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Rising from the Ashes of two of the most iconic British guitar bands, The La’s and Shack, Cast took the 90s by storm with their platinum album ‘All Change’ as well as ten top 10 singles. Cast are back to touring and are heading over to Australia and New Zealand for the first time this May. We catch up with frontman John Power to find out what’s new and reminisce about some of those mad movements from the Brit Pop era.

Travel to Western Australia

Hi John, So how are you today?

I’m alright, yeah, how you doing?

Yes good thanks! Where are you in the world right now?

I’m in London at the moment at my place. I’ve just had a day or two off and we start gigging again tomorrow. We’re coming to the end of a UK tour, so it’s all been going great yeah!

Where have you been playing around the UK?

Well we just got back from Glasgow, Leeds, and Newcastle, and we’ve been in Manchester – all over the place really. We’re off to Bristol and Bournemouth and then about a week off before we come over to your neck of the woods.

So we’re really excited for your Australian tour, how long’s it been since you were last there?

Well, I can’t really figure it out, but we never got over to Australia, so this is our first time getting over to Australia and New Zealand. So it’s been a long time coming. But we’re travelling light with a carefree attitude. So we’re quite excited by it, as we’ve never played there before.

You put out ‘Roar’, on Soundcloud a couple of weeks ago, is that material for the new album?

That’s not a mastered version on there, but we just thought we’d throw out a song or two. We threw out a song called ‘Baby Blue Eyes’ a year ago, which is a demo of the song that’s on the album. We recorded a new album last year called ‘Kicking Up The Dust’ and both those tracks will be on the album. We were hoping to get it out this spring, but with most things, we’re all a bit behind and it looks like it’s going to come out in autumn now. But we’re really excited about it. It’s a really fresh sound on the record and it was recorded in fragmented sessions last year as we were touring and doing things. I was just kind of writing on the road. It’s kind of got a looseness to it to define itself, and I’m excited about the whole thing, yeah!

Will you be playing the new material on the tour as well as the classics?

Yeah, we’ve been playing 4-5 songs a night and we’ve been getting a really warm reception from everyone. They’ve been going down really well, and people have been really appreciative of them. And that’s a good sign really. People may have heard ‘Roar’ or ‘Baby Blue Eyes’ and they’ve been going down great, so it bodes well. I mean, I’ve done it in the past, and people sometimes, really don’t want to listen to the new stuff, they just want to hear the new stuff. But there’s no comparison really. Certain songs are 20 years old and are proven classics, so it’s very hard for new material to compete with that but these seem to be holding their own very well.

Speaking of which, that was a really magical time for British music, which in a way had a resurgence in the noughties with bands such as the Kooks, Mystery jets etc. Do you think it’ll happen again for British bands, or do you think the EDM movement will continue to dominate?

The Brit Pop era, the 90s, it was maybe the last chapter of when the music industry was still a very big. And there were maybe 1 or 2 TV shows that people watches, and people would go out on a Saturday and by their CDs and Vinyl and there wasn’t as many distractions. And it was the last big push, there was a real eclectic mix of bands, and it was like the rock n roll of what you imagined it to be, even when I was a kid growing up with The Who, and Clash, and punk. It was a big British movement that the whole nation was into. I can’t see that sort of environment happening again as the medium has changed. I mean maybe it will. Vinyl is coming back and people do like something tangible to hold and mull over, but a lot of people download tracks from an album rather than listening to a full album.

Any stand out moments from that beautiful era?

Well there’s lots of mad stories, but I was the singer so I was always thinking about the next performance, and writing all the music. But we did some great musical achievements, we supported Oasis, we headlined Glastonbury. We had some great performances, and some chaotic performances. I mean, everybody was burning the candle, and everyone was partying quite hard as we were all young and immortal. We had some moments that were a bit close – that we shouldn’t have done, but we had some great musical moments. It was just kind of one big blur for me – I’m the worst person to ask, the rest of the band can remember lots of things and say ‘Do you remember that John’ and I’m like well not particularly no!’ [Laughs].

Thanks John!

Catch Cast on tour this summer:

Fri 13 May – Kings Arms, Auckland

Sat 14 May – The Gov, Adelaide

Sun 15 May – Capitol, Perth

Thu 19 May – The Triffid, Brisbane

Fri 20 May – The Corner, Melbourne

Sat 21 May – The Factory, Sydney

More info: troubadour-music.com

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