London based band Route 215 have been building a following in the UK with their punk influenced Rock 'n' Roll. They are currently supporting Rock Pulse favourites Solabeat Alliance on their UK tour and I got the chance to catch up with them before their show at the Little Civic in Wolverhampton. Read on to find out about their influences, touring, Spinal Tap and the 'Mexican'...

First of all could you introduce yourselves by saying your name and what you play in the band?

Nick: Yep! I'm Nick and I play drums.
Rod: I'm Rod and I sing and play the bass.
Ryan: I'm Ryan and I play guitar.
Sean: I'm Sean and I play guitar.

How did you come to be supporting Solabeat Alliance? Did you know them before?

Rod: We just got an email saying 'come on tour with us' and we had never heard of them before.
Sean: I knew them as 'Spankboy'; I never knew them as Solabeat Alliance before.
Nick: I met Oli once and he's a very nice guy! (Laughs) We just got a random email, yeah, saying 'come out' and we did.

How many gigs have you played this tour?

Rod: This is the fourth.
Nick: We just came from home today, actually. We had a day off yesterday so we just chilled out.

How did you come to be signed to All-Star?

Nick: We were signed to 20 Deck Records, which was run by the same people, they decided to start a new label. They just got overloaded with bands because they kept finding more and more (laughs) so they made a new label and moved us over to that. 20 Deck folded, basically. Randomly, the 20 Deck thing came about with a split we did with Captain Everything a couple of years ago, so it's just sort of evolved.

Have you got any funny tour stories?

Nick: Funny tour stories!
Rod: (Laughs) Everyone asks us, and it's always the Mexican!
Sean: We're a really boring band.
Rod: Go on. Tell them about the Mexican.
Nick: (Laughing) Ok, we did a tour with this band from the states, and they had this merch guy type tour manager with them, this big Mexican guy.
Rod: Don't say the name of the band!
Nick: Ok! And we were playing...can I say the name of the town? (Laughs)
Rod: Brownston! We were playing Brownston.
Nick: There was a bit of a home porno shot outside the venue! Some girl decided she wanted CDs and T-Shirts that badly and he took full advantage of the situation!
Rod: And we played it the next day at the next show, it was great!
Sean: That went down well.

How do you deal with being on tour? Is there anything that you can't do without?

Sean: Beds!
Ryan: Showers.
Nick: Yeah. Showers and a semi-decent night's sleep, really. It might sound really lame, but-
Ryan: It's ok for the first couple of nights but after a few nights of sleeping on floors...it's not nice.
Nick: This isn't the original line-up of the band, and Rod and I, in the old line-up, did several tours where we were literally sleeping in the van every night, and you don't shower for, like, a week at a time. (Laughs) It's no good, you know! Yeah, shower, definitely.

What's your longest tour been so far?

Rod: About 13, 14 days. Nothing amazing, to be honest.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

(Silence)
Nick: I don't think people ever give us any advice!
(Laughing and general agreeing that no one ever gives them any advice.)
Nick: I don't think I've ever given anyone advice, either!

What advice would you give to bands that are just starting out?

Nick: Buy some earplugs! Seriously, that's my top tip!
Sean: Don't worry about getting signed to a small label.
Nick: Yeah, just get up and play as many shows as possible. Which is exactly what we don't do, basically! (Laughs)

What music are you listening to at the moment? Have you got any favourite bands?

Nick: Right now my favourite album's the newest Brand New one; I keep listening to that over and over again. The latest Thrice album, as well.
Rod: I've been listening to a little bit of Duran Duran lately; I must be honest.
Ryan: Ben Kweller's new album.
Sean: Brand New's new album.

What was the first gig you went to?

Sean: Lenny Kravitz.
Ryan: Mine was The Offspring in '94.
Nick: I went to Donington in '95 and saw Metallica play.
(Dan SBA wanders into the room)
Rod: We're doing an interview, come and join us!
Dan: Ok!

Who are your musical influences?

