We sat down with Alec, Nathan, and Ryan from the English-Irish band New Rules to discuss life on tour, the best things about New York, and their favorite fan moments.
The last time we talked to you guys, we referred to you as an “English-Irish Band," which seemed to cause an uproar with the fans over the band’s identities. Could you tell us more about your fanbase and the connection that you have built with them?
NR: It’s great and we feel really lucky. I think it’s always daunting for new people coming in because we have a relationship with them where we can take the piss out of them and they can take the piss out of us. People looking on the outside may be a bit confused by it but it’s very much a love thing. We always hear that if there’s someone who maybe bought a ticket themselves, they usually end up making friends. Yeah, that’s pretty special.
Do you guys have any notable fan interactions or moments that come to mind, either over social media or in person?
NR: I think one thing that sticks out is that at every show, there’ll be the ones that stand up front who carry the energy all the time, so they’ll be like, screaming every word to everything, to the point where we can’t even hear anything. The other day, someone in the train station came up and she was listening to one of our songs and she was like, “it’s you!” That was pretty cool. Also, there’s a girl in the queue who, the last time we saw her, she had dropped mac-and-cheese on her stomach and burned herself, and she just showed me the scar and it’s still there so, commitment to our song “Pasta." She committed to the bit with that one.
At this point, you guys are a few shows into the tour and I’m sure you guys have seen the Matt Healy videos of him doing hilarious stuff on stage. Have you had any cool memories or just funny moments while performing live?
NR: That’s actually our entire for-you-page right now, we’re just on MattyTok. With stuff that happens on stage, it’s pretty unscripted in the way that one of us might say something stupid. The other day in Philadelphia, we really tried not to do any It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia references, because we’re obsessed with that show, but we still managed to do about ten on stage. It doesn’t compare to eating raw meat and kissing your fans, but something to build to, I guess. Or maybe not.
This next one is more about your creative process. When it comes to writing music about personal emotions and experiences, how do you go about doing this as a group, especially if it’s not something that is shared by every member?
NR: I think our relationship is quite unique because obviously we work together but we also live together as well, and we spend more time with each other than any other normal group of people would. We’re pretty open with each other. We have a friend of ours who said the best song is universally applicable but oddly specific which I think is a cool thing to say. Just trying to apply that to each one. Letting people take the bits of themselves from each one as opposed to forcing them to follow a narrative.
Photo: @cristigtzname
Did you find that it took a lot of time to build that kind of trust with each other?
NR: It’s just about being as honest as we can because if we’re being as transparent as we can with how we feel about something, it’s just going to make it a lot easier for other people to connect to that. Vulnerability is the biggest thing. Songwriting is funny because you just want to make the best song and if that means pouring your heart out, then that’s what you’re going to do. And I think all of the people we look up to have always been super honest in the way that they write. I will say, one of my pet peeves is when you go into a session with a new producer, you can guarantee that at some point, someone is going to say, “anyone going through anything?” And I hate that. It’s like, maybe? But no.
You know that feeling when you hear a song that transports you to a really specific place or period of time in your life? Is there a song that you guys think you’ll always associate with this tour?
NR: We’re playing an unreleased one on this tour and when we first wrote it, it was really upbeat and much trashier. Still kind of a power ballad since it’s really sad. For this tour, we’ve really broken it down and it’s the song that everyone kind of goes quiet for and it’s pretty amazing. We’ll always think about Albany when we play that song because we were actually rehearsing in Alex’s cousin’s house when we were doing Thanksgiving there. I’ll remember that forever. Our first real Thanksgiving in the states.
How was your first Thanksgiving here?
NR: It was amazing. We ate a lot of food. A lot of pie. Most of the food was very similar to what we have for Christmas at home, but the pie thing, that’s a revelation. I’ve never had that before.
Here’s a bit of a controversial question. In honor of your song “Drunk Texts,” who’s the most likely to send a drunk text to an ex, and who’s the most likely to try and stop them?
NR: Actually, someone asked us this question the other day and we said Alec. But we kind of had a go at Alec and said that he'd be sending a drunk “you up?” text, which you weren’t happy about. I feel like I'd do it in a classy way. I don’t think we ever try to stop each other from doing something stupid. We just egg each other on to do something ridiculous. There’s been times where we’ve all been out and maybe we get separated from each other and then we’re [drunk texting each other], “is anyone back, is anyone at the house” and those texts are really funny to look back at. Even when we’re not hanging out, we’ll kind of drunk text each other like, “how’re you doing man." That’s pretty special.
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