Ahead of their forthcoming tour, we got the chance to chat to Collabro's Tom all about what fans should expect when they see them on the road, as well as the experiences of their past and much more. Read on to find out what he had to say...
'We have some surprises in store'
You're touring this year - what should those coming to see you at the live dates expect?
Lots of musical theatre and therefore a lot of emotion. We believe the emotion is what sets musical theatre apart from other genres. Having the chance to be on stage and share a story with an audience is one of the best feelings for a performer. Apart from musical theatre we have a couple of surprises too which we're looking forward to.
The group toured in 2015 - how did you find the response after getting out on the road?
The response was incredible. We made a lot of people cry which is very humbling. Music is one of the only places where making someone cry is a good thing. Every audience was incredibly supportive, especially those of our home towns.
Do you enjoy the touring life?
Yes, very much. It's very tiring but completely worth it to be able to sing to thousands of people a night and see beautiful locations around England that we might not have seen otherwise. Every venue has its own unique and brilliant quirks.
How difficult is it now to balance your working life with your personal life?
To be honest, we have a lot of fun doing what we do so it never really feels like work. One of the bigger downsides is that we don't get to see our families as much now. They've always been our biggest supporters throughout this whole journey.
Creatively where should we expect to see the group go next?
As I said before, we have some surprises in store for tour which we're very excited about. We have a lot of ballads in our repertoire and, as nice as it to make a whole audience cry, we want to see if we can get them on their feet with some up tempo numbers.
If you could work with anybody on a track in the future, who would you choose and why?
If you asked every boy they'd probably have someone different in mind. Collectively I think we can all agree on Alfie Boe, Lea Salonga, John Owen Jones (to name a few), which are in the realm of possibility as we're in the same genre of music. If we were to wildly throw names out there, then Beyoncé would probably be on the top of the list.
What would you say are some of the best memories you've created in your career so far?
Doing tours in Japan and America will always be a great memory but our hearts are always in England and that's where the best memories are. Singing to 50,000 people at Brighton Pride and hearing them sing back to us; meeting Prince William and Kate at the Royal Variety (she was pregnant at the time, so we like to joke that we've also sung for Princess Charlotte); releasing a #1 and #2 album. There are too many good memories [to carry on].
We covered your naked shoot with Attitude Magazine on the site last year and it was a HUGE hit with the readers - how was that whole experience?
We like to say that it brought us closer together as a band - literally and figuratively! I don't think we've ever seen more of each other. It was a lot of fun to do and very liberating to know that we are all so close that getting naked in front of each other isn't a big deal.
Are there any definitive aims or goals you have for your career going forward?
We're always pushing ourselves. That could be working to make your [next one] even bigger and better than the last one, or performing [for] and building our fanbase across the pond. For the near future we'd love to make a third album but at the moment, all of our attention is in making the UK tour as amazing as it can be for the fans.
Finally what's next for each of you?
We each have our individual passions but we're all 100% dedicated to Collabro at the moment. Musical theatre is the one passion that we all have in common and feel the strongest about. We want to bring our music to as many people as possible and, with our fans' support, hope that we'll be making people laugh and cry with our songs for a long time yet.
To find out more about the band, see when they're touring and book tickets, head to http://www.collabroglobal.com/
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