After a long hiatus “A” are about to hit the road again on their first headlining tour in four years with dates across the UK. Of course with the band hailing from Suffolk they are playing a warm-up gig at The Marquee in Norwich on 25th November. I spoke to drummer, Adam “Yin” Perry about what the band have been up to and the future of the band.
Lets start with an obvious one, what have you guys been up to with your break over the last few years?
We’ve been silly busy. I joined The Bloodhound Gang in 2005 for their European arena tour, and have toured the world many times over with them ever since, headlining some massive shows/ festivals etc. We go away again on Wednesday to finish recording in the States.
Dan (P Carter) joined the band in January this year for our Australian stadium tour with NIN and Alice In Chains, he’s been with us ever since, so the band is gradually turning into “A”!
When “A” stopped in 2005 myself, Jason and Dan setup a company called ‘The Collective’. We wrote for the cream of UK pop and scored 6 UK No.1s in 18 months, plus 12 Top 10’s. Jason has gone on to become a world renowned producer, producing the last 3 McFly albums, LostProphets, The Blackout and the new Kids In Glass Houses album. Myself and Jason also have a record label through Universal called ‘Medical Records’ and are releasing the new debut MatthewP (from Southwold) album through Fiction/ Polydor in Feb next year. I’ve also got a music consultancy called Medical Music, so nice and busy.
Dan joined Radio One as rock show DJ, so hes been really busy with that and his new band Hexes
Mark joined a band with Adam F and later joined ‘Mills’
Giles works at the BBC as a digital creative
So who was the instigator of the recent reunion, for the wildhearts supporting tour?
The Wildhearts they called us and asked us to come out of retirement! so we said yep, let’s see if we all still enjoy it and enjoy playing together… That tour was great, and playing the old “A” songs again made us realise just how much we missed it.
Have you been writing new material and can the Norwich crowd expect to hear any of it?
That was the plan and still is… But as mentioned, we are all stupidly busy, so even getting us in the same room is difficult. New stuff will be along shortly though, we just need to focus minds on it for a week or two!
As a band with East Anglian roots over in the Southwold/Reydon area, how does it feel to be coming back to play a gig here after so long?
Feels great! Mark still lives in Southwold and I’ve been up there a lot recently with Matthew P and it gets harder to leave the older you get. We’ve always enjoyed the Norwich shows, and selling out the UEA for the first time meant the world to us.
Have you played the Marquee before?
Nope, is it any good?
Yeh it’s a pretty good little venue, curious why you didn’t book the Waterfront as I’m sure you guys could fill it easily?
When this tour was booked, there wasn’t a Norwich show for some reason. We only added this last week as a warm up to the tour and wanted to keep it quiet and small, in case we’re sh*t!
How is the relatively new guy, John Mitchell getting on filling Daniel P Carter’s bass boots?
He’s doing well, though I’ve hardly seen him, he’s a busy, successful producer (Enter Shikari, You Me At Six, My Passion etc). “A” have always been one of his fave bands, so to be honest he knew the songs better that we did.
Do you guys know yet whether the current line is permanent, for gigs after these winter dates?
We’ll see, we are taking everything one step at a time. We are older, have families etc and just want to enjoy “A” and our music again. We’re all involved in the music industry for our days jobs outside of “A”, and thats how we want to keep it. It was the hardships of the music industry that finally ended our band back in 2005, and we don’t want to let that happen again. So no one is giving up the day job and because of that, you never know what’s round the corner.
Lastly will you guys be back in Norwich on any future tour dates?
Yes, as long as we don’t blow it this time around… Nah, it should be good and we’re stoked that Norwich will be the first time “A” play a headline show since it all ended nearly 5 years ago. Get down nice and early!