FUTURE TALENT #3- Lawson Interview & Live Review

Meet Lawson; not your average boy band. They met on MySpace, are named after the doctor who saved Andy’s life, they’re the next big thing in guitar-pop, oh and they love Nandos!

Lawson are;

Andy Brown- Vocals
Ryan Fletcher- Bass
Joel Peat- Guitarist
Adam Pitts- Drums

Currently working with famed producer John Shanks [Take That, Bon Jovi, Goo Good Dolls] on their debut album, Lawson have been booked to support The Wanted for the second time and have just wrapped up a sold-out tour: they are the band to watch! Est.1987 caught up with the quartet backstage, tucking into Nandos ahead of their sold out Manchester show. 

Hey guys, how’s the tour been going so far? I hear there has been a stage invasions?

RYAN- There has yeah!

JOEL- It’s been crazy! We were just excited to get so many people down to the dates. We didn’t even know if we could sell these places out.

ANDY BROWN- It was a bit of an experiment really. The label just said let’s experiment and do a headline tour and the next thing it was like, sold out London, sold out Glasgow and then Manchester! We were like, bloody hell that’s amazing! It’s absolutely incredible.

What can we expect from tonight? I know you guys like throwing some cover versions in there...

J- Yeah, a couple of covers, some new songs…

AB- We won’t give it away yet. There’ll be a few surprises; a couple of new covers in there.

R- A lot of new songs from the album as well that we’ve not played before…

J- …That we’re actually a bit nervous about; see how it goes!

Have they gone down well so far?

ALL- Yeah!

AB- We were lucky enough to go to LA just before Christmas to record the album and then we came back and had like four days to learn all the new songs. We’ve been playing some songs for two years when we first started and then these new ones are in the set. But it’s worked out fine; everyone has loved the new material. Andrew Lloyd-Webber was at our gig in London and apparently he loved it!

Ryan & Andy

For those who’ve not heard of you guys yet, how would you sum up the Lawson vibe in three words?

AB- Three words? Good question!

R- Guitar lead pop!

AB- Good work there.

J- Chicken led pop!

R- Nandos led pop!

You need to get a Nandos Black Card

R- The only reason I’m in a band is to one day get a Nandos Black Card

AB- We’ve spent about £1000 each on Nandos in the last month…

R- Weekly!

It has just been announced that you’re supporting The Wanted again on their arena tour- are you looking forward to being back on the road with them? You played acoustically last time, so, are things going to be bigger this time around?

J- Yeah, as big as possible!

AB- Last time we opened for the guys and it was quite a chilled out set, so this time it’s going to be full on! It should be a lot more energetic. We get on with the lads so well so we’re really looking forward to being back on the road with them.

J- We need to get them back as well! We did this Twitcam and the lads kept coming in and we were thinking that’s strange and next minute the door bangs open and something clatters on Adam’s hair; they egged and floured us and we were covered.

AB- This was like ten minutes before we were about to go on.

J- From head to toe in eggs and flour.

AB- We went on stage and I was looking on the back of Ad’s head and it just had flour on it; didn’t bother telling him. The Wanted are such great lads so that’s going to be incredible. Think there’s a couple of other good supports on as well; a girl band called “Fanfair” who we’ve done some gigs with and “Parade” as well.

Adam enters from the Nandos run…

Before you got together what were you doing?

J- Crying in a dark room! Not really! We were just gigging whenever we could.

AB- Ryan and Joel were at music college and Adam was at music college too…

ADAM PITTS- …Yeah down in Brighton.

J- Once we decided to go for it we all quit Uni and got part time jobs and tried our hardest to make it.

R- We had some dark times, though, to be fair. We didn’t have jobs or money, we didn’t have anything, nobody wanted to know us and then we got this break with The Wanted and people started listening.

You guys first met on Myspace so obviously social media is important to you- are you still big social media fans?

AB- Yeah, big time. We use all that stuff so much to promote ourselves.

AP- It would be hard to imagine being in a band now without social media. I don’t know how we would even start.

AB- YouTube launched us really because we did some covers and that’s the reason we got noticed for The Wanted tour from the Grenade [Bruno Mars] cover.

AP- Now, the first thing you do when you make a band, before you even get the songs, you get a name and sort out a MySpace page, YouTube, Twitter.

AB- I think it’s important for every band. Even when we were unsigned, we relied on that so much; all the Twitvids we did and Facebook page and YouTube Lawson diaries.

The fan and press reaction has been really great for you guys- did you know it was going to work straight away as soon as you guys met?

AP- We were terrible!

Lawson on tour - Follow them on Instagram- Lawsonofficial

AB- The very first time, no! I think on our third rehearsal was it?

AP- Yeah, we had two rehearsals in London and they were both really bad and then I got the guys to come down to rehearse in Brighton because I think I was just sick of travelling up to London. Then that day it all clicked and we knew we could really make something of it.

AB- It was a better rehearsal room too. To be fair we were really awful, but the first studio we were in was so bad. There was pretty much a witch on the front desk…

AP- To sum it up, she was sitting eating a Big Mac so we asked her where the nearest McDonalds was and she said “I dunno”.

AB- Originally I was thinking about knocking it on the head after the first go, but we just tried it out again and it clicked. Then we just got better and tighter, so it’s great.  

What does 2012 hold for Lawson and did you make any New Year’s resolutions?

J­- I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution..I don’t know why?

R- I don’t either. I think I made one but forgot what it was.

AB- I think mine was cut out sugar in my tea! Not even a good one, but I never ever do them!

R- It could be make sure we get at least one Nandos in a week…

AB- We get at least four!

AP- We had a day off from Nandos the other day and felt like we’d cheated.

AB- Hopefully it’s going to be a great year. We’ve got The Wanted tour, and then the album coming out around Summer and single around Spring. We’ll do some festivals over Summer too…

AP- And a bigger headline tour later in the year when the album comes out.

AB- So, fingers crossed it’s going to be a good year. If it’s half as good as last year it’ll be incredible! 

Thanks guys!

And here's what happened when Lawson took to the stage...

Joel & Andy

As Lawson take to the stage here at the intimate Sound Control the crowd erupts with screams! It would be fair to say everyone is pretty excited about the show, and with good reason too. Lawson deliver on every count and provide the fervent crowd with catchy, guitar based pop anthems that you can’t help but sing long to. As the boys revealed earlier, they had a few surprises in store; mixing fan favourites such as “Red Sky” along with their famed covers. From Katy Perry’s “Firework” to Ed Sheeran’s “A-Team” and even a bit of Bruno Mars, Lawson delivered anthem after anthem proving that they really can turn their hand to any song!

Lawson on stage at Sound Control

Their own songs slip effortlessly in alongside the diverse cover versions. Lawson are a band that understands hard work and already have a loyal fan base who are word perfect on every song. Debuting songs from their forthcoming album “Over You” and fan favourite “Standing In The Dark”, Lawson prove they are a band to get excited about. They can really sing, they can really play instruments and they’re really, really nice guys! They were 2011’s little secret and 2012 really is Lawson’s year!

Catch Lawson on tour with The Wanted-

Nottingham Capital FM Arena - 15 February

Manchester MEN Arena - 17

Sheffield Motorpoint Arena - 18

Brighton Centre - 20

Cardiff Motorpoint Arena - 23

Liverpool Echo Arena - 24

Newcastle Metro Radio Arena - 25

Glasgow SECC - 27

Aberdeen AECC - 28

Birmingham LG Arena - 1 March

Bournemouth BIC - 2

London The O2 Arena - 3