Today’s interview is with Tom Leighton, front man with three-piece rock band, Wolf Jaw. If you have been lucky enough to see these guys live before lockdown, you know just how brilliant they are and how they master that stage. Blasting out songs such as Hear Me and Thunder Child from their albums, The Heart Won’t Listen and Starting Gun, these guys know how to keep their audience happy, through powerful vocals from Tom, crazy drumming from Karl Selikis and Dale Tonks thumping out that bass.
• First off, and most importantly: How are you doing?
I’m good thank you, got a touch of the cabin fever but other than that, all good!
• How have you been keeping yourself busy?
I’ve been hanging out with the family, trying to write new music (which is coming along nicely) working on new ideas for merch for the band and trying to plan what to do next. I’ve been pretty lucky too in the fact I’ve had my day job to keep me busy too, so lots of working from home basically!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFRdjUMhtyM&w=560&h=315]• Have you had to change your way of writing material? Do you find it easy to keep the communication going?
Yeah we’ve had to make a complete change! We normally write all together in one room so we can feed off each others energy and make changes at the drop of a hat, but now… well that hasn’t been possible at all, for obvious reasons. So it’s been turning to computers and technology, which to be honest has been a good thing for us, we can listen back to things straight away and build it up as we would in the studio, so in the long run will probably save us a lot of time and hopefully make us more creative.
• What plans have you had to change this year?
All of them ha ha! We were actually on tour in Europe with Jared James Nichols when Donald Trump put the travel ban out from all European countries accept the UK, so we had to rush back so the guys could catch a flight home.
We managed five shows in Spain and one in Switzerland but we still had two and a half weeks to go. Spain was awesome though we can’t wait to go back. We’ve also had all our festivals and the remainder of our tours cancelled. Basically, it’s a write off for playing live in 2020.We have one show, which is the mayors festival in Wolverhampton which is still currently going ahead so there is that to hold on to! Also, on a personal note, I was meant to be getting married this year, and we had to postpone, which sucks!
• Wolf Jaw have recently signed with Iron Road Talent Management. How is that going?
So far its early days, but its great! It’s given us all focus, and is some good news in these tough times we’re in. We’ve known the guys there since the early days of us as a band so its really cool that it’s kind of come full circle. We are really looking forward to seeing what the future brings,
• What excitement have you got planned at the weekend? Did I hear correctly that you are live streaming a gig?
Yeah! We’re doing a fully electric set with three other bands, so apart from there being no crowd it’ll be as close to a live gig as we can get. It’s going to be a super strange experience but I’m looking forward to making some big noise! We haven’t played together since march! so it’ll be fun.
• Where should people go to check it out?
If you head over to the Wolf Jaw Facebook or website you can find the ticket link.
• How do you think the music industry will have changed post Corona, especially as several venues have had to close?
I think it’s going to change the landscape completely, maybe reduced numbers at shows? But when everyone is able to get back together the atmosphere is going to be awesome! People will always want live music.
• What plans have you got for when the isolation finishes and gigs start back up again?
On tour asap! We’re also looking at getting in the studio as soon as we’ve been writing loads of new riffs and choruses. We’ll be putting a bunch of new songs together in the next few months.
• Your fan-base is growing rapidly, and rightly so! How can people support the band – do you have merch they can buy?
Yeah we’ve had plenty of new merchandise we’ve got hats, patches, badges some new t-shirt designs. We’re just super appreciative of all the support we’ve had over the last year, we have a new video coming out soon and hopefully that will go some way of showing that.
So there you have it Wolf Jaw fans! A live streamed gig on Saturday 18th July and lots of merch for you to buy to dust off the Corona blues!
Thanks so much to Tom for the interview, it’s always a pleasure!
twitter page: @thisiswolfjaw
Interviewer: Fiona Duignan, MPM