MIKE Kerr and Ben Thatcher used to struggle to find places in Brighton to let them play.

Now, the English rock duo, Royal Blood, has toured the world playing the likes of Foo Fighters, Guns and Roses, and Metallica.

The Argus spoke with local-boy-done-good Ben to find out more about the band's connection to the city ahead of their homecoming gig at the Brighton Centre on September 15.

How did you spend your time during the Covid lockdown?

The lockdown happened just as we were recording the new record. We had to abandon the studio, as it was no longer safe for that many people to be in a room together.

We continued to write songs over the summer and then when we were able to get back together, we had these four new tunes that weren't originally going to be on the album.

It was a struggle because we wanted to play shows and be out on the road, but it forced us to have this bit of time off a bit of time at home which we've not had before.

This really forced us to gather our thoughts and reflect, which was definitely a positive thing. But after some time off, we're glad back on the road again.

Now we're allowed back out, what have you guys been doing?

I've been going to the football, which has been great. Mike, because he's got sober, he's found a love for the water. So, loves going swimming or wakeboarding, that's this thing.

We've just been really preparing ourselves for the next season. Obviously, we haven't played shows in two years, so a lot of rehearsing has gone into putting on the shows.

What's it been like to go from relative obscurity to a world-renowned band?

I mean it's indescribable, really is.

It was a ramp of insanity and a lot of fun, and some mind-blowing moments that we're very lucky to have.

Not many bands get to do what we've done.

And, I mean we've worked really hard, obviously, to kind of stay true to ourselves and what we enjoy in music and creating. It's definitely paid off for us.

But you can't describe the emotions and the things that have happened in the last five years because they're truly mad.

We never thought that we would be in this place, guys from Rustington and Worthing, who created a band in Brighton, who were able to tour the world and play with the Foo Fighters, Guns and Roses and Metallica – it's just crazy.

Tell us about the band's formative years in Brighton

We met at a college music event. I was going to Chichester College at the time I came along to check out some bands.

We've always been in loads of bands together and apart, but Brighton was the place that our music really came together.

We used to rehearse at Brighton Electric and a lot of the songs from the first album were created there.

We would play whatever show we could get. I remember we emailed The Great Escape in maybe 2012/2013 to ask if there was anywhere we could play.

Unfortunately, there wasn't any space for us. That was a funny email.

We really struggled to find places to play and ended up playing by just crashing open mic nights.

One of our mates, Chris Simmons, puts on open mic nights all around the South Coast in Worthing and Brighton in particular.

We just used to rock up with the drum kit and play a couple of songs. We played at the Black Lion Pub and got told to stop after two songs. It just wasn't the place to play.

The Pav Tav – when it was open – was good.

Our music got picked up by a guy called Phil Christie who worked for Warner Chappell publishing. We've been working with him ever since.

He moved to actually be the president of Warner Music UK, which is who we were signed with.

It's been an incredible journey.

You're playing at the Brighton Centre next month, but what other venues in the city would you like to play?

The obvious one for me is The Amex. For the obvious reasons, it's a big, big place. The beach would be like a fabulous thing that would be fun.

With those places, there's a lot of organisation that needs to go into those things and it can be very costly as well.

Whereas you have the Brighton Centre which is set up already and is the biggest place around really.

We love playing The Dome as well, which is one of my favourite venues to watch other bands. But want to get those extra fans in.

Why did you add the Brighton Centre date to your tour?

We obviously love playing the hometown shows. We didn't put it on the original list of places because we're gonna be playing the O2 arena and so you know we're really gearing up for the big tour.

The Brighton thing though for us was that we really wanted to pay tribute to where we're from, where we've been working the last year and the homecoming would mean we could play in front of our friends and family who haven't been to shows in a long time either.

We were discussing maybe doing a gig around Christmas time, but we felt that doing it after two other shows, we will be at our best. So yeah, we're just so excited about playing it's gonna be amazing.

What's different on your new album, Typhoons

Musically, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit less rock a little bit more disco in areas.

It still has that classic Royal Blood thing behind it, of it being Mike and I, but we have other musicians on stage who come and play and help us out on some of the songs.

It's more of a party atmosphere for this new album, it's more euphoric in its production. And I think the songs are more poppy than some of the things we've done before.

Why do you think you've moved towards disco?

I think we felt like we've ticked off the rock and roll card. It was time to expand and experiment.

We'd go on the tour bus and we're partying so there would be, you know, Abba going on, there would be Daft Punk, there would be Justice.

We're into that kind of stuff, that's in our DNA anyway, so we thought 'why don't we put that out in what we do as well, a little flavour of it at least'.

We're still in the Royal Blood park, but, we've put a new slide in the park.

Tickets for the Brighton show go sale from 9am on Friday and will be available here: www.gigsandtours.com/tour/royal-blood

SEPTEMBER 2021

13th – Lincoln, Engine Shed (SOLD OUT)

14th – Eden Project

15th – Brighton Centre (JUST ADDED)

MARCH 2022

25th – Bournemouth, International Centre

26th – Birmingham, Utilita Arena

27th – Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena

29th – Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena

30th – London, The O2

APRIL 2022

1st – Leeds, First Direct Arena

2nd – Manchester, AO Arena

3rd – Glasgow, SSE Hydro