Page 36 - BiTS_05_MAY_2022

BiTS: Have you started gigging the music yet?

EW: Not yet. We are playing at The 100 Club on the 26th of April this year and that will be the
first airing of all the tracks [chuckles], so it’s a pretty cool place to start off. Over the summer
and later into the year, we’re doing Tenby Festival, Whitby Blues. Loads and loads of gigs.

They’re coming in now.
BiTS: Were you badly affected by COVID? Did you have lots of gigs disappear from
underneath you?

EW: Yes, absolutely. In fact, I have a postcard with all my gigs on because I give postcards out
at gigs with my future gigs on and there’s 21 dates that just don’t exist. It’s a piece of card that I
had 1,000 printed and they just all have these non-existent dates on. And I think what was
weird about COVID - I can only speak from my point of view and for my profession, there are
much more grave aspects to COVID than
gigs, but what was weird was that we
thought it would only last a month. So
as I looked down the gig list, I thought,
I’ll be back there in April and then April
passed and then you think, well we’ll
get the summer over. We’ll play outside
over the summer. That’s what we
thought and that didn’t happen. We
actually talked to the pubs - tell you
what, we’ll just put the back of a lorry in
the garden, in the car park. No, no, that
didn’t happen. It was tough. However,
we got through it. I had COVID once and
I was okay.

BiTS: Have you?

EW: I had it at Christmas.

BiTS: Was it a bad attack?

EW: No, I had sort of hay fever
symptoms. Very tired, but touch wood, other than that, I was okay. But it’s been the most
bizarre, peculiar thing that’s happened to us.

BiTS: Ain’t that the truth?

EW: But losing gigs was odd. It was weird and it took a while to kind of redirect that energy.
We all tried to do things like gardening and cooking and whatever, but I think writing the
album was really what sort of secured me when I was feeling - we were all feeling really rough
about things. If you could find something to sort of anchor you and the album was that and
then being able to actually make it and then get this deal, it’s just been an absolute fairy tale,
really. It’s been incredible.

BiTS: Have you actually done a gig recently? I’ve been reading online lots of people saying
that it’s been terrifying to get in front of an audience again.

EW: No. I’ve been gigging. I did Butlins, Skegness in January. Great British Rock and Blues
Festival. I did that and that was really busy. However, they did have COVID restrictions in
place. We had to show our little COVID things at the door. I’ve been doing the pubs and the