Interview: Laurence Jones (Vocalist/Guitarist) (Written/Video/Audio)

Laurence Jones – who Classic Rock Magazine hailed as “the future of the blues” – will release his brand-new album ‘Bad Luck & the Blues’ on the 25th of August 2023 via respected independent label, Marshall Records.

‘Bad Luck & the Blues’ is a return to form with interplay of deep-rooted blues and classic rock n roll. Recorded at The Marshall Studio, mixed by Chris Sheldon (Jeff Beck, Foo Fighters, King King) and mastered at the legendary Abbey Road Studios by Christian Wright (Jack Bruce, Robin Trower, Ten Years After).

Jones’ latest effort is rip-snortin’, hard-rockin’ blues album with one eye on 1970’s classic hard rock, and its counterpart very much focused upon the here and now. ‘Bad Luck & The Blues’ is a love letter to hard hitting blues rock, with a concise, contemporary edge.

Refining his sound and returning as a power-trio that features long time bassist Jack Alexander Timmis (Virgil & The Accelerators) and new drummer Ash Sheehan (Glenn Hughes, Tony Iommi, The Twang), the new record sees Laurence at his rawest, showcasing his virtuoso guitar talents while remaining faithful to his blues roots.

We spoke to Laurence about the new album, his journey to becoming a power-trio, how he deals with being so open and honest, and so much more. Listen to it via Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, watch/listen via YouTube below, or read the transcript that follows!

Hello Laurence. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. How are you doing right now?

Yeah, really good. We’ve been quite busy over the summer with the single releases and doing some cool summer festivals around the Netherlands, the UK and Belgium. Just getting ready for the album release now on the 25th August!

When you reflect on the past year, are you satisfied with what you’ve accomplished so far?

Yeah, it’s been a really successful year in terms of doing an album and a quick turnaround, changing my line up to a power trio, to actually going out there with a fresh new tour as well and still getting new fans and building the social media. That’s still growing. So, yeah, I think it’s been a really successful year so far, which I can’t complain about, really.

Congratulations on the announcement of the new album, Bad Luck & The Blues. How are you feeling about it right now? Where’s your head at with it?

Well, really excited, first of all, to play it, get the new songs out there. Like any artist is ready to play the songs. We’ve had them for a while, we’ve listened to them, they’re on the back burner. We’ve been talking about it. We’ve played a few, chucked a few in live, which has been fun for the crowd. And my last music video, You’re Not Alone, included a live audience at one of the festivals I played, which was cool.

Really excited to get out there and play the new songs. We’re going to do probably say about seven, eight of them off the new album. And yeah, just a bit of a heavier direction for me, a different live show. It’s a lot more guitar based, which is cool. Just going back to my roots really.

Lonely Road is getting a good reaction. Why’d you choose this one as your first single?

It was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. And it came quite quick. I played it to the label and Marshall really liked it. It had a good backbeat to it, quite a fast drum beat to it and they liked the sentiment. Down a lonely road with being a musician. it has that concept and vision behind it, so we felt like that was the right one to go out there and kick start the campaign with.

Completely your decision? Label didn’t put pressure on you, they just supported you?

Well, I think it was 50/50 with a label. I sort of came to them and said, well, what are you thinking? As well, because I put trust in you. And they said, Lonely Road, and I was sort of thinking that as well, so it was a good mutual decision.

Have you decided what would be next?

Yeah, we planned them all out before. We had a good talk to our radio plugger and PR guy and had a good meeting and sat down and thought, what would be the best three songs? And to be honest, I just trusted them. I was happy with all of the ones on the album, to be honest with you, so I was happy to just go with the flow as well.

Talk to me then about your vision for this album in particular. What did you want to do when you first set out down this road, and you knew you were going to be making a new record?

To have a power trio and go out on the road with no gimmicks really, just bass, drums, guitar and led by blues rock. Having catchy choruses, which I’ve always tried to write. When I wrote this album, I wrote the guitar first, all the riffs and then I wrote the lyrics around it. So I was very conscious about how each song could flow into the next and how an audience reaction might be. Imagining it in the studio, in my bedroom, writing it.

