UK folk-punks The Roughneck Riot have been pretty quiet for the past four years, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been busy (well, as busy as one can be during a global pandemic). Their new album Burn It To The Ground, their first in 8 years, drops tomorrow 18 Feb 2022. TGEFM caught up with them for a quick round of Roll of the Dice.
1) I rolled a five for this interview which, given the amount of news The Roughneck Riot has, may not be enough. We’ll have to do our best (laughter). So, you’ve got a new album, Burn It To The Ground, coming out on SBÄM this Friday (18 Feb 2022). That album title can be seen as both positive and negative. Can you share a bit more about the album and the themes it covers?
Greeny (guitar, backing vocals) – First off, I’m a fan of the roll a dice rolling, though surely rolling a ‘1’ can be disastrous?! Haha. Five questions we can just about manage between 6 members Yes, we’re finally releasing an album after 8 years. It almost doesn’t feel real! We originally started writing this album 8 years ago. We even recorded the full album once before but we weren’t fully satisfied with how it was sounding. We decided to start the whole process again at a new Studio, poured all of our efforts (and money) into it and ended up making an album were truly proud of!
I’m glad you picked up on the different ways you can interpret ‘Burn It To The Ground’. That’s something we tried with the previous albums, too. The title track is a song we’d written about 7 years ago, we still love it now. We think portrays the tenacity of our sound, but can also seem a little defeatist and these two themes tend to be a representation of the album.
2) If I researched correctly (and it’s likely I didn’t), this is your first new album since 2014’s Out Of Anger. Aside from the pandemic which messed up with everyone, that still seems like a long break between albums considering the first half of the 2010s was fairly productive for you. Care to elaborate more on that?
As far as things messing things up for us, the pandemic was a bit of a blessing in disguise as we had the chance to re-record the entire album! Since the last album in 2014 there has been plenty of other things that messed us up, whether it be personal or as a band. We had some bad relationship breakdowns meaning a lot of moving houses, some of our best friends sadly passed away, which will mess anyone up for a while. Some of us started new careers or businesses that took up a lot of time and energy and we were still just trying to gig as much as possible. We totally burned ourselves out and just stopped enjoying everything which made things like writing new material and getting organised to record pretty difficult. When we eventually did get round to recording, our hearts were not in it and you could definitely tell just by listening to it! When Ryan decided to take a year out travelling, we thought it would be good for us all to have a break from playing shows and it was for a little bit… then 2020 happened and it turned into nearly 3 years hiatus.
3) Building off of that last question, you originally had the Roughneck Riot Returns gig scheduled for 2020 but that, obviously, was curtailed by the pandemic. Can you explain a bit more on that? I mean, you weren’t really “gone” as you were still playing gigs up until mid-2018 at the least. Were there any major changes to the band in the interim?
Matty Roughneck (lead vocals, mandolin, acoustic guitar) – I think we were playing so much before we took a break, that the idea of not playing for a full year felt like a lifetime and we should do a ‘comeback’ gig to celebrate. However in true Roughneck style, the plans were completely destroyed by the covids. I think the main change to the band during the break was finding our love for it again and realising how we need to continue forward and make sure we enjoy ourselves as much as possible otherwise we’ll end up in the same place in the near future. We want to be old enough to live out our “Don’t Count Me Out” video!
4) Name some bands that our readers likely haven’t heard of, but they really should be listening to.
Greeny – So the UK underground punk scene is rife with bands you all NEED to be listening to (though your lovely readers are probably aware of). Some of my favourites are Faintest Idea, Crazy Arm, Random Hand, Incisions, The Terrorpins, Fair Do’s, Wonk Unit, Bruise Control, Colt 45, Grand Collapse… There’s too many! Basically check out the roster on TNS Records and you won’t be disappointed!
5) With the album out tomorrow (18 Feb 2022, and your two-night record release engagement at the end of the month (the second night of which is already sold out), what is next for Roughneck Riot?
Ryan Taylor (bass, backing vocals) – We head over to France for a run of 9 gigs in March; this will be our first foray to the mainland since 2018 so we’re all a little anxious as to how Brexit and the pandemic will impact not just the travel, but the gigs, too. We’re really excited for this, though. We then have SBÄM Festival at the end of July in Austria followed by another run of gigs in Germany. We also have a really exciting tour planned for the end of the year in Germany with a folk/ska punk leviathan from Italy, but I don’t think we’re allowed to say whom just yet. We’re busy and we’ll probably burn ourselves out, but we’ve got a lot of candles to burn at both ends.
Burn It To The Ground is out tomorrow, 18 Feb 2022, via SBÄM Records. You can find all the links you need for streaming, social media, tour info and more at the band’s official website.
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
