10 euros for a pint! But we actually got taken care of really nice tonight as well!
What did you lot put down on the rider then?
Well, our bassist only drinks Cider, so it was three quarters beer, one quarter cider, crisps, a hog roast! Oh god the apple sauce! And we saw its brains! Was delicious though… the meat not the brains! And he made the pig look like a Rhinosaur.
A Rhinosaur?
[Laughs] Wait what! I mean a Rhinoceros! Getting mixed up as its T-Rextrav, isn’t it? But yeah they put a horn on it and everything. [Laughs] But yes, we also had hummus and wraps, bread, and some sandwiches.
So you guys are going to hang out here for the rest of the evening?
We’ll be partying here, well actually we’re sleeping here too, in the green room.
Hopefully the party won’t go on any longer than you can last, would be annoying to want to sleep but one person has stayed behind still determined to keep the party alive.
We’ll probably be the last ones standing! Well, when we’re on a consecutive date tour, we tend to turn down the parties on some nights as it gets too exhausting, but at the moment we’re gigging every other day, so we can party after each one and treat the days in between as resting days.
You’ve already put out some official releases for people to listen to, and it says on your Facebook page that you are working on a new album. How is that coming along, and can we expect that anytime soon?
What you can expect soon is a new single actually: we’re shooting a video for it quite soon, then we’ll go through the stages of getting it all out there, so expect it in a couple of months. We’re writing new stuff all the time though, and aiming to get back in the studio early next year.
I assume then that a lot of the writing happens on tour?
Well yes, we get a lot of inspiration from touring as an experience. Our last single, Poison, was all about touring, it was about drinking, sleeping in the bus, waking up the next day and smelling terrible, and regretting everything you did the night before but then repeating it all over again.
Now, I imagine as you are touring, you are playing in places where you do not have your local home fan base, and I’m sure it’s more about spreading the word of My Favourite Runner Up and building up a spread of new fans across the country. You’re going out there and adding more fans to your repertoire. How does that feel for you guys, have you noticed this effect?
Yeah man, it’s been awesome. In my head, I keep thinking “we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna make it” but then when you get to these places and there are kids outside screaming lyrics from our songs when they see us, you think “do you know what? There are bands that I look up to because people will do that to them.” And it really feels great. Something we have to remind ourselves of is we’re more well-known than we think we are. We played Chester the other night, and there were two girls that came up to us who both came to every one of our shows. And they said how much we mean to them, it’s insane. We played Slam Dunk festival the other week, and we were handing out flyers beforehand to advertise ourselves, telling people to see us. What shocked me were the number of people I went to give the flyer to who said “Ah yeah, we know you guys!” It’s totally bizarre.
Being featured in places like Kerrang and Scuzz, people hear you and you don’t realise they do. You go to places where top acts like All-American Rejects are playing and these people seeing them also know you.
Being part of the same field of music, you get people who expand their library past the headliners and find you in the mix as well.
That’s the awesome thing about Slam Dunk as well, because it’s like a pop-punk village. You get some gigs where people are just out with their friends happy to see anyone, but at slam dunk, everyone is there for our kind of music, they really appreciate original music. So here at Extrav, covers go down really well but there, everyone loves our own material as well.
It’s clear that the band is quite successful so far, and that you take the band very seriously. But where exactly do you position the band in your lives?
This comes first, all the time. We do have other jobs, Chris and Tom own a recording studio which is very busy this summer actually. It can certainly be hard at times, juggling a job and the band, getting time off and such, but we absolutely consider the band more than just a hobby, it’s the main purpose in our lives.
