After a difficult day for the band following the plane crash incident of the leads singers’ dad – Harrison Ford – they kindly agreed to a witty interview; including what the band gets up to on tour and their love for the UK, sheep and Britney Spears.
We were joined by Malcom Ford (singer/guitarist) and Jack Byrne (lead guitarist) after the show.
M: Ask away brother!
Cool, thanks for having us here after what I can imagine has been a pretty stressful day. How are you guys doing?
M: Stable. I heard this answer in some kind of movie… thought it was a good answer to the question.
You guys put on a great show tonight. Seems like you were having fun. Is this your first time in Birmingham?
M: Nope, we played here a while ago in the O2 academy and we really like this city. Oh and our our tour manager is from Birmingham but we don’t understand a word he says half of the time.
And what do you think of the UK in general?
M: We really like the UK. We like it better than America!
Nice! How come?
M: First of all we don’t have to drive… and the audience in the UK seems to be much more responsive to rock & roll than places like NY which is overwhelmed with too much garbage to compete with, where it’s just hope for “recycling”. – The garbage market is saturated!
J: In fact were supposed to be touring with the Black Keys right now but our drummer broke his shoulder so we were like “we love the UK, let’s just come and play out here anyway!”
M: During our last tour here we played in Halifax and we loved it. It was like sheep country; got to French kiss a couple of them… they didn’t come home with me though but I think they liked me.
And you’ve done some other tours with really big artist’s right?
Yeah our first ever big tour was with Bob Dylan! Then Queens of the Stone Age was our second really big tour. Josh (Homme) produced a song of our last record; he’s fantastic and a total maniac.
I’d never really listened to queens before we went on the road with them but they changed a lot of stuff for us.
So a few years back it was just you (Malcolm) and Jack as a blues band but now you’re definitely more rocky with a full band, how did that happen?
M: Well we joined the church of Utah and became Mormons… nah I’m kidding (laughs), it was thanks to the QOTSA tour because would have been murdered if we had played the blues stuff we did with Dylan during the queens’ concert, so we thought we better play some electric guitars.
Any pre show rituals?
M: I like a bit of whiskey and also do a couple of vocal warm ups but I don’t really know how to do them properly.
J: Yoga, humidifiers, sun salutations, humus plate.
M: Nah we don’t have a warm up what so ever but hopefully by the 3rd song we’ve hit a bit of a stride.
What do you do with spare time on tour?
M: Sleep, watch futurama and faulty towers all day.
Oh, you’re a fan of faulty towers?
M: Nah I just figured you’d like that if I’d said it (laughs).
Any funny tour stories?
M: Oooh, none that I can necessarily repeat.
J: Ok here’s a PG one. We were driving at night during the Bob Dylan tour and there was a Native American guy in the middle of the highway who was throwing spears at Dylan’s bus! We were like what the hell?!
M: Not that it would have done anything to the bus. But I mean, if he’s doing that now then I want to know what he’s doing for breakfast! He’s my kind of guy.
Any music people would not expect you to listen to?
M: Toxic by Britney Spears. We hear it in every single bar we go to here.
Where would you like to be at the end of this year?
M: Alive… having a record out and being on tour. We recorded an album in NY and Jack has been out producer. We really got lots of freedom and you can really hear the real Dough Rollers for the first time. It’s coming out the 12th of Nevuary. Only kidding, sometime in spring.
Looking forward to it. Thanks again for taking some time out for the interview bearing in mind the circumstances.
M: Pleasure, peace out.
