One year Only

It has been just under a year since You And Me was released. What has been the highlight of your year since then?

Mark: There have been loads of highlights for us, the whole year has just been amazing.

Jack: I’d say the Just For Tonight single doing so well is probably the highlight. It was cool to see how much people loved that song and when you add that to having a top 10 album as well, it’s been a pretty great year all round.

As you mentioned, Just For Tonight did amazingly well in the charts. Have you been disappointed that the rest of your singles haven’t reached the same heights?

Mark: Well, this year has taught us a lot, and one of the things we have learned is that it is harder to sell as many copies of a single the longer your album has been out. So Just For Tonight was really great and we are proud of how well it’s done, but if It’s About Time had got into the top 20, that would have been just as good because the album had been out for quite a long time by time we released it. We would have liked them to have done better but we are happy with where they all got to.

Did you release your singles in so many formats as a way of keeping people interested once your album was out?

Jack: Well, yeah, but we also wanted things that people could collect because it’s always nice when you have a set. We also put B-sides on everything too so people could get new material if they bought the singles.

You’ve spent so much of your time travelling, how do you entertain yourselves?

Jack: Sam (Gunner) just plays Suduko 24/7! But when we were touring with the Pigeon Detectives they taught us to just have fun every night. Some of the bands we’ve toured with have just been boring, but if you are all up for a bit of a party then you should do it because it’s good for everyone’s morale. We had an awesome night after a show and were up until about 5am, then we had to be up again at 7am to shoot a video, that was harsh.

Pob: I got up at 7am, and they didn’t even need me! I think that is the closest I have ever felt to actually dying.

With such a lot of travelling and having a lack of consistency in your days, it’s common to see bands cancelling shows due to illness. How do you keep yourselves fit and healthy?

Mark: Well, George got a throat infection last year and we had to cancel two shows, but we've realised, especially when we are headlining, that you just can't cancel.

Jack: It was worse when we were in the splitter van, because you had to be up and moving on early in the morning, and the driver had to get to sleep so they could drive the next day. But now we have a tour bus, it’s great because it’s like your home. We have a rule that once you’re in your bed it’s your own space.

Mark: (laughs) Well, it’s meant to be but we had a member of our crew tell our manager that it wasn’t his space because we all kept standing on him, or jumping on him when he was in his bunk...but the general rule is there.

You’ve played shows all over Europe and even Japan. Do you get to see any of the countries or do you just play and move on?

Pob: You don’t really get much time to see anywhere because you are only really there for a couple of hours before you have to move on.

Jack: We got a free day in Japan after we had played a festival in the mountains, but we were so jet-lagged that we didn’t really get to see much.

Mark: Hopefully we’re going to go on a mini-tour in Japan later this year and if we do we want to put some time in so we can have a look around for a few days.

You’ve not played America yet. Is that something you would like to achieve in the future?

Jack: Well, it’s difficult because we really want to go over to America but we don’t really have time at the moment. We could just vanish for a year now and go off to America but then everyone here would wonder where we had gone and might lose interest. So we want to stay here, get our new album recorded and have it ready in time for the festival season next year. Then America after that.

Mark: We want to become more well known here before we go over to America really, because we still feel we can get bigger and better in the UK.

What have been your top shows so far?

Mark: Leeds Festival was amazing.

Jack: Dundee!

Pob: We have a weirdly hardcore following in Dundee, it is always the first show to sell out on our tours, and we filmed our video for It’s About Time at a Dundee show, too.

You’ve recently acquired a brand new One Night Only HQ in Helmsley. What was the thinking behind moving from practicing in the White Rooms in York to here?

Pob: Well, it’s close so it takes away having to travel and it also means that we have use of the space whenever we want it.

Jack: Yeah, we have our own set up here, so if we have been practising and need a break we can just come and sit in the sofa area and put a film on, or have a drink from the beer fridge.

It’s just far more relaxing.

Mark: It had reached a point at the White Rooms where we had to be so strict with our timings that it had really started to feel like a job. I know that sounds stupid because it is a job, but we didn’t want to be so stuck to timings. So instead of going five days a week, we started skipping days here and there, until we had got down to about three.

Jack: This place is great because we can just treat it like home, it’s familiar, and if we all want to sleep here we can.

Is it nice to be ‘home’ for a while?

Pob: Yeah, it’s nice to see people again and it’s just nice to be somewhere we know.

What can we expect from the next album?

Jack: We’ve all been playing the songs that are on our first album for a couple of years now, and we have really improved as musicians. So when we put on a live show, people are usually pretty impressed with how tight we are live, but that is because we are comfortable with our musical ability. I’m pretty confident that our improvement will come through on our new album and we are really happy with the things we are writing at the moment.

What hopes do you have for the new album?

Mark: Just that the singles do well, and that this album really puts us up there with the biggest acts in the country. We’ve learned a lot about releasing things so we have a few ideas of how we want things to go.

Message for the Ryedale faithful

Mark, Jack, Pob: Thanks a lot for all of your support and please keep buying the singles when they come out because having a great home support really does make a difference in the charts.

Hope to see you at a show in October!

One Night Only’s UK Tour
(all gigs start at 7.30pm)

October 2 Solus, Cardiff; 3 Sin City, Swansea; 5 Plymouth University; 6 Princess Pavillion, Falmouth; 7 Pyramid Centre, Portsmouth; 8 Anson Rooms, Bristol; 9 Carling Academy, Liverpool; 12 Keele University, Newcastle-under-Lyme; 13 53 Degrees, Preston; 15 Rock City, Nottingham; 16 Metropolitan University, Leeds; 17 Hull University; 18 Engine Shed, Lincoln; 20 Ironworks, Inverness; 21 ABC, Glasgow; 22 Fat Sams, Dundee; 23 Northumbria University, Newcastle; 24 Academy, Manchester; 26 Empire, Middlesbrough; 27 Carling Academy, Birmingham; 28 Astoria, London and 31 Roadmender, Northampton.

November 1 Octagon, Sheffield; 2 Junction, Cambridge; 3 UEA, Norwich; 4 Carling Academy, Oxford; 6 Academy, Dublin; 7 Mandela Hall, Belfast.