How Keeping It Simple Helped Drive Royal Blood's Latest Release

As far as debut albums go, you don't get many more successful opening gambits than that of UK rock duo Royal Blood. Despite having only been a band for a touch over a year at the time of its 2014 release, their self-titled long-player debuted atop the UK album charts and found them honoured with a BRIT Award for Best British Band - bestowed by legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, no less - as well as countless other awards and accolades.

And while they managed to shrug off any pressure when striving to concoct new follow-up effort How Did We Get So Dark? - which steers Royal Blood's robust band dynamic into new and rewarding places — to hear frontman Mike Kerr talk about it, they weren't even convinced until recently that a second album would even be viable. "Fuck, we didn't even think we'd make back the 500 quid we spent on recording our demos first time around, so even contemplating a second album seemed hilarious," he laughs. "I dunno, I guess towards the end of touring the first one I kind of felt like we could make another album for sure.

"I think I was just so stoked that we managed to get an album out of such little in the first place, so the idea of making another one was, like, 'I dunno if that's even possible', to be honest. But towards the end of it, we had a lot more ideas coming together, and I was more comfortable in my shoes as frontman and as a bass player, and it kind of felt like we had another one in us."

"I really don't believe in music being like homework you've got to hand in on time. Fuck that."

They spent the best part of two years after Royal Blood touring the world — gaining huge new fanbases everywhere they played — but when time came to create new material they basically just pushed all that success out of their minds. "It's a weird one, I think it's just about switching off really," Kerr reflects. "You have to make music for yourself, and I think the moment you stop doing that you lose everything that was cool about you in the first place.

"So when we got back home it was about switching off from the world and abiding to no schedule and having no expectations, and I think we both decided that this record will take as long as it takes: I don't care if it takes ten fucking years, we're going to make an album that we think's really cool, and that's it. And we're just going to shut the world off.

"So we just went back into our own little world and it was me and Ben [Fletcher — drums] in a room staring at each other, kind of riffing off each other and coming back up with ideas again. That's how it works, we don't let anyone in really, and that's when the ideas come together. And I think that in the future when we continue to make music it will stay like that, I really don't believe in music being like homework you've got to hand in on time. Fuck that."

Now Royal Blood are already on the verge of their third Australian sojourn during their short lifespan — announced at the pointy end of the Splendour In The Grass line-up as well as conducting a lone Sydney headlining gig — a fact especially weird to Kerr given that he spent nine months bumming around Down Under immediately prior to returning home and starting the band. "It's quite a cliche thing to do but I just wanted to do a year out in Australia," he chuckles at the recollection. "I'm from a very small town called Worthing, just outside of Brighton, where no one really leaves it, so the idea of going to Australia at the time just seemed so exotic to me. I lived on the Gold Coast for a bit, did some travelling and all of the things like a Brit would do in Australia.

"It was a great time, so it's weird coming back to Australia and doing shows and gigs and stuff, because at the time I felt so far away from home — it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere — and to come back and have fans in Australia is really mind-blowing for me. Probably more so than to Ben, I'll say [to him], 'You don't understand, I used to eat in that cafe!' It's weird: imagine going somewhere on holiday, and then going back to that destination and you're famous there. It does my head in."