Rob caught up with ben and Simon from Young Guns before their headline show in Wolverhampton to talk about their year so far, touring America and much more.

We last interviewed you in February when you played the ever so small Moles club venue in Bath, how have things been since then?
Ben: Busy, really busy

Simon: It seems like when you think back to the Moles show, that it was a long time ago, it was part of the underplay tour, then we went out to Europe with Lower Than Atlantis, then came back to the UK and had two weeks to rehearse for the Lost Prophets tour in Europe, did that tour and ended up in Amsterdam then had to fly out to Sydney, then Japan and then the festival season, and the Enter Shikari tour,

Ben: Then we spent five or six weeks in America, then we came back and we’re doing this tour so allots happened this year

Simon: We’ve tried to push bones as much as we can

You are currently headlining the Vans Off The Wall Music Nights tour which I understand is your biggest tour to date how has it been so far?
Simon: It’s been unbelievable; this is the third or fourth show. We started off in Portsmouth and the shows just keep getting bigger, and all the shows have sold out, the crowds have been amazing, we’ve got a proper lighting rig and a great crew and all the bands have been amazing, and we’ve been really lucky in that respect.

How have you found being on the road with We Are The In Crowd, Your Demise and The Marmozets?
Ben: It’s been a great pleasure to take out new and aspiring bands like the Marmozets, who are so young, and their really good at what they do. So it’s Marmozets who kick it off then it’s Your Demise who are so good at playing live shows and getting the crowd going, there the perfect band to play with. Then there’s We Are The In Crowd, who all the kids love and who are from the states, it’s such a strong bill, when we were choosing the bands we wanted to make it an exciting and varied bill. You’ve got so many similar tours at the moment, which is all well and good, but we prefer it when we bring bands from different genres together.

Simon: The crowd have loved all the bands, and they’ve all gone down so well, the support bands aim is to get the crowd warmed up, and they’ve done it so well.

Ben: We also get on really well with them all; we’ve just come off the bus with the Marmozets and Your Demise boys, playing a bit off Fifa.

Simon: Yeah we’ve known them all from previous shows in the past, and we like to make sure we pick the bands we tour with and we were lucky enough to get them.

You have also announced 4 Vans in store acoustic performances with yesterday in Cardiff being the first one, how did you find it?
Simon: Its brilliant, we’ve always enjoyed doing those kind of things as its different, it lets us strip down out songs. Yesterday was great, it was heaving, so we got all the fans to sit down so everyone could see us, which was weird as it was like an assembly or something. But its good as it gives us more time to chat to the kids and stuff.

Ben: It also helps if some off the kids can’t come to shows in the evening, whether it be because it’s sold out or because they can’t stay out late, it gives us that opportunity to get closer to them.

Once Your UK shows come to an end you are heading out to mainland Europe with the Vans tour for four weeks, are you looking forward to playing certain countries and cities more than others?
Ben: We go down really well in Belgium, Germany and Holland they tend to be our stronger territories.

Simon: It’s tough, even in places like Paris, which we love, because Europe can be a strange place to wake up in, but it’s fun. We’re trying to push Europe as hard as we can, as we get to loads of great cities like Prague and Rome.

Rob: Rome’s great, it was packed when I went this year, it was almost a hundred degrees most days and it was wall to wall terrorists ….. Sorry I mean tourists

(Laughter)

Simon: I almost did that in an interview the other day, talking about what we did in America and I was saying oh you know The Empire State Building and basically all the terrorist things, but luckily I said tourist things.

(Laughter)

Ben: That’s genius, you’ve got to keep that in

You have announced that your next single release is going to be ‘You Are Not Alone’ what made you decide to release this song over the rest on your album ‘Bones’?
Simon: When we wrote the songs for the new album we always knew we wanted it to be a single

Ben: It’s our fifth single and it fits with all the other singles we’ve released as the others are more pumping songs and this rounds up the album cycle well as it’s a more chilled intimate song, but its got a great hook to it.

