Interview With The Sherlocks

South Yorkshire Indie-rock stalwarts The Sherlocks marked their triumphant return with the release of a new single “End Of The Earth”, as well as revealing their rescheduled UK tour dates, plus a very special livestream performance via Sessions at the start of April from Sheffield City Hall.

The rather aptly titled single “End Of The Earth” will be the band’s first new material in two years since their critically acclaimed UK Top 20 sophomore LP Under Your Sky.

It also offers a first glimpse into the sonic style of The Sherlocks since new members Alex Procter (guitar) and Trent Jackson (bass) joined brothers Kiaran Crook (lead vocals, guitar) and Brandon Crook (drums) in the band – a change that has only further energised and invigorated.

I spoke to Kieran from the band about the new single and how things have changed for the band since we last heard from them.

The live stream that you did from Sheffield City Hall must have seemed strange with no live audience there?
To be honest it was the first time I’ve been there, my brother went to Uni and they use it as a graduation venue.
It would definitely be good to go back and play there in front of a live audience but our fans would probably be too rowdy. If we ever did an acoustic album it would be ideal to do an acoustic show there, it’s a nice venue.
Our fans can be a rowdy mob, you know - throwing beer around and getting very enthusiastic - when we play a set we always seem to get a good reaction.

The new single End of the Earth is out now, was it intentional to sound a bit different from before?
It is different from what we have done before, I would say it is a little bit punky, there is the Lust For Life drumbeat, there is a bit of The Strokes in there too, but really we tried to do a good pop tune that is straight to the point.
This single though is for the fans, that is the reason we have put it out, it will not be on the new album.

The line up of The Sherlocks has changed in the last two years, how are the 2 new band members fitting in?
It has changed things a lot to be fair. In a way it gave us a kick up the backside with Alex (Procter) and Trent (Jackson) coming into the band. They joined the band in May/June time last year. We did only a few practices with them and it all seemed to work well. In no time after that we were all recording the new album down at Rockfield Studios in South Wales.
It was important to make Alex and Trent feel like band members and not session musicians. We said to them that this is a full time job, you will have aN input into the band, that I feel makes a big difference.

You have some headline shows coming up in Grimsby and Manchester, did you film a live video at the Albert Hall in Manchester?
We have played the Albert Hall in Manchester before a few times and we did film the video for Chasing Shadows at the venue.

Has lockdown been hard for the band?
It was hard in some ways, the hardest part was no gigs but then we were in the same boat as all other bands but we didn’t just sit there and do nothing - we recorded the new album. We had our work cut out with the new lads as Josh and Andy (Davidson) had been in the band for a long time.

When is the new album coming out?
It will be soon but we want to release it when we can go out on tour. For guitar based bands like us it is hard to get into the singles charts. We really are not driven by chart success, though it is always nice to have. We are more driven by the fans and the gigs and the buzz we get from them playing live. We get people coming to the gigs via word of mouth. At the moment it is not cool to like guitar bands, these things come in waves, so who knows?

Radio play seems hard to get for guitar bands too, why do you think this is?
As I said it is because guitar bands are not seen as being cool or being fashionable, so for bands like us it is a challenge.
I grew up listening to a lot of guitar bands, my dad played Blink 182, The Jam, The Sex Pistols, then I started to listen to Arctic Monkeys, Milburn - who are also from Sheffield, the Libertines, Babyshambles, a lot of the album tracks from The Killers.

You have a lot of festival appearances coming up this summer?
Yeah - if they go ahead. We are supporting Kaiser Chiefs at the Piece Hall in Halifax in September. We supported them at Elland Road 2 years ago but yes there is a lot coming up like playing at Kendal Calling which was announced a few weeks back.

Why do you think you have such a loyal fans?
We have been doing this for 11 years now, up until 2013/2014 we were a covers band then we started doing our own stuff. We then started playing small venues and gradually built it up and that is why I think the fans have stuck with us over the years but really we can’t wait to get out there again in front of a live audience.

Tickets for the Albert Hall Manchester gig on Saturday 2 October are now on sale from:
https://www.gigsandtours.com/event/the-sherlocks/albert-hall/1516078

The Grimsby concert on Friday 29th October is now sold out.