Melodies that move feet, minds and hearts are released to the world as irrepressible indie six-piece, Red Rum Club present their fourth album, Western Approaches – OUT NOW. Tracing their transatlantic successes, the Liverpool-based big-stage party starters pull focus to the bass-heavy, riffy pop of ‘upbeat bop’, Afternoon, which was written in the shades on, blinds down haze of hangovers earned in Austin, Texas.
Seeing no limits to where their music can take them, least of all the gap of the Atlantic Ocean, the band’s repeated visits to meet with fans in the US has given them more than enough encouragement to follow their dreams. In choosing Western Approaches as a title for their fourth album, following 2022’s Top 40-charting How To Steal The World, they reference their home city’s indelible, historic links to the rest of the world, a tradition they are taking forward in their border-free, genre-hopping songwriting.
Working with hit-making producer, Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Courteeners, The Coral) on their latest album, the flood of grittier, burnished songs came to the band amidst the ruins of Liverpool’s industrial past. A new rehearsal room, a former docklands den of iniquity, offered the backdrop of brooding streets and dramatic, sea-meeting skies from which songs like recent single, Hole In My Home, emerged.
In the case of Afternoon, the band – made up of Francis Doran (vocals), Tom Williams (guitar, backing vocals), Michael McDermott (guitar, backing vocals), Simon Hepworth (bass guitar), Neil Lawson (drums, percussion), and Joe Corby(trumpet) – found inspiration as the night turned to day, and back to night, while on tour far from home.
Doran, says: “’Afternoon’ is an upbeat bop written in Austin, Texas after we found ourselves in a hazy limbo, trying to define when the night ended and the morning began.”
Recorded on Merseyside in its entirety, Western Approaches gave up its first single back in summer 2023 when the band ‘leaked’ the statement of intent that was Black Cat.
Taking overflowing pride in their confident ascent as documentarians of not only the life they are living as socially-active twenty-somethings, but the lives of their good time-hunting twenty-something listeners, the vivid pictures painted on melody-rich, second single, Undertaker, denied the otherwise morbid-sounding title. The filmic Dick Dale and Ennio Morricone-twang of the follow-up, Godless, brought drama to the table, setting expectations for the album at heights the band was always sure of meeting.
Red Rum Club come face to face with those fun-seeking fans through March on a run of UK-wide dates that are now largely SOLD OUT, with April bringing their biggest show to date – a homecoming at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena. Adding in a run of intimate instore dates which got underway ahead of their album’s release and continue onwards into the following week, all upcoming UK appearances by the band are as follows:
- Thu 7 Mar – Glasgow, The Garage – SOLD OUT
- Fri 8 Mar – Newcastle, Newcastle University
- Sat 9 Mar – Stoke, Sugarmill – SOLD OUT
- Sun 10 Mar – Leeds, Stylus
- Tue 12 Mar – London, Scala – SOLD OUT
- Wed 13 Mar – Bristol, Trinity
- Thu 14 Mar – Plymouth, Depo
- Fri 15 Mar – Southampton, Engine Rooms – SOLD OUT
- Sat 16 Mar – Birmingham, Academy Institute 2 – SOLD OUT
- Mon 18 Mar – Cambridge, Junction – SOLD OUT
- Tue 19 Mar – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms – SOLD OUT
- Fri 5 Apr – Liverpool, M&S Bank Arena
Album orders, bundles, booking links and information on all upcoming shows and releases are available at www.redrumclub.com