I understand that you have completed filming a video for ‘You Are Not Alone’ how did you find the process and what can you tell us about it?
Simon: We did, what we think is a great video for it, which was filmed in Brooklyn.

Ben: Allot of it was based around Gus, he’s like the main focus, and it follows him through the story line and the situations he gets up to, and we appear in different scenes.

Simon: But it was really hard filming, but it was also great to see different parts of Brooklyn.

‘Bones’ has been out for just over 8 months now are you happy with the success it has had in the UK?
Ben: Great, we were amazed at how it got in the top twenty albums at like five or six for few weeks. And for us being a bunch of idiots of High Wycombe, it’s amazing that our music is doing far more than we ever expected. We’ve been so happy, the crowd love it and any songs from the album go down great.

Simon: With us playing shows the size of this, it shows that people like it and that it’s doing well.

The album has also recently been released in America, what has the response been out there so far and how did you find your recent tour out there?
Simon: Really really well, much better than we ever expected.

Ben: We spent two weeks in New York with our record label who said we had two weeks off press and promo, we thought we can’t be that busy in one city, but it was wall to wall promos, from one place to another. We played an acoustic show in the apple store in Manhattan for the album release, and we’re really happy that our single out there at the moment is going up the charts. All the radio and tours we did where great, but were positive that we’ll do well and that we’ll be back there for more tours soon.

What would you say your main high and low points as a band have been so far?
Simon: There are not many lows, I think things like where away allot and have loved ones at home which can get hard, with things like sleeping in a bunk bed for a year and missing your mum and your dogs does get hard but there aren’t many. As for highs, touring America and the UK was a dream as a kid and getting to do it along with getting into the top twenty and selling out huge shows is just amazing.

If you met someone who didn’t know who Young Guns were what one song would you tell them to listen to to understand what you are about?
Ben and Simon: Bones

Ben: When we wrote that, we had a bench mark and when we wrote the album we were stuck in the studio writing lots of songs but nothing we loved, which we through away, then our produce let us go on a studio break for a couple of weeks where we just partied and got drunk for most of the time and hardly wrote anything, we did try, then by the end of the two weeks Bones just came out of nowhere, pretty much the whole chorus, and that was the moment we went; this is what we want to do, and that was a special moment for us and Bones definitely sums up our band.

Simon: It’s a good mix of more intimate lyrics that Gus writes and the power and energy of the music that we write with the big drops and high suspense and we think it’s a good mix of everything.

You said you through away some material, will that ever re-surface?
Simon: We’ve got so much stuff on the computers, on one side. When we write it’s the five of us in the room, no songwriters or anything, and it can get quite tough, too many cooks and all that. But if one of us isn’t happy then we’ll through it away, but we’ve got so many songs that say three of us will love and two of us will hate, but we will go back and listen to old stuff when where writing and see if it can influence us.

Ben: For instance Way Of The Wild, we had that wrote down four years before it with a million different versions and we came back and listened with a fresh head and said this could work if we do it this way.

Simon: If there’s a good idea that we had and never used we might go back to that for inspiration, but were always looking to be fresh and new and come up with more ideas, so it does help.

Ben: Were really looking forward to getting back to writing again.

As you guys are still a young band, how does it feel to be where you are now?
Ben: It’s a weird one, it happened so gradually, when you’re in a band and you’re playing shows to like five people, then its ten then its fifty and before you know it you’re playing shows to thousands of people. It’s such a gradual process that you only get snippets of realization, like you’ll be out in another country having a beer and you’ll think “Shit, I’m lucky to be here” and it’s something we don’t want to take for granted and we cherish it as much as we can. Its one of those things, being in a band is so busy, so it’s hard to focus on what’s happening, as one week your concentrating on America, the next it’s your headline tour of the UK.

Simon: Its none stop

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Simon: Thanks for supporting us and listening to our music and coming to our shows, and without you guys we wouldn’t be where we are

Ben: We’d be absolutely nothing

Simon: So thank you for your support!

Interview By Robert Lawrence