Nick: Oh God, the list is never ending! (Laughing) How much tape have you got in there?!
Rod: Just everyone!
Nick: Everything and anything that we hear, I think. Personally, anything I hear has an effect. It comes out somehow.
Rod: I'd say for me, it would be Weezer, MXPX and Ash. And that's it.
Nick: Yeah, that's what we sound like. Weezer, MXPX and Ash.
Rod: With a little bit of Motley Crue! (Laughs)

Do you have any favourite tracks off 'Steal Your Soul with Rock 'n' Roll'?

Rod: I don't think so, no.
Nick: There are some tracks that I don't really like too much, but I'm not going to say them! (Laughs) No, I think they're all pretty cool.

Do you have any favourite tracks to play live?

Sean: Steal Your Soul.
Rod: Steal Your Soul is always fun to play live.
Nick: Really, it's the newer stuff. We've got a couple of new songs that we're just ironing out now. New songs are always the most fun to play, no matter what they are. There's just a lot more energy about them.

How long did it take you to record 'Steal Your Soul With Rock 'n' Roll'?

Rod: About a month.
Nick: I think we were in there for about 24 days.

Were there any problems with recording it?

Rod: Yeah, well we didn't have a guitarist!
Nick: We had to borrow some guitarists! That was a bit of a problem.

You played a live set on the BBC World Service. How did that come about?

Nick: (Laughs) Once again, we just got a random email from someone saying 'come play this!' It was a live set, so we just went, basically. Yeah, that was meant to be amazing. It was supposed to be an outdoor thing with a big go-kart track set up and everything, but because of health and safety reasons, instead of having go-kart racing, they had a scalextric in the corridor of the studio!
Ryan: Which we broke!
Nick: So yeah, that was cool.

Is it weird to think of how many people heard that?

Nick: That's incomprehensible.
Ryan: I don't think anyone heard that!
Rod: 8 million in Nigeria!
Nick: We've been told that about 50 million people listened to us. That's a lot of people!

If you could star in the remake of any film, what would it be and who would you play?

Ryan: Aw, what a good question!
Rod: Yeah! It'll take us ages to think of an answer, though.
Sean: Ashin the Evil Dead, man. That's the one.
Nick: Marty McFly!
Ryan: Ferris Bueller.
Rod: What about Indiana Jones?

Would you ever want to star in a Spinal Tap style documentary?

Everyone: Yeah! Rod: I watched that last night, actually.
Nick: Ask any touring band, and they'll say that Spinal Tap is pretty true to life! (Laughs)
Rod: Yeah, there are some things in there that are scarily true to life.

What have you got planned after this tour?

Nick: More shows, really.
Rod: A demo. We're going to be starting a demo up of our next album. And more shows.

Have you got a favourite show that you've played so far?

Sean: Yeah, Leicester.
Nick: We did a few dates with The Vandals, and the fact that we were with them, I mean they're childhood heroes, anyway. And the last show of that was at The Charlotte in Leicester and it was just amazing; absolutely packed and everyone was having a great night, so much energy.

Do you have any heroes or idols other than musical influences?

Sean: Bruce Campbell.
Nick: Yeah, Bruce Campbell! Ash from The Evil Dead.
Rod: I was asked this question the other day, actually. I couldn't think of a single person!
Sean: It would probably just be your parents or something like that.
Nick: I was just about to say that, My Dad's pretty...
Sean: Heroic! Rod: I like Nikky Sixx.
Nick: Motley Crue, basically.
Rod: And Ollie, the singer from Farse, he's got good taste. Hasn't he? Is he from around here..?
Nick: You just called Ollie from Farse your hero. (Laughs)

If you could beat up any celebrity, who would it be?

Ryan: Rod!
(Laughs)
Nick: I don't know, I'm not really into beating people up! (Laughs)

Is there anyone you hate?

Rod: Did you want us to answer that question with Busted? Because we love Busted. We actually really, really like Busted!
Nick: (Laughs) It wouldn't be Busted! Any celebrity that tries to...dirty their name!

Is there anything else you'd like to say or promote?

Nick: Come and see us out on tour!
Rod: And buy our album!
Nick: Go check out our website at www.route215.com and thank you very much!

Thanks a lot to the band for taking the time out to do the interview. As Nick says, you can find out more about them at their website, www.route215.com, and go and check out their shows if you get a chance!