The Lancashire Hotpots
Back in 2007, an odd little comedy song called ‘He’s Turned Emo’ became something of a sensation. Picked up by MTV2, the band The Lancashire Hotpots brought themselves into the comedy music limelight.
Their folky style hit a chord and five years later, and now on their sixth album, we chatted to Hotpot’s frontman Bernard about what we can expect from the new record.
So what can we expect from Hard Day’s Pint?
More of the same really, but whereas before we tried to have a variety of topics on previous records, we’re going direct with this one and concentrated solely on booze. It was always going to happen at some point. We flirted with the idea of doing a blue album, but we don’t fancy it, we like being family friendly. So instead of going a bit blue, we’ve gone a bit boozy. And there’s nothing wrong with that is there?
You’re sound’s so unique, how did you come up with it?
You know what, I don’t know! I just think we spent a lot of the years before being the Lancashire Hotpots, doing other styles of music that took so much effort and loads of gear. What we wanna do now is turn up, with old mates, have a bit of laugh and play some music.
As it turns out you just play C, F and G, you can do it when you’ve had ten cans, it’s easy! That’s the only way we fell across a bit of a folky style was to just make it a bit easier on ourselves. We’re getting on a bit, I’m nearly 19!
Did you ever think you’d make it to six albums?
I never thought we’d make it to six tracks let alone six albums, jeepers creepers!
Y’know, there’s just so much stuff that both pleases us and disappoints and makes us angry in equal measure we just keeping knocking little tunes out and people seem to keep buying them and they keep coming to shows.
As long as people keep doing that, we’ll keep being daft and making music. It’s the old supply and demand, as long as they want, we’ll keep doing it.
How was the reception to the new tracks when you played the Saint’s Rugby Stadium earlier this summer?
Not too bad to be honest, but it’s hard to get a feel at Saint’s. It’s massive, it’s daft, it’s just bonkers. We’ll get more of an idea as the year pans on and we start playing a few little intimate venues and we can actually see people‘s faces. I need a strong bi-focal lens these days, I couldn’t make anyone out there. My dad could have been sat there and I wouldn’t have known.
The one’s we’ve played so far have gone down well, it’s going down a storm if you will. I think people can relate to the topic!
So you prefer little places then?
I don’t know about prefer, it’s always nice to go out in front of thousands of people, I get a good old buzz out of it. But the energy of the Hotpots, that sort of intimate, sweaty, boozy environment it just helps everybody to let their hair down.
You’re videos are just as funny as the songs, how do you keep a straight face when making them.
We don’t, it takes hours! It just takes hours and hours of filming. If you‘ve seen the video, you’ll know I get covered head to toe with lager and I proper stunk at the end of the day, it was horrible! I didn’t want to drink that night, I still stunk to high heaven.
Hopefully, when we do videos and when they come to see us live, it looks like we’re enjoying ourselves and I think that’s half the battle of keeping ourselves popular. If we look like we’re enjoying ourselves, other people will. You can’t take yourselves too seriously can you, there’s already too much of that.
You’ve just had a beer named after yourselves, how did that happen?
It’s tricky really, but our manager’s an evil genius. Over the years he’s managed to swindle us into Glastonbury and other festivals and little things like opening chippys so we get free chips. On this occasion we just wanted our own beer, and so he phoned around a couple of people saying ‘Do us a favour, make us a load of booze for nothing’, and they do, it’s mad! It’s all down to the evil genius, he’s the boy!
It’s not only Lancaster Brewery, but we’re good friends with the people who make Lancashire Crisps, so we’ve got boxes and boxes of crisps lying around, it’s great! All we need is a pie company, then we’ll have crisps, booze and snacks. We’ll be done!
So what’s the difference between playing festivals and your own gigs?
You’ve just got to work a little bit harder at the festivals really. Although they’re enjoyable, people aren’t just there to see you, they’re going there for a full weekend and you’ve got to try and do is get your little message across and keep them entertained. They might never have heard of you before.
When we do our own gigs, people know what they’re getting in to, they’ve paid to see you and you’re almost on home soil no matter where you are in the county. Be it Lancashire, Yorkshire, even London, it feels like home soil.
At a festival, you’ve got to make people enjoy it enough to come and see you outside of that environment.
So what can you tell us about the tour?
As I’ve said, it just more of before. If you’ve never seen the Hotpots before, it’s two hours of non-stop musical comedy. If you have seen us before, you might wanna leave it (laughs).
We’re just trying to put as many of the new tracks in as we can and also remove some of the older songs but put other tracks in we’ve never played before. We only used to do under an hour before, now we’re up there for nearly two hours. I’m lathered by the time I get off.
Finally, what have you got planned after all of that?
I’m hoping to be alive. We’ve got weddings to do this year as well. Me and Bob, we’re getting married. Not to each other, but to our lovely partners. Mine’s like two weeks away, I’m terrified!
Then we’ve got the festivals, then the big winter tour, I’ll be happy to get to Christmas and still be alive. If we manage that, and the demand’s still there, we’ll have a little time off around New Year and knock another one out.
A Hard Day’s Pint Is Released July 9h
MaleExtra Cameron Smith