The band on a mission (BBC Southern Counties Online)
Last modified: 07 Dec 2001
Source: BBC (Southern Counties) Online
Author: Unknown
Date: 07 Dec 2001
Delirious, the Littlehampton based band are currently on tour they are playing the Corn Exchange in Brighton on 19th December. Their new single ' I could sing of your love forever' is released on December 10th.
BBC Southerncounties caught up with Jon Thatcher from the band while they were preparing for a gig in Manchester.
How did the band begin?
We got together a decade ago we started playing together at a church youth event, where the kids from the town of Littlehampton came together on a Sunday night and we just played music. It was hosted by a church but it was friendly to music lovers. Over the years the music got out and has been played on radios and in churches across the world, and so we have been taking the music where it goes. We have been all over the world to The states to Australia and basically wherever there has been a demand for the music we have been out and played. So it's been a kind of organic kind of growth for the band which is why you haven't seen us on the television then disappeared the next week. It has been a real people movement, we have got a very dedicated fan base who have supported us almost from day one, and it has been a spectacular journey which we are still on.
How have you changed from a local band into one which it releasing singles into the top 40?
I think that we still think quite locally. The singles thing to the outside person seems like a very big deal, but you know to us it is a very important thing which we do but it hasn't changed us that much, and we are still the same people that we were before we released a single and so we do just really value our fan base and value the people who have supported us and they are the people who have been putting us in the charts. We haven't had the radio play which we have hoped for or that you need to really break into the mainstream.
Why do you think that is?
One reason is that we have never signed to a major record label. We've kept everything in house, and we have got our own independent record label which we release records on, our records and other peoples records. So that means there is not a major record label breathing down radio stations necks saying you have got to play this they are going to be massive. So we haven't made life easy for ourselves and than having the Christian element, people think that Christianity and rock and roll is a contradiction in terms which I guess it is really but we think that rock and roll is about being yourself and breaking boundaries that way so I think that we are as rock and roll as anyone else.
Tell us about the tour that you are on?
We were actually on tour earlier on this year with Bon Jovi and Matchbox 20. We did a UK Stadium tour with them we actually had a tour planned over those dates, our own headline tour which we had to postpone and this is the tour which we are on now called the D:tension tour and we are playing twenty dates between now and Christmas. We've had a great time we have played some of those dates already and it's been nice to get out on the road again and get to meet people face to face because when you are playing the stadium it's not quite so intermit and also we haven't played the smaller venues in the UK now for a while. We've been out in America, Australia so it's really nice to playing in front of the home crowd.
What is it like touring abroad?
It's an absolute dream to do, to do what you have always dreamed of doing and to so it for a living and so when you get on planes and fly to LA, Hawaii and Sydney you really can't complain, so it really is a dream come true and we don't take that for granted it all.
Tell us about the new single
The new single is released on December 10th it's a track called ' I could sing of your love forever' which is actually about seven years old now. We recorded it a long long time ago and that has been a record that has just not wanted to die for us. We got back in the studio earlier this year to record some new tracks for a compilation which has been released in America and that was one of the tracks that we re recorded. The new version we cut of it we were musically really into it and lyrically it's a little bit more revert to the stuff which we have released to the mainstream before but we thought it stands up there with anything else.
All of the band are involved in the record company how did that start?
The company started about six years ago now. At the Cutting edge events which we were involved in about ten years ago we released cassettes and sold them at the back of the concerts. They got sold for about £10 a piece we tried to keep in contact with everyone that brought them and put them on a mailing list and so before we knew it we had a record company. We had this big data base of people who were buying our records and so when it came to release a new record we just sent out a letter to these people saying we have a new record out and if you want to buy it here it is, and they would get in contact if they wanted it and it went from there, and so it was almost cutting out the middle man, there was no point in going to a major record label at the time getting them to try and sell it for us. So that is the roots of Furious records, and we have kind of developed that and we're investing in other bands at the moment which is really taking off for us.
I think that the great thing about it is that it allows us to stay in control of what we do and keep integrity in what we do. Even things like touring schedules we have control of which is good. We have all got families and are all married and we see that as important as well so we don't want to be under some big record label which just wants us to pay the bills. It helps to keep it pure hopefully.
What are the plans for the future?
We are going to be touring Audio Lessonover the new record for the next year because we have been in the studio over the last year recording two records so it's going to be nice to get back on the road and play those live and get a reaction to these new records live. At the end of next year we should be back in the studio writing again, but it's a very unknown industry hopefully this new single will take off and who knows where that is going to go.
What is it going to be like playing Brighton?
It should be good. Brighton is very much home to us living 16 miles away in Rustington. So we hang out there a lot, if I ever go and see bands a lot of the time it will be in Brighton. Also all our family will be there so it will be a nice kind of family Christmasy type feeling at that gig. So we are really excited, I'm also a Brighton and Hove Albion fan so it's Christmas come early.
Delirious are playing the Corn Exchange in Brighton on 19th December.