So your vision was influenced by the fact that you wanted to be the power trio and you wanted to be able to basically take all these songs and play them on stage exactly as?

Simple as that! I’d had a keyboard player for about five years, and I just love the way it looks, the way that they set up on the side and all in a row. It’s quite classic. I feel like the music I was doing, it needed to have that space as well. Rather than the keys just padding it or the keys fattening it up. It needed to have just the bass and drums as a rawness. So, my main vibe for the album and being the producer was to record it live. I only did two days pre-production because I wanted a lot of the ideas to be natural and flow.

Where did you look for inspiration? Where were you digging into? Was it from a more personal perspective or wider world outlook?

I guess half and half really. I feel like the relationship side of the songs are quite personal and the life side like You’re Not Alone, Lonely Road and Bad Luck & the Blues, are about hardships in life. They’re quite personal as well. Bad Luck in The Blues is about my Crohn’s disease and suffering with that. I like to write songs that are quite open so people can relate to them as they know and have their own idea behind it.

Do you find that level of openness, your willingness to be so open and honest, something that’s getting easier the more you do it, or has it always come quite simply to you?

I guess it comes quite natural to me because what you see is what you get with me. I do wear my heart on my sleeve, and I do speak truthfully, which sometimes gets me trouble. So, my fans are very aware that I’ve got Crohn’s disease and I do speak about it. I’m an ambassador for the Crohn’s and Colitis charity as well. So it’s good to raise awareness for these kind of things. But yeah, in terms of writing it, I guess from a point of view, would people relate to this or would people like this? I guess I’m just confident in writing it and I guess that’s the secret, really.

Well, yes, that relatability is so ingrained within you up to this point. Even if you have, as you put it, a heavier direction, it’s still unlikely to change, it’s still about anthems, it’s still about connecting with a live audience. It’s always been what you’ve done so yeah, why would you change?

Yeah, it’s just a progression and taking on everything that I’ve learned over the years from a producer’s point of view, from being on stage to supporting loads of people on tour and learning tricks along the way. It’s been a collaboration of all that put into this album, but with the guitar being the main focus.

And it excites you. You’re still developing, you’re still learning and progressing as a musician.

Oh yeah. And I’m having fun with my band. It’s like I’ve started again, it’s like I’ve got a new love for it, which is quite amazing considering I’ve been a professional touring musician for years now.

That’s all anybody wants to hear, that you are having fun with your band, you’re still thoroughly enjoying yourself.

Oh yeah. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do it because being a musician, it can be quite challenging at times. You’re away from your family, your home, different countries, it’s hard, it’s tiring. So the fans and the music are what makes it for me. Hanging out with a band, connecting, playing guitar solos and flying the flag for guitar music, that’s what I’m about.

What were some of the challenges, or one challenge in particular that you came across during the work on Bad Luck & the Blues?

I’d say the biggest challenge I had was I had two tracks. One called Take Control and one called Stuck in the Night. When I wrote that, I had that image of like a Royal Blood sort of sound mixed with Queens of the Stone Age, a more modern rock. A bit away from the blues. When we recorded it, we went back in the studio to listen to it, and I was like, oh, it’s too modern for me, actually. Let’s go back in and let’s just tame it down a little bit. Play it a little bit more like Led Zep, a bit more like Black Sabbath, a little bit more old school. So, I guess I learned that I wanted the album to have a certain sound that we were getting this time, to not be as varied with the genres and going all over the place. I wanted it to have a good continuum throughout.

So you were incredibly conscious of having to nail that kind of older, classic sound while still sounding contemporary, still sounding modern and up to date?

Yeah, in terms of the actual sound, we were going for a modern, clean sound. In terms of what we’re playing musically and what we’re recording with the desk, we were recording all together in one big room, all live, not tracking, old school. So, with a combination of the two, with modern lyrics and what my modern experiences are from today. That’s how I tried to combine the two together. Musically, I think a big influence on this album was Robin Trower. I did listen to him a lot as my main influence, him, and Jimi Hendrix, for this album.

