Rising UK metal stars Heart Of A Coward completed a near sell out UK tour at the back end of last year. Rock Sins was able to catch up with two members of the band, Steve Haycock and Carl Ayers, in London, prior to their sold out show at The Camden Town Barfly. Read on to see what they had to say:
So how have the first few dates of tour been?
Steve: Pretty good, numbers have been unreal.
Carl: Birmingham was sold out, Southampton had like 7 tickets left, Glasgow was sold out and tonight London is sold out, so yeah.
Steve: It’s been pretty overwhelming.
Like you said tonight’s now the third or fourth sold out date so how you feeling about that?
Steve: We love London shows as it is so it’s really nice having a sold out show at the Barfly.
Carl: It’s quite nerve-racking as well, it’s like “oh shit, there’s a lot of people here who want to see us perform well” (laughs).
Steve: Yeah think it’s better if we don’t know about it in advance.
Any shows that you think could be the highlight of this tour?
Steve: I think this one hopefully.
Carl: Yeah London ones are always special so we’re hoping tonight will be a good one.
So really recently you’ve released your new album Severance, have you been happy with the reaction it’s had so far?
Steve: Yeah definitely, we were almost surprised with the reaction and the amount of people who got what we were trying to do with it, getting away from the first album, a lot of people have said on tour that they weren’t expecting it.
Carl: From like friends, family and fans, everyone’s been telling us that we’ve stepped it up, it’s nice to hear. We worked really hard on it all of last winter so it’s cool.
So were you nervous at all prior to the release of this record?
Carl: I was nervous before writing it but when we had kind of finalised everything I thought it could go well. I don’t know I was still worried.
Steve: I was nervous because being the new guy, if it doesn’t go well there will be this big massive finger pointing at me (laughs).
Carl: It was quite nerve-wracking because the writing process was very different to the last album, before it was mainly me and our old guitarist who wrote everything but on this one It was a collective effort, not just one of us sat at a computer. It was cool but yeah quite nerve-wracking.
Are you playing much new stuff on this tour?
Steve: Yeah quite a lot.
Carl: We’re doing majority new material but then the big older tracks.
Have the songs you have been playing gone down well?
Carl: Yeah most have.
Steve: There’s always the worry that people won’t know it as well as the old stuff but just to see some people screaming back the lyrics already is cool.
Carl: It’s nice to see which songs work well live too.
So 2013’s drawing to a close and it’s been a big year, give us 3 words to sum it up for you.
Carl: Erm, A, fucking, blur? (laughs).
Steve: Yeah that’s it (laughs).
Carl: It’s just been mental, like we did Download, loads of stuff like that and some cool tours, but it feels like it’s all been in the space of like 2 months, proper full on.
You’ve got some Europe shows lined up but anything else you can tell us that you’ve got planned for next year?
Carl: We can’t say much right now but it’s going to be big.
Steve: Yeah, our biggest year so far definitely, we’ll be around.
If there’s one thing you want to achieve in 2014, what would it be?
Steve: I’d like to hit the European festivals.
Carl: Yeah, I think Europe’s our target next year.
Steve: we’ve never really had the chance to go over there, so we’d like to go and make our mark.
Carl: But I don’t know, maybe Australia maybe America, to be honest, whatever comes up, think big (laughs).
Thanks for chatting today guys, we have just one last question for you. If you guys were the avengers, who would each of you be?
Steve: I’d be Thor, purely because I’ve got a beard and he’s got a Hammer.
Carl: Jamie would be the hulk wouldn’t he?
Steve: Definitely yeah.
Carl: I’d probably be the bow and arrow guy.
Steve: “The bow and arrow guy”?! (laughs) who’s that?
Carl: I don’t know, can’t remember his name I’m shit at comics, (laughs).
Steve: You can just be Captain America
Carl: Laughs, well that’s three out of five, we’ve tried!
You can read Rock Sins’ review of Heart Of A Coward’s show at The Barfly right here. There’s also an exclusive photo gallery from that night, which is available for your view pleasure here.
Heart Of A Coward recently completed another tour as support to Thy Art Is Murder. You can follow the band on Twitter at @heartofacoward.
