Page 64 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

“AS LONG AS THE LABEL

KEEP WRITING CHEQUES,

WE’LL JUMP OFF

BUILDINGS”

With The Struts, frontman Luke Spiller has gone from playing tiny shows for crazy French fans to

rubbing shoulders with rock’s A-list – not wasting a single opportunity along the way.

Interview: Polly Glass Photos: Kevin Nixon

uke Spiller doesn’t ‘do’ understated. Probably a bit more egotistical than I am now, if One of the first countries to really embrace The
When we meet The Struts’ frontman that’s even possible. But ‘naïve’ is probably the Struts was France. What were those first tours
pre-gig, in their dressing room at operative word. there like?
London’s Forum, he’s wearing Fantastic. We started touring France pretty much
L a sheepskin jacket, leather trousers Before The Stuts you went to university briefly. after the line-up change was made [original bassist
and huge pink-and-black platforms, his black Noel What did you study? and drummer Jamie Binns and Rafe Thomas were
Fielding crop shaggy from the tour bus. Like so I took media studies and… something else. I’d replaced by Jed Elliott and Gethin Davies in 2012],
many rock stars, he looks in proportion on been working as a cleaner on my gap year in because Kiss This and Could Have Been Me were
enormous stages, but larger than life off them. Clevedon for just over a year. My band at the time done in the transitional phase between the old
It’s curious to think that The Struts have been all took a gap year just to see how far we could take members and the new, and those were the songs
going for nearly a decade. Having dived into our the band. That started to fizzle out as September that would then go on to get us a load of airplay.
line of vision in 2016 with the album Everybody was looming. I wanted to stay in the Bristol area, But the tours were great. It was a true rock’n’roll
Wants (which they followed up with last year’s pop- and I kind of just rushed into UWE [University Of rite of passage that everyone has to experience as
tastic Young & Dangerous), they’re a young band. We would go into
one of the best things to happen the shows, drink a shedload, jump
to rock’n’roll in years. All glam “It’s cool that we seem to be associated up on stage, make loads of friends
threads and supersized tunes, they with these crazy French people.
manage to seem lovably old-school with this resurgence of rock music.”
and à la mode at the same time. What are the best things to have
West England]. I was thrown into this environment happened in music in the past decade?
How has 2019 been for you? where everyone was in lectures, taking notes, and It’s been interesting how all these biopics have
Well, we’ve pretty much done two laps all over the I was like: “What the hell is this?” So I grabbed the been coming out, and people seem to have a thirst
world. This has definitely been our most successful loan, the first instalment. Then I quit university for that era of music and the iconic people that
year to date in terms of attendance. We did Pier 17 and moved back to my parents’ house and tried to come with it. I think that goes hand in hand with
in New York, riding a Harley-Davidson on to the figure out what I was going to do. I was going to a lot of the bands that have been coming up in the
stage and having pyrotechnics, and a helicopter audition for drama schools in London, and that’s last two or three years. We’ve noticed it in America
filming us. Our videographer had a team of, like, when I got a message on MySpace from my soon- with bands like Greta Van Fleet, White Reaper,
eight other camera people running around like to-be manager at the time. Glorious Sons… All of them have come out on
his minions! tour with us. I think it’s cool that
we seem to be associated with this
Have you been able to have resurgence of rock music, people
a holiday? just doing it and having that old-
We literally just had seven days school flavour.
off, which was really nice before
the start of this tour. When I’m at Since the band signed to Interscope
home and it’s quiet all the ideas Records, what have been your
start to come. biggest extravagances?
The way that we travel. It’s nice
Back in 2010 you were twenty-one to know that we can stay in
and had met Struts guitarist Adam a gorgeous hotel and float down
Slack, both of you having been in a lazy river with a couple of
bands since your teens. What were cocktails, or go and have a nice boat
you like back then? day and things like that, which years
I was definitely hungry. Very naïve, ago we wouldn’t have conceived
bit of a reckless idiot at times. of being able to do. And I think

Spiller giving it his all on
stage with The Struts.
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