British India have been running around for a number of years now, consistently gaining momentum with three albums in four years and these guys aren’t looking to slow down yet. Currently on tour around Australia, these festival darlings have played sets at Big Day Out, Homebake, Golden Plains, The Falls Festival, Splendour in the Grass, Pyramid Rock Festival, Groovin’ the Moo, and have now been added to the Mission To Launch line up.
We got to have a quick chat with guitarist Nic Wilson about their current tour, their new album, and their New Years Eve plans at the Mission To Launch festival.
Hey man, how are you?
Yeah, great thanks, just in the studio at the moment and enjoying this beautiful day.
So, it’s been over a year since your last album, Avalanche, came out. Have you guys been working on anything new?
Yeah, we are working on our fourth album at the moment. It’s shaping up pretty nicely and we are hoping to have it released by early next year. Usually we have been pretty consistent in pushing out an album every year but this has just been the year that disappeared. We just kept getting held up with things, moving band rooms, going overseas, Declan breaking his hand, and just one thing after another kept happening. The whole one album a year thing really just got eaten up by everything else that happens when you’re in a band, but we are very happy to be back writing and recording again.
Has Declans hand healed? How is he playing guitar?
Actually today he is getting the pins taken out of his hand.
How did he break it?
Skateboarding, just rolling along, hit a pebble, fell off and broke his hand. Pretty rockstar.
How’s the tour going?
Really good, we are about 3 weeks into it at the moment, and we’ve just been getting through the country towns, and the crowds have been fantastic so we are really excited.
So, tell me about Mission To Launch.
Mission To Launch is a New Year’s festival in Canberra, and I’m pretty sure we are playing during the day, then jumping on a plane to Sydney to do another gig later that night. But I have had a bit of a read up on it and it sounds really cool, there is even meant to be carnival rides and heaps of food and bars, so its going to be a party.
Are you excited about the line up?
Yeah I’m really excited about the lineup; it’s a really amazing amount of Australian talent and it’s so cool that it’s a festival of local acts. I’m really looking forward to The Living End, Cloud Control, Yacht Club DJ’s, and The Novocaines, those guys are really cool. Actually, come to think of it, the whole line up is pretty amazing…
What type of compensation do you get for having to work on New Years Eve?
Pretty sweet compensation actually! But when it comes down to it, we do it for the love of it. New Years Eve is a huge night for this industry and we are always working but we love what we do, and there is nothing better than playing music that you love with your mates to a crowd thats going nuts.
So are you guys going to be letting loose after the shows?
Well, I’m actually a bit of a homebody so probably not, I have a serious comfort zone and I try and replicate that with hotel rooms.
When you play Mission To Launch will you be playing new tracks or your older stuff?
Oh, we will definitely be playing new songs, well, potentially tracks of the new album, but otherwise there will be all the old favourites from the past few albums. We get kinda bummed out when we see bands and they just annihilate you with “here is our whole new record.” All I want to hear when I see a band live is my favourite old songs. I don’t want to hear the new acoustic ballad off the new album, I don’t care about anything other than their hits.
As soon as you hear that new album ballad you know it’s time to go get a beer. Now, I reckon you won’t have a moment like that whilst at Mission To Launch, but will you have enough time to hang around and watch the other bands playing?
Well, we are all really hoping that we can catch a few bands before we have to hop off to Sydney, but we haven’t seen the set times yet so we aren’t sure who is going to be playing after us. Honestly we just wish we could spend the whole night there.
Well it seems like you guys are going to have a blast over new years. Thanks for having a chat with us and we hope you have an amazing tour!
Cheers! Now back into the studio….
– Tegan Louise
Check out our pics of British India in action at Fat As Butter a few days ago!
