Rock icons The Struts are about to drop their brand new, fourth studio album Pretty Vicious. Catching up with the voice of the group, Luke Spiller, who tells us all about their upcoming album Pretty Vicious, their plans following its release and some reflective moments from his performance at the Taylor Hawkins Memorial concerts in 2022.
Starting with the lead single Rockstar, from their fourth studio album, Luke explained the growth of the band who still keep hold of their trademark party-rock sound. “It’s really explosive, and it’s not only the fastest track on the record tempo-wise, but I believe it could be the shortest one as well. I think it was one of the songs that once we’d submitted the record to the label, it was always getting a real bit of great feedback, and I think we just wanted to show everyone what we can do. We can still create really hard-hitting rock music and I think we’re perfectly aware that in the past we’ve sort of strayed into many different genres in the rock world, but this one was so raw and in-your-face, it’s also a lot of fun as well!”
Recorded in Nashville, Pretty Vicious has been a highly-anticipated album from the Derbyshire foursome and one that took a lot of planning, coordination and creative decision-making. Luke expressed “In terms of the writing process, it was a really unique record because some of the songs had been sort of living in The Struts ether, so to speak, for quite some time, and it’s no mystery, but I think Covid and the lockdown, early 2020 really put a halt to everything musical, and there are a few songs that were intended to be on the third record, but when we went to make our lockdown record in that seven to 10 day period, we decided to only release everything that we made within that window so it would be like really cohesive.
When it came to this record, it was like, okay, we have this song and we have this one, and another idea, Falling with Me, was also a song that was recorded demo wise in 2019, which never made the third record. So, we took the best part of about 18 months to write new material, really kind of pushed the boundaries and then on top of that, there was also a couple of ideas but for whatever reason, they just never got finished and they just never quite worked. Then, when the studio time was booked in Nashville, we had about, I think it was about nine days or eight days to record musically everything that we wanted to. So we picked like 12, 11 songs and that also put the pressure to be like, okay, this song’s really, really great, we need to get this right, we need to get the arrangement right, we need to get the lyrics right because we’re getting on a plane to Nashville in like two weeks, and this song is too good to not have on the record. And funny enough, Rockstar was one of those songs. So we managed to sort of have a good chunk of time to make a lot of great demos which I think has a really, really strong record, which I think people will hear.”
This new album also demonstrates the progression they’ve endured as a group and individually since first forming back in 2012. Luke commented “I think lyrically and as a writer, I’d say that I’ve become a lot more confident in my own abilities to get a point that I want across and actually, not be afraid to write really personally. There’s a lot of moments on this record where I’m talking about stories that, aren’t all fun, and I think The Struts have been known as a good time band since we really came out and there are moments on this record where I’m talking about moments that I’ve experienced that are my proudest or I’ve sort of made terrible decisions, so I think having that confidence in sort of like presenting those sort of narratives to a record is something which is quite new and unique for me personally. When it comes to the band, that goes without saying. I think the groups never sounded or played as good as they have, up until now, and I think that’s just a case of the fact that we’ve been touring relentlessly and as much as we could, COVID or not from 2015, well, at least coming to America anyway. But you can really hear that like the band’s really jelled and everyone is just sounding their absolute best up to date. So you’ll hear that.”
Whilst Luke explored his growth as a writer and as a band member, he also reflected on some of the incredible opportunities he has had since his career began, including being asked to perform with Queen for the Taylor Hawkins Memorial Concerts. “[it] was just so beautiful, but yet sad at the same time. There was such like a, a whirlwind of emotions, but on top of that, it was a truly once in a lifetime thing. I mean, just to be able to look behind me and see Roger Taylor playing and then run up to Brian May, and of course that was kind of like this crazy super band with like the members of the Foo Fighters as well. So that was probably one of my personal greatest moments to date without a question.”
Talking about how this chance bloomed, Luke explained “we toured with the Foo Fighters just before our second album was released and we ended up going out on the road with them for pretty much the best part of an entire year. And when we were doing that, I’d also met Taylor a few times when he was performing with Chevy Metal, his covers band. So I’d already sort of met up with him and done a couple of songs and he was sort of aware of my love for the same music that he loved and I ended up performing Under Pressure with him and the Foo Fighters almost every single night on the tour, and we just kept in touch, you know, we were just big fans of each other and I would go around his house and jam and we’d play cover shows together, and, when everything that transpired happened, very shortly before, me and Taylor and his covers group were about to do a bunch of shows and we were in the process of trying to carve out some time in between our schedules to sort of do a load of early Queen songs and sort of go out there and do them. And I got the call from Pat [Smear] and he said, ‘hey man, look, we are all aware that you and Taylor were going to be doing these shows together and, Brian and Roger sort of want to come and pay their respects, how would you like to do those songs, but with Brian and Roger?’. And I was like yeah I’d love to be a part of it yes. In any capacity, that they felt comfortable with me doing so and it was brilliant. Really brilliant.”
To accompany the official album release, The Struts will be touring America for the rest of 2023 with a well-deserved break over the festive period. But there ain’t no rest for the wicked as Luke spoke of plans for 2024 “I think we’re waiting just to sort of see how the records perceived. But there’s a couple of other things in the works, which I’m not sure if I can say at the moment. But, it’s The Struts – we don’t sit around and not do anything for months on end. I’m sure we’re going to be back out and touring come February, March, or at least doing something. Maybe some more Europe dates because we didn’t get to do a lot of that this year. We probably only did about three or four weeks of Europe and in the UK, of course we couldn’t get to Japan this year or Australia. So hopefully more of that from next year so a bit more venturing out, maybe.”
Pretty Vicious will be available on a variety of formats including vinyl, CD, digital download and on streaming platforms from 3rd November 2023 via Big Machine/John Varvatos Records.
Words by Charlotte Hooper
