Words: Tom Willmott

2011 has been a spectacular year for Twin Atlantic. With a UK Top 40 album debut, the quartet’s meteoric rise to the forefront of UK rock is an amazing story.  In the last six months, Twin Atlantic have out-sold all of their contemporaries in the UK rock scene and rocked crowds all over the UK and Europe. The band are now about to head out on the road once more for their UK Free-ze tour throughout November and December.
Bassist Ross McNae answers a few questions about the upcoming tour for Noise Addiction.

The Free-ze tour is next week. Are you looking forward to headlining a new set of venues?

Couldn’t be looking forward to it more. We’ve played quite a few of them supporting other bands and now we get to do it ourselves.

The tour name is an interesting one. Is it a combination of your album title and the cold weather we’re enduring?

It is quite simply exactly that. I suggested it as a wee joke amongst the boys and it stuck. I actually don’t know if it stuck or if I just decided that was the name and told our manager we had all agreed on it.

You’ve been on the road with Middle Class Rut and AWOLNATION in the states. How have those shows been?

We’ve had an awful lot of fun over here in the states with both bands. The shows have all been sold out or very nearly at least and we’ve been lucky enough to play to pretty full rooms of people who have given us the time of day. I say that because that’s not always a given as a support band.

Free debuted in the top 40 in the UK album charts this year. Was that a surprise for you guys?

Couldn’t have been more of a surprise to us all. We just made a record that we could all be proud of and it seemed to strike a chord with other people. Definitely a nice surprise!

For this tour you’ve chosen some great support acts, Dinosaur Pile Up and Arcane Roots. How did you come across these two bands?

I think we’ve played festivals with them both and have just been aware of them and friendly with them for a while now. When we were thinking of supports we really wanted to take both those bands out and they seemed into doing it.

This year saw you play some impressive festival sets, most notably T In The Park and Reading + Leeds. Did you ever expect such an incredible reception?

In a word, no. We were pretty excited to be playing Reading & Leeds especially as we’d never been asked to play before and had wanted to since we started watching it on the TV however many years ago. We thought that there would be some people there but it was a surprise that the tents were full! T in the Park will always have a soft spot for us for as long as we’re a band and we were really humbled by the reaction to the set this year. We would play all three of those festivals every year if we could!

You’ve managed to gain some pretty big support slots for the likes of My Chemical Romance, Blink 182 and Smashing Pumpkins over your career. Are there any other bands left you’re willing to open up for?

I think we would all love Mr Mercury to return and ask us to tour the world with Queen, Mr Springsteen to ask us to tour with him and the E Street Band, Matt Bellamy to give us a phone about the Muse Moon shows or Eddie Vedder to ask us to play with the wonderful Pearl Jam.

With Biffy Clyro now considered a major festival headline act and The Xcerts also building up their profile, do you think bands from Scotland are finally starting to get the recognition they deserve?

Well I reckon that there’s always been a lot of musical success from Scotland but most recently it hasn’t been as Rock and Roll based as it is at the moment.

The video to Make A Beast Of Myself was an intriguing concept. How did this come about?

We loved James’s concept and thought it was interesting to not just have another video of us playing one of our songs in a random location that we would usually never be in.

What has been your worst touring experience?

Well, aside from the usual van and bus breakdowns, drunken injuries and nights spent asleep in vans at the side of the road, we put the wrong fuel in our van the other day but honestly that wasn’t even that bad. Always look on the bright side. That’s our motto.

What music are you guys currently digging at the moment?

Well, I’ve been listening to the new Florence & The Machine record an awful lot. Mylo Xyloto is amazing too. Coldplay have done it again. There’s a great band from the states called Middle Class Rut and another called Bad Rabbits that are both fairly frequently on my iPhone.

Finally, what can we expect from Twin Atlantic in the new year?

We’re going to be touring the record a lot more, going to a number of places we haven’t been before and a few cheeky surprises are in store too so keep those eyes peeled! Hopefully we’ll be recording some new music over the next year as well. Cheers!

Find news on Twin Atlantic’s new single ‘Free’ and the Free-ze UK tour below in The Feed.