He said: “We imagined that our 25th anniversary tour and our tenth album would both come together in this worldwide celebration that we would carry around like a circus until the wheels fell off. So when everything stopped it was strange waiting.
“The excitement of finishing a record usually rolls over into the beginning of the tour and watching the whole thing grow. From the songs to the production and the full band’s performance. We take it step by step eventually winding up at the big festivals and in the stadiums.
“Seeing a song go from an idea written on a napkin to something that 60,000 people sing along to is a wild ride and it happens over time. So this is a broken process.
“But I had this idea that we should release the album sooner than later so that by the time we do hit the stage, people will be familiar with all of the new songs.
“A lot of the times when you come out with a new record, you start playing the new songs live and people aren’t entirely familiar with them so they have to grow in your ear and your heart. Now, by the time we hit the stage, people will be singing every word because they’ll have time to get to know it.”
The ‘Times Like These’ hitmakers were forced to spend eight months apart because of the global health crisis, but as soon as they got back into the same room, it was like they’d never been apart.
Dave told The Sun newspaper: ““It felt like a dream. We all walked into the room, one by one and saw each other for the first time in almost a year. No instruments or amplifiers. We just sat in the room together.
“It was a reunion of old friends who rely on each other for a lot more than just playing music. It was f***ing beautiful. Then we put on our instruments, looked at each other and played ‘Learn To Fly’ and it sounded exactly the same as the last time we played it a year before.
“At the end we looked at each other and laughed. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that for the rest of our lives.”
Leave a Reply