Shaped by Britpop bands of the 90s, independent Yorkshire quintet Apollo Junction bring their swaggering rock to Notts this December. We caught up with the lads mid-festivals to get a flavour of what’s to come.
Hey guys, we’re really looking forward to welcoming you to The Bodega! How are you feeling ahead of the tour?
We are all really excited to be back out on the road, this tour has been a long time coming. We love performing, and being with our fans, so bring it on!
This is your most extensive tour to-date, has there been a lot of preparation going into it and how do you personally get yourself ready for a long run of shows?
It’s a long run of dates, but we’ve been desperate to get out and play. We had a crazy year in 2021 (we played over 40 shows in 3 months) – and then 2022 was all about writing the new record. We played a few shows in between stuff but now we’re hungry to get back out and share our new record with people. It took us over a year to produce it and now it’s time to share it with the world.
You recently released your huge single ‘History’. How has the writing process been for these newer cuts and how has the reaction been?
‘History’ was a bit of a bold move for us, it’s not our typical style but we wrote it at a time when the band was in a bad place and it was born out of a real emotional state. When we recorded it, we knew straight away it had earned a place on the record and we knew our fans would relate to it.
The writing process for our music has never changed, there is usually an idea born by someone, (it might be a guitar riff or a vocal melody, or drum groove etc) but then we jam it. We lay down a demo in our home studio, and then we take it to our producer who gives us his brutal feedback. Then we record it for real and the end result is something we all love. Our fans have supported all of our new releases, our music is what it is because of them…
A string of singles tends to signpost something bigger on the way – can we expect to hear anything new in the near future?
We have just announced our biggest and most exciting album to date, ‘Here We Are’, due out later this year. We have had the black and white vinyl limited edition of the album on pre-sale order which has flown off the shelf (thanks to everyone who bagged a copy). Our release schedule for singles and videos looks packed this year too, on top of the touring and the festivals (Isle of Wight Festival being one of them). We’ve been plotting and scheming plans with our ace manager Neil at Aggressive Management, and our ace label manager Mick at Shed Load Records on our plans for 2024, which includes even more live dates. It’s safe to say this is the most exciting and busiest period in the band’s history with so much going on… watch this space!
You’ve mastered a unique blend of strong Britpop roots combined with a really synth driven sound. Where does that stem from and who, or what, do you look towards as musicans for inspiration and ideas?
The beauty of our band is we’re all best mates and we’re similar ages with similar musical tastes, so the style of our music has never been something we’ve had to force. It’s a very natural thing, we all have our individual tastes: Jamie loves his 90’s Britpop, Matt loves a lot of dance and electronic music, Ben loves Northern Soul, Jonny is a bit of a country nut, and Sam has just purchased all of Beethovens back catalogue to work on his classical piano playing.
Throw all of that into the mix and somewhere along the way comes out Apollo Junction. But we all have a foundation of loving icons like The Beatles, Oasis and those great guitar bands. In the very, very early days of the band we always agreed we would never write or record a song that we didn’t love. If you don’t love it, then how can expect anyone else to?
Before you go, if budget wasn’t an issue, what would be your dream rider? We’re buzzing to have you here, good luck with the show!
We’re a fairly simple and humble band, and we’ve been on the circuit for a few years now and experienced riders including mouldy and out of date food, a takeaway menu for a kebab house 30 minutes away, and no water or drinks for stage. We also can’t rely on Jamie to get the drinks in, we’ll still be waiting…
So I think its safe to say, we’d all be incredibly happy if the band and our crew got a nice (healthy-ish) hot meal, a couple of pints, maybe some apple pie and custard, and then we’re ready to rock! Matt would just be happy if we didn’t have bananas anywhere near the dressing room.
Thanks for having us and we can’t wait to be back in Nottingham!
Catch Apollo Junction here on the 8th December. Tickets available now.