It is an incredibly tight balancing act to do with that. So well done on that front. What about some of the more enjoyable aspects of creating this album, things that you particularly loved doing?

I love the song writing and just being on my own and picking up a guitar and having a blank canvas, like painting a picture, really. Then you put your colours on and you just build it from there. Sometimes you’ll have a great song. I’ll notice if I have a really good song, it’ll come really quick. Whereas if I have a trickier song, I might even hold it for a few years before I release it.

Actually, a few of these songs I wrote around 2016 and 2017. I never continued with them then, but I knew that I’d have the right sound to bring them back later. A rockier album at some point.

Oh, that’s incredible. So just sitting there, waiting until it felt right.

Yeah. That’s how I knew that this album had to be a rockier album, because I’d have songs sitting in the bank, as I call it, and the songs I was writing were more rocky, so I could see it really shaping together.

Is there a particular track from the album that you’re most intrigued to hear the reaction to?

Yeah. I’m excited for people to hear this new single, You’re Not Alone, which has come out today. And I’m also excited for people to hear I’m Gone. It’s got that gritty, sort of dirty, heavy shuffle with a fuzz pedal, which is quite cool. I’m excited for people to hear that. There’s a few dirty blues tunes, dirty blues rock tunes on this album.

The expectations and requirements for you as an artist to be more available in the online world than usual, particularly when it comes to things like social media. Is this something you can enjoy or would you just prefer to never have to do it?

I mean, it’d be pretty amazing to be in a world where Eric Clapton came from, where no one had social media and there was no mobile phones at the gigs, and it was like everyone was freaking out and you had to see a gig in a newspaper and the venues were absolutely packed out because that’s their entertainment.

Unfortunately, it’s not like that anymore. There’s a lot more competition, there’s a lot of choices. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, everything’s accessible. So, in terms of music now, I’m quite old school, so I like getting an album and I like reading the sleeve and all of that. I do miss that side of it, that it can be, boom, just get it on Spotify rather than buying the album. I do put a lot of care into that side of it and try and design a lot of my albums with the labels and to make it look good for the fans. To try and make it sound as best as possible.

So the online world is a necessary evil?

I do like connecting with the fans on Facebook. I run all my social media myself and so I speak to all my fans, try and reply to every one of them that I can, because I’m grateful for them, without them, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. never really had any complaints.

What’s interesting is, in the past I’ve had different managers and my likes have really dropped down when they’ve took over my social media because my fans are so used to me doing it and being personal with them. I guess that’s quite an interesting one.

You’ve done so much, you’ve done an incredible amount. You’ve been hailed as the future of blues. How do you keep your feet on the ground when you get that kind of praise?

When I was 18, I got my first record deal and Classic Rock hailed me as the future of the blues. Did a massive spread on me and loads of people took notice of it. It was really nice, but then I realised that’s just not it. I haven’t just made it. This is where the hard work begins.

It was just about trying to better my albums every year and trying to get more fans and get bigger gigs and always striving to be bigger and better. So, it’s amazing, really. At the same time, I’ve always loved the blues, I love blues guitar playing, but my music is definitely crossover as well. Maybe in my early 20s, there’s been times where I’ve gone, you know what, I’m going to embrace this. I guess I owe a lot to the blues, and you can definitely hear that within my playing, within my singing and my vocals.

I’m really excited to see how the new album does. The fans have always been supportive. I’ve always done something a little bit different for every album. I’ve never just done a traditional blues album. Maybe I will one day, who knows?

If there’s ever a point when you decide, you know what, I’m going to do one more and then I’m going to call it, retire, go chill out. That’s the time when you pull out that full blues album.

Exactly! a lot of people have actually advised me, a lot of professionals, they said, when the time is right, and you do want to do that, you can. But you are young. Give it your all, try and do the biggest and best songs you can write and go out there with a good show. So that’s exactly what I’ve always strived to do and what I’ve tried to do with this album. Just have a good time, really.

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