Last time Est.1987 caught up with
Modestep the London Manchester
We caught up with them to chat about touring, misconceptions and why you should never go to sleep on the tour bus with your shoes on.
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| Modestep's Josh Friend on stage in Manchester |
JOSH [Friend, vocals]- Yeah, it’s good to be playing our own show, bringing
our own supports and doing our thing and it being all about us [laughing].
You played a sold out Newcastle show
MATTHEW [Curtis, drums]- Yeah, it went pretty well, they were beating the hell
out of each other; they were about fourteen, fifteen years old and proper going
for it.
TONY [Friend, DJ]- Some guy showed me his battle scars after, he had a
nice black eye.
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| Tony Friend on stage at Manchester Club Academy |
MATT- Yeah we’re really looking forward to Coachella…
JOSH- We’ve done LA and San Fran before and I can’t wait to
go to Coachella and meet 2Pac, it’s going to be really good. Why’s everyone laughing,
he was there last year?!
The album comes out in a week. Last
time we spoke to you said there are a lot of different influences on there from
Pink Floyd to Rage Against The Machine, to modern dub-step artists. Is that
still the same?
TONY- More than ever actually.
JOSH-. Yeah, exactly that. I mean it had been finished when we were doing the
Lostprophets tour, so it was just sitting on a desk waiting for someone to pick
it up and do something with it.
Are you excited/nervous for it to be
finally out there?
TONY- Yeah, once it’s out we can start working on other
stuff as opposed to stuff that we actually started doing three years ago. We
have added some new tracks, some fresher ones as well. So we’re still excited
by it, but it’ll be nice to do some new stuff too.
TONY- We did call ourselves Modestep, so brought it on
ourselves [laughing]
How would you ideally like to be
described?
JOSH- A band, because that’s essentially what we are…
MATT- People always have a misconception about us and what
we’re like, but then they come and see us live and then change their opinion of
what we are as a band.
NICK [Tsang, guitar]- It’s a rock show, but with electronic influence.
Dubstep is huge in the UK
TONY- I listen to it constantly because I was doing a thing
on MistaJam’s show on Radio1 quite a lot, so had to do mixes. And we do our own
radio show as well so we have to keep our ears to the street and keep down with
the kids and all that s**t [laughing].
You toured with Lostprophets; would you
like to tour with a rock band again?
MATT- It was interesting because we converted a lot of the
fans. We didn’t think we were going to go down that well, but loads of people
got into us so I think it was quite interesting in that sense.
Who would you ideally like to be on a
bill with?
JOSH- Daft Punk, just so we can get to see them
MATT- Rage Against The Machine, that would be cool. People
would think we were shite if we went on tour with them [laughing]
TONY- Yeah, a tour with really rubbish people so we look
good [laughing]
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| Modestep in Manchester |
After all the touring you’ve been doing
we bet you’re dab hands at tour bus etiquette now. What’s the number one tour
bus rule?
NICK- Don’t poo.
TONY- And if you fall asleep with your shoes on then you’re
fair game to get terrorised. If you take your shoes off you are allowed to
sleep. If your shoes are still on it means that you’re so f****d that you
couldn’t take your shoes off, therefore you’re going to get vandalised
[laughing].
Modestep had a great 2012, what was the
highlight and what are you looking forward to in 2013?
JOSH- Reading and Leeds last year definitely.
TONY- Yeah, Reading and Leeds . And this year obviously Coachella and Ultra [music
festival] looks ridiculous. I think our last day it’s us, Major Lazer and Snoop
Dogg. So it’s just going to be so sick.
And finally, last time we asked you
about the Modestep “fan points” that you could save up and swap for getting a
tattoo from Tony- have you done any yet?
TONY- No, I haven’t. They scrapped that idea of fan points
but I will still tattoo a fan if they really want it. It can only be the
Modestep face because that’s pretty much all I can do.
And here's what happened when Modestep took to the stage...
“You know it’s a good gig when sweat is raining from the ceiling” laughs Modestep’s Tony Friend and he couldn’t have been more correct. Modestep is a bit of an enigma; they’re part rock, part dubstep, part electronic and oh they have their own radio show. Multi-talented, they are dynamically taking the airwaves by storm and if you don’t recognise them by face then you will most definitely be familiar with their songs. However, as drummer Matt says, they can’t really be understood until you have seen them live.
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| Tony Friend on stage in Manchester |
Tonight is the perfect mix of Modestep hits, re-worked covers and new material from the forthcoming album “Evolution Theory”. “Sunlight” and “To The Stars”, two of the band’s most recognisable songs, serve to ignite the crowd here at
The relatively young crowd focus their attention on turning the entire floor into one huge mosh pit, whilst older crowd members resign themselves to taking a back seat and watching from the perimeter. However, no one can deny how engaging Modestep’s entire set is. Musically solid, the entire band work in harmony. Dubstep is very much the “in” musical trend at the minute, but not purely for dubstep fans Modestep are doing their own thing. Josh even takes to the keys to perform an impressive cover of Coldplay’s “
Modestep’s
album isn’t even released yet and they are already selling out headline shows
up and down the country. And with a busy year ahead for the London
Modestep headline tour dates
February-
07, Bristol
08, Birmingham
10, Oxford
11, Norwich
12, Nottingham , Rescue Rooms
14, London
15, Exeter , Lemon
Grove
16, Brighton , Concorde 2
17, Plymouth
