The Vamps: 'We wanted to get back to our original sound on this album'

The group have just dropped their latest studio album
Left to Right: James McVey, Brad Simpson, Connor Ball and Tristan Evans
Getty Images
Safeeyah Kazi13 July 2018
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The Vamps have told how they wanted to return to their own sound after their last album of collaborations with other artists.

The British pop-rockers worked with DJs including Matoma and Mike Perry on their Night & Day (Night Edition) last year.

With its sister album, out on Friday, the band limited the number of guest collaborations so they could go back to guitar-driven music.

On Night & Day (Day Edition) The Vamps did record with a small number of artists, however, such as Machine Gun Kelly and Danny Avila.

Guitarist and singer for the group James McVey, 24, told the Standard: “On the Night Edition (released last year) we did a lot of collaborations with DJs and that unintentionally kind of steered the rest of the album.

“With this one, there’s only one or two collaborations. But the rest of it is back to original Vamps. We wanted to go back to that sound.”

Lead singer Bradley Simpson, 22, explained that the band-driven sound on the Day Edition of their two-part Night & Day Album stemmed from childhood influence.

He said: “The Night Edition was more of the challenge because we’ve grown up with bands since we were 11 or 12, so the band thing always feels like that’s (who) we are because we are musicians.

“The dance thing with the last album was a conscious thing as a challenge. It keeps it fun. It’s easy to get quite stale from a live perspective you’ve got to do stuff that really pushes you.”

The group, who have released four albums in five years and embarked on five tours in that time, highlighted the importance of constantly releasing content.

Night & Day: The new album forms one half of the two-part record
PA Wire/PA Images

McVey said: “We’ve done five tours in five years and four albums in five years. We’re the only band that’s done that. The nature of it is that we have to constantly release stuff. “There is a feeling from people that we need to constantly be releasing content. I know I get annoyed when my favourite bands take two years to release an album.”

On experimenting with their sound over their seven-years in the industry drummer Tristan Evans, 23, said: “The cool thing is you can do so many different things and not be hassled for it now.

“The whole modern Spotify-era allows people to try new music out. For artists it’s inspiring to listen (and make) all these different kinds of music.”

Night & Day (Day Edition) is out today

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT