Fresh from their UK Tour supporting Beth Hart that ended earlier this week, the Kris Barras Band will be heading out on their biggest European headline tour next week in support of their UK Top 50 album Light It Up. They have also recently announced that they will be supporting Kentucky southern rockers Black Stone Cherry on their October UK tour and opening for Thunder at Wembley Arena, London in November. To celebrate this they have released a brand new official video for 'What A Way To Go'.

Talking about the video Barras says; “This was the very first song that I wrote for the Light It Up album and it has always been one of my faves. I wanted to have a bit of fun with the video. The original plan was to have a good mate of mine play the main character. He would’ve been perfect as he has an amazing mullet! However, he had an accident and broke his collar bone a few days before we were due to start filming. So I made a quick pit stop at a fancy dress shop and we went to work! It was great fun to do something that we hadn’t done before with our videos. We had a lot of fun making it!"

The European tour, the shows with Beth Hart as well as the upcoming dates with Black Stone Cherry and Thunder cap off an incredible rise for the Kris Barras Band over the last 24 months. This journey saw the band not take a breath as they criss-crossed the UK on several headline tours - each time the venues increased in size, and every time with sold out shows. He supported Jon Bon Jovi, joined Joanne Shaw Taylor on tour, as well as shows with Gun, King King, The Magpie Salute, Therapy?, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, an unprecedented one-in, one out performance at Planet Rockstock and a full European tour with Jonny Lang and Walter Trout. 

Light It Up sees him at his most expressive yet, forcing himself out of his comfort zone. “I kinda forced myself to write songs a different way. The biggest difference for this album was that I didn’t pigeonhole myself in any way, I didn’t feel like I had to conform. I just sat down and wrote songs I wanted to write, with a sound I wanted to produce, not thinking about genre whatsoever.”

He’s played with some giants in music from John Mayall to Beth Hart and The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson, but it’s been the time with Billy F. Gibbons that really hit home the journey so far. “To be stood on stage with Billy Gibbons every night playing ‘Sharp Dressed Man’, that was just absolutely crazy, I never thought that would happen in my wildest dreams. Just being around Billy Gibbons is hugely inspiring. He had a phrase he used to say; “we don’t have to do it, we get to do it” and that phrase really struck a chord with me, we’re very fucking lucky to be able to go on this stage and play.”

28-Mar-20 Roadrage Festival, Sheffield, United Kingdom

1-May-20   Bonfest International Rock Festival, Kirriemuir, United Kingdom

9-May-20   Lincoln Blues Festival, Lincoln, United Kingdom

10-May-20 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, United Kingdom

16-May-20 The Foundry, Torquay, United Kingdom

5-Jun-20     Loverocks - Beer & Music Festival, Ferndown, United Kingdom

25-Jul-20    Steelhouse Festival, Ebbw Vale, United Kingdom

01-Aug-20    Live On The Hill, Tyrone, United Kingdom

29-Aug-20  Stonedead Festival, Newark, United Kingdom

29-Aug-20  Bury St. Edmunds Blues Festival, Bury St. Edmunds, United Kingdom

30-Sep-20  Robin 2, Bilston, United Kingdom

09-Oct-20  O2 Guildhall Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

10-Oct-20   The Great Hall Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

12-Oct-20   Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

13-Oct-20   O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

14-Oct-20   Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

16-Oct-20   O2 Apollo Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

18-Oct-20   Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

20-Oct-20   O2 Academy Newcastle, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

21-Oct-20   O2 Academy Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

22-Oct-20   O2 Academy Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

24-Oct-20   O2 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

25-Oct-20   St David's Hall, Cardiff, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

26-Oct-20   Cambridge Corn Exchange, Cambridge, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

28-Oct-20   Engine Shed, Lincoln, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

29-Oct-20   Rock City, Nottingham, United Kingdom (supporting Black Stone Cherry)

21-Nov-20  The SSE Arena, Wembley, London, United Kingdom (supporting Thunder)

With The Wants' debut album Container set for release in just a few weeks’ time, the band are sharing the album title track. Where previous single ‘Fear My Society’ cut a foreboding shape, and recent single ‘The Motor’ stood out for its revved-up, uneasy guitar and bass riffs, ‘Container’ is the band at their most complete. Guitarist and vocalist Madison Velding-VanDam's dead-pan delivery chimes perfectly with his skewed guitar and electronic underbelly.

He explains: “The lyrics and melody for ‘Container’, which would become the title track of our debut record, came about from a writing exercise I try often: alone in my room, I ramble into my sm7b with my mattress upturned, leaning against the wall to dull excess reverberations, forcing myself to record whatever lyrical threads and tunes come out. Usually I take maybe just one phrase that sticks out — or more often nothing, since I do this just to get ideas flowing — and use that to develop a classic rhyming pattern. But for ‘Container’, the lyrical stream-of-consciousness stuck: full of non-sequiturs, mildly sadistic stanzas that satirize the mundanity of domestic and work life, comically  absurdist quips, gender plays that fold and flip, all of which felt like perfect encapsulations for the themes of our record.”

Container was recorded and produced by Madison Velding-VanDam and Jason Gates at HANJIN, their shipping container converted to studio in a Chinese factory parking lot, as well as respective home studios. The Wants slowly drafted the record over three years, starting with their more post-punk ideas and slowly mutating to include their more adventurous interests in techno, experimental electronic, and ambient music. The process was one of constantly re-imagining a tracks’ potential, generally leaving the melody and lyrics — or the core song as it could be played on an acoustic guitar — intact, weaving new ideas in and around the initial structures. Entire songs and versions would be scrapped after realising that they didn’t fit the overall palette and album vision, which became clearer and clearer. That the album’s polished sound was captured in the band member’s respective bedrooms and rehearsal space is a testament to their attention to detail: Velding-VanDam is a seasoned bedroom pop auteur, and Gates has a wealth of studio experience (Debbie Harry, Angelo Badalamenti, Lykke Li, My Morning Jacket). They recruited pop and hip-hop engineer Jeremy Cimino (J. Cole, Pharrell) for his ability to give their rock instrumentation a fuller sound that explicitly differentiates it from the ubiquity of more genre-abiding contemporary indie recordings.

Feb 26 - Bristol, The Lanes

Feb 27 - London, The Lexington

Feb 28 - Manchester, YES (Basement)

Feb 29 - Glasgow, The Poetry Club

Mar 1 - Leeds, Brudenell Social Club

Mar 2 - Birmingham, The Sunflower Lounge

Mar 3 - London, Village Underground (supporting Dry Cleaning)

Mar 4 - Brighton, The Hope & Ruin