Words - Charlie Wallis

Just after sound checking (and sorting out some technical difficulties) at The Waterfront, Revoker bass player Shane Phillips took some time out of his evening to sit down and have a chat with Noise Addiction about Revoker, the Chimaira tour and meeting Neil from ‘The Inbetweeners’.

So how are you enjoying the Chimaira tour so far?

Well it started about two weeks ago and it’s been going awesome, we’ve been playing some places we haven’t played before and some places we have done before and it’s been really good, we’ve been getting good reactions from the crowd and the Chimaira guys are really nice to us so it’s been awesome.

So as a band who’ve been together since 2006 what’s the best and worst things about being out on the road?

For me the worst thing is the lack of sleep, just because the boys can fall asleep pretty much anywhere but I need it to be dead quiet and sometimes when we go back to a hotel the boys will be partying and I’m trying to curl up in my bed with a party going on around me but that’s just like a minor thing you know but we just absolutely love doing it, love going to places we’ve never been before and meeting new people, it’s absolutely amazing.

So a lot of partying going on?

Yeah there has been! The first night of the tour we went a bit wild in Glasgow!

Well you have to in Glasgow!

Yeah it took us about a week to recover from but it was an awesome good night out!

How does this compare to other tours?

Well we always seem to find time to party that’s the funny thing whether we’re the main headline band and we have to play for an hour or and hour and a half or if we’re the support and gotta play half hour we always end up partying and getting wrecked and stuff. Makes it a bit harder for us we have a laugh when we do it!

So for someone who hasn’t seen you live before how would you sum up your live experience?

We try to put as much energy into it as we can and we give it our all every single night whether there’s one person there or a thousand people we just go for it no matter what. Chris the guitarist is all over the stage running from one end to the other. We just try to keep the energy up and the good vibes going you know, get people involved, make sure eveyone’s enjoying it. It’s the best way to do it!

So you’re signed to Roandrunner Records, obviously some massive names on that label. Who are your favourite bands to work and tour with?

It’s strange because we’ve toured with some big bands like Rob Zombie and that was absolutely amazing he had like Joey Jordison drumming for him and Jon 5 on guitar and the first night in Brixton Academy they came in to our dressing room to introduce themselves and we were like “whoa!”, a bit taken back by it you know, but that was really cool seeing a professional band like that perform every single night and the stage show they put on is awesome. Then again some of the smaller bands we’ve toured with are awesome as well they’re all like really down to Earth and you can just chill out with them and have a laugh. Every band we’ve toured with we’ve got on really well with and we’re good friends now with all of them.

Do you ever get star struck by any of your label mates?

It’s strange, I do and I don’t. I got to meet Fred Durst at Sonisphere last year and had a bit of a chat with him cos Limp Bizkit are one of my favourite bands but the funny thing is I was alright talking to him cos I can relate to him and stuff but we went to a boxing match in Wembley a couple of months ago and Neil from the Inbetweeners was there and I was more star struck meeting him than meeting like Fred Durst and Zakk Wylde and stuff.

Tempted to do an impression when you met Neil?

To be honest I was half wasted at the time. I was just sat there and Chris was next to me and then Neil was next to him and I was saying to Chris “Ask if I can have my photo done with him”, really sheepish you know but it was cool!

So writing and performance wise who would you say are your biggest influences?

Me personally, I would say it was Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit because I think Sam Rivers and Timmy C are some of the best bass players, simply amazing and they’re who I look up to so they influence me loads. I know as a band our main influences are the old bands like Pantera and Black Sabbath, all the classic kind of music you know we try to put our own spin on that kind of music make it sound modern. All the boys have different influenced you know, Jack will listen to anything from drum and bass to bloody Cannibal Corpse and stuff like that, just a mad range of music. It’s all good though cos we can take influences from all kinds of music and bring it together.

There’s quite a lot of hard rock and metal coming out of South Wales where you’re from, why do you reckon that is?

I don’t know I think a lot of bands who follow trends these days it just seems this kind of music is more popular so more bands are doing it. Though back in 2006 when it wasn’t popular we were still doing. We just wanted to write music that we liked and we wanted to listen to it kind of seems like people look at us and think we’re singed so best copy that. There’s nothing wrong with it it’s just I think you should just go out and do what you want to do. If everyone went out and did there own style of music it’d be much more interesting. I love it when you get on a tour and you get a lot of bands of different genres like we played with The Blackout and they had a dancey type band support them so there was a good mix of music. I think that’s really cool and more tours should be like that.

I guess that exposes your audience to different types of music?

Definitely, opens peoples minds up to different sorts of music that you wouldn’t normally hear of otherwise, you know? That’s what it’s all about really!

So finally what does 2012 hold for Revoker?

Not too sure really. We’re going to finish this tour off and then go back into our practice space and start writing the new album I suppose and get out and play as many festivals as we can. We want to get out into Europe a bit more cos we were there last year to do a few festivals but we want to get out there and tour and get our name out there.

Any festivals you particularly want to play?

I want to play them all to be honest! The festival lineups this year are really strong all of them like Sonisphere, Download, Bloodstock all have really good lineups so to be a part of any of them you be absolutely amazing so fingers crossed!

Thanks for talking to us today!

That’s no worries man!

For more information on Revoker and where they’re touring next check out - http://www.facebook.com/revokeruk