Karlie cuaght up with Karma To Burn back stage at the Fleece in Bristol before the band took to the stage for their headline show to talk about their latest album, having no singer and much more.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.

So this is the first date of your Summer 2011 European Tour, where are you looking forward to playing the most? And have you ever toured any of these places before?
Rich: London, But I like Brighton, I like them all really. Leeds is one of my favourites. We’ve been lucky with where we’ve toured before. We were supposed to play Download [Festival] but they moved our time slot, and then our plane got delayed so we didn’t make it. It was a great shame.

Have you got any rituals before you go on stage?
Not really, we’ve done so many gigs, I think we’re doing 300 gigs this year, there’s just so many shows it just becomes second nature.

How do your crowds differ from place to place? Do you notice a change when you go to different countries/towns?
Different countries have different reactions. We were in Bilbao, Spain just after Spain won the World Cup, so we were like ‘congratulations’ and they were like, ‘this is not Spain!’ Now I’ve learned that these people didn’t like to be called Spanish. They were really loud there. Then you get Germany, where everybody is quite intense. Pretty much all over the world the stereotypes are true when it comes to crowds.

How did touring with the Black Spiders come about? Have you played with them before?
No, we never have. Rhys has put all this stuff together.

You released your album ‘V’ at the end of May this year, and recorded it at Dave Grohl’sstudio , how did this come about?
I was in another band, called Year Long Disaster, and we toured with [Foo Fighters], so we got to know Dave and everybody pretty well. Dave knew of Karma To Burn. We went over there we stopped by to do some guitar stuff and he offered us to use his studio. It was really cool actually because Dave texted and told me how good the new stuff sounded!

How has ‘V’ gone down with the fans?
I think it’s gone pretty well, it’s pretty hard for people, you can’t particularly say ‘I love that one!’ because there are no lyrics to relate with.

What would you say your favourite song from the album is?
I would go between Forty Seven and Forty Nine, I really like Forty Seven a lot, but it depends what mood I’m in.

You have worked with John Garcia from Kyuss a fair amount in the past, are you planning on any future work with him?
I just talked to him 3 days ago. And yes, there will be some future work. He was going to do Garcia vs. Garcia, now he’s doing the Kyuss thing. It depends if any more members of Kyuss get arrested. If they don’t they’ll probably do more stuff, but if they’re all in jail then we’ll probably get on with our project sooner.

You were forced to hire a vocalist when you were first signed with Roadrunner back in 1996, is this something your regret having to do?
For me, it was hard. The record company never gave us a shot to see what we could do. They’re always looking for a gimmick, and we had one without trying. We were instrumental. They made us take the songs that we had written instrumentally and put the vocals on top, which was really hard to do. It was like,’ here’s the music, sing over the top of it, it had better be good.’

Would you consider hiring another vocalist for future projects?
Yeah, definitely. We’re going to do some stuff, we have so many friends that sing, such as Scott from Neurosis and Randy from Lamb Of God, the cool thing is that they’re all such different styles we could really do some cool things.

Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?
The main thing we are trying to work on right now is we’re trying to make a movie. We’re making an instrumental music movie. Hopefully 90 minutes long. We’re working with a guy called Meats Meier, who’s done the animation for Tool, he re-done the Wall animation for Roger Waters. We’ve got money for the first 60 seconds, and that’s going to cost about 40,000 dollars. We got that together from a movie company and we just hope they’ll like what they see and we can make the rest of it.

What’s the most important belonging that you take on tour with you?
My iPad, it has everything on it, including Tilt To Live, which I’m absolutely addicted to! (Rich proceeds to get out his iPad and show me how the game is played – plays game while the background music plays) This game is so great. I can literally do everything on here, even our tour budgets.

What do you like/dislike about being on tour the most?
I miss my cats. They’re jerks, but I love them. [Rich has a tattoo of his cats on the top of his right arm]. It’s just not having a place that you can use as a base, go and relax. But at the same time, I do what I really love to do which is great.

One random question we ask everyone, which animal would you rather be out of a zebra or a giraffe, and why?
I can’t pick giraffe. Breaking your back would be horrible. [Laughs] I’d have to be a zebra, you would look great, let’s face it, and not worry about breaking your back.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, enjoy your show.

Interview by Karlie M