The Lottery Winners took over Glastonbury in 2023 with a staggering six gigs over one weekend – but don’t ask them to do it again.
The You Again hitmakers, whose new album KOKO has secured this week’s number one album, have been hailed for their engaging and exciting live performances by fans and critics, and they pushed themselves to the limits at Worthy Farm two years ago.
Speaking exclusively to Metro outside Founder’s Hall in Manchester on Monday to launch PRS and the British Beer and Pub Association’s Pubs Go Live campaign, frontman Thom Rylance said: ‘That was too many gigs.
‘It was far too much. I didn’t see any other band, I only saw my band! It was just too many gigs. Everyone else loved it – I just wanted to enjoy a burger!’
‘People say we’re the best band to ever play Glastonbury,’ he said with a smirk and a laugh. ‘That’s not something I’d ever get involved in, but if a lot of people are saying it, like my Auntie Tracy…’
The Pubs Go Live campaign, which launched last Thursday and runs until Sunday, has been celebrating live music in its purest form, and Thom sees a direct link from small rooms to where the band are now.
They’ve supported the likes of Noel Gallagher, Nickelback and Avril Lavigne, with a stadium-sized tour this summer supporting new pal Robbie Williams.
‘We met our bass player, Katie Lloyd, in the local pub. If that never existed, I’d have never met her,’ he pointed out. ‘If it didn’t exist, because the pub was shut, I would not be playing in stadiums this year.’
Thom described pubs as a place he and his friends ‘lived every night’, as they gave birth to future hits and learned their craft.
‘I learned how to deal with so many situations from playing in those pubs,’ he laughed. ‘In the middle of a song, the doors bursting open and lots of dogs and police people coming in.’
Looking back on the unusual situation, he remembered the group launching into a Police cover.
‘They weren’t happy about it,’ he added with a cheeky smile. ‘You get to deal with a lot of different people, and that really does prepare you for the things that you want to do.
‘Like, our dream is to play in stadiums, and we’re lucky enough to be doing that.’
Lottery Winners wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the work they put in up and down the country.
He pondered: ‘Pubs are so essential to bands like mine, who are trying to break into the scene, and try and learn how to be a live band – which is the most important part of being in a band, particularly at the moment in the way that the music industry works.’
He noted that the business as a whole is ‘broken’, and people need to start supporting live music in little rooms around their cities to keep ‘the only good thing’ alive.
‘Taking away those first steps into getting there could be so devastating to the whole industry and to our country culturally,’ he said.
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Despite The Lottery Winners’ one-off return to pub gigs at Founder’s Hall – which saw them play four tracks to a special and incredibly intimate selection of fans – they’re getting a reputation as one of the UK’s best acts.
Two years ago, they topped the album charts with Anxiety Replacement Therapy, before pushing to do the same with recent release KOKO.
‘That is a win for grassroots music,’ Thom said of the band’s success. ‘But there will be no grassroots music unless we focus on this campaign.’
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