The general public are kind of sick and tired of Brit-school acts being brought up to be famous and then thrown into the limenight, not working hard for it.

They're looking into the underground, they're looking into punk and hip-hop and they're getting more into home-grown bands, who come from a real place.

This rest of this year's going to be fantastic for a lot of bands. Next year we're going to see huge things from The Skints and Mouthwash, those sorta bands are really going to have a lot of attention, and it'll be well deserved.

-Back in April we had the Royal Wedding, but the band were quite outspoken about it, talking about police raids on the day. Is there anything you can tell us about all that?
I live in Bristol now and a lot of shit went down. I got home just as the riots started, but I live on the other side of town. I didn't hear about it until the morning.

I turned on my phone and had a tonne of messages from people. I just thought, the Height squat had been there for so long.

Using Bristol as an example, that area of Bristol Stokes Croft is known as the People's Republic of Stokes Croft. It always has been, and it's always kind of been untouched. There's never been too much trouble.

I just feel like it's a horrific clean-up act. It's done underneath the guise of while the rest of the nation is watching the Royal Wedding, you get out in the street and get rid of human beings.

Treating human being like rats, and throwing them out onto the street. I just thought it was horrific. We stood as long as we could there and we tried to hold it, but the fact of the matter is...people will rise up.

People will come back. They can take us out of that building and we'll just find another building, and we'll make that ten times better.

We'll keep doing it because they will never remove us. They will never remove that society, that way of thinking. That won't happen.

-Shifting back to live music and the contrast in venues you've been playing, is there a different mentality with a festival show like this, rather than a more intimate headline show?
For me, not really. I focus on being able to play my guitar, remembering how the songs go and trying not to fall over. They are the genuine things that go through my head when we play anywhere, and I usually fail at all of them!

I genuinely treat a show like a show. I'm very humbled whether five or five thousand people come to see us.

I find it's a little bit easier like that, because in intimate settings you can see everyone.

I just keep my head down and just remember that the fact that I'm able to do this is because of the people who come to see me. I try to do the best I can and hope they enjoy the show.

-Does it affect the set-lists, because on some of your own shows you've played older tracks like 'Out of Luck', which don't get played at festivals?
Yeah, it's that awkward thing of having three records and wanting to play the new stuff, but wanting to keep some old stuff.

You have to pick the best set for the time. I do feel, when I write a set-list, I tend to leave the acoustic bits out at festivals.

People want to party and want to dance, so I tend to put in faster, more upbeat songs. It's kinda like that really.

-There were a couple of singles in between albums, 'Holiday' and 'Headbutt'. Was 'Holiday' one of the tracks that got ditched when the album was re-written?
Yeah, I guess so. Ditched isn't the right word. 'Holiday' was always a contender for the album, and the idea was that it was always going to be on it.

A few songs made it through from those that we put on the bench, like 'Everything Happens For A Reason'. I was like...that song has to stay on the record. It meant too much to me, so we kept it on.

'Holiday' just didn't find it's way onto the record because we couldn't find a place for it to fit, and make the record flow as a body of work. It had already been released, if the kids wanted it, it's there.

It did it's thing, and I'm happy. It's lived its life, and it'll always be there for people who want it. I was never too worried that 'Holiday' didn't make the record, from that respect.

-Over the weekend are you getting a chance to catch any other bands?
I hope so. We're only here today really. The only band I would be really gutted to miss is Mr. Big. If I miss that I'll be genuinely upset. I may throw a rock-strop.

-Going back to the writing process, how does it work for The King Blues?
We all kinda write a bunch of riffs and ideas. Itch'll lock himself away and do a bunch of demos. Itch is constantly writing lyrics everyday, there's always something in his head that he's writing.

He'll bring the songs to life on a ukulele or an acoustic guitar. We'll just do various different versions of it and start arranging it.

We'll start trhasing out versions, we'll do a ska version, a hardcore version, a punk version, one that has a kazoo and a bass drum. Whatever idea we have that's best for the song.

We just kinda compile everything we've got, flesh it out and then take it from there.

-What have The King Blues got planned for the rest of the year?
Festivals, festivals, festivals. We're going out to Europe again, across Germany and Austria which should be pretty fun.

Then after that, we come straight home and have the Roundhouse show in November.

We might put in a little tour there, and that'll take us through to Christmas time when we'll start writing the next record.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge

Photo - Joe Speak (taken at Hub Festival)

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