Page 28 - 368649 LP250851 NE Volume Magazine (170mm x 245mm 52pp) November 2022

THEPALE WHITE
As Newcastle alt-indie outfit The Pale White prepare to headline Waves in Sunderland, Lee Allcock caught up with the band to speak about Jack Black, their upcoming album and more.
We hear you have a fresh new live line-up. Tell us more...
This is true! Tom decided it was time for him to try something new and non-musical so he saddled his horse and rode off into the sunset. I usually fear change but it’s been extremely positive, like a new car smell. The fire in this band has been relit, doused in turps (petrol prices are too high at the moment), and it burns hotter than the apple pie Alan Partridge put in the microwave for six minutes.
And you’re playing Waves festival, which is your only North East date of the year...
Our last big hometown show was at The Boilershop last year. It was magnificent - one of my favourites to date. But we don’t play Newcastle very often to ‘starve the audience’, as they say. But for anyone that has been Googling the cheat codes (up, down, R1, R2, triangle, X, square), you’ve just unlocked SECRET INFORMATION. And that is, for every period we don’t play a big old Newcastle show, we actually play across the road in Sunderland for
a show equally as big and special. Last time we played Sunderland’s Independent for Independent Venue Week, this time we headline brand spanking new venue The Firestation for Sunderland’s Waves Festival.
And to be headlining, that's some feat...
Yeah, we’re very happy to have been invited to play. It’s going to be a hell of a show.
As you've been quiet on the gig front, what have you been up to behind the scenes/can we expect new music soon?
It feels pretty normal to watch your favourite acts tour their album and then disappear for a year or two before reappearing with new music and a new haircut, but when you're the band doing it, it’s a very unusual period. For example, I think there have been about three albums written this year. For every five songs you write, nurture and finally record a demo of, four of them go in
the bin never to be heard by anyone. Sometimes a while later, you rustle through the bin and strike gold. You think, ‘why did I bin this one?!’, but you suddenly remember that at the time, you had heard it so many times during the demo process that your ears actually started bleeding. It’s a long process, but we’re getting ever closer to the final track list of what will be ‘album 2’.
And finally, if you could go to dinner with any musician, dead or alive, who would you choose? And what would you talk about?
Jack Black. We'd eat wings and probably just make weird noises together.
To find out more about Waves Festival, head to sunderlandculture.org.uk.
28 \\ NE VOLUME MAGAZINE \\ FEATURE