One of music's most interesting and exciting bands has landed in Australia. Critically acclaimed British collective Black Country, New Road are bringing their ever-evolving live show to Palace Foreshore in St Kilda, kicking off Thursday. Touring off the back of their transformative sophomore album Forever Howlong, we spoke to the band's guitarist Luke Mark about the BCNR live show, recording and what's next:

It's such a pleasure to talk to you. I love what you guys do, all the music, and everyone’s so excited that you’re coming to Australia. Let's start with the live show - how do you think it’s evolved as a group?

Yeah, totally. One obvious thing is we keep adding instruments as we go through album cycles - not just for the sake of it, but because of how the songs end up arranged. It becomes necessary, though it does make touring tricky because we have so many fragile things. We’re actually sending all our gear to Australia tomorrow in advance; it’s easier that way.  There’s, like, three instruments each going on all the time now. But I think as we've gone along, we've gotten better at making that a harmonious experience, hopefully for the audience.

How many instruments do you personally play?‍

Various guitars - electric and acoustic - plus a lap steel guitar with devices for bending notes, and recorder on one song. Everyone hovers around that range.

Do you improvise during touring to keep it interesting for yourselves?

Yeah, 100%. When we started touring this album, I wanted to put more effort than before into making it sound sort of produced on stage, more like the album. Not that there isn’t space for improvisation, but we wanted the sound to be really solid. That said, we’ve definitely leaned into changing things as we go. Usually after a month of playing a song, we end up with parts we like more than the recorded ones. To hear those, you have to come to the show.

Do you prefer touring or recording?

It depends. Recording is intense... it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We do it live together every day, all day. It’s unusual, kind of exhausting, but amazing. Touring is also amazing, especially Australia and New Zealand - it’s somewhere I never thought I’d go, and seeing people come out is endlessly exciting.

Has a live show ever blown your mind and influenced how you perform?

Oh yeah, loads. Some shows because of the improvisation made me want to lean more into that. I saw Cameron Picton from Black Midi recently, playing acoustically with his new band - two guitars, upright bass, viola, and this unnameable rare instrument. They sat in a circle, really listening to each other acoustically. The dynamics in that small room were amazing. It was inspiring.

Do you still tour with them?

No. I’ve only done one show with Cameron’s new band, stepping in for a performance.

Is there a strong creative community in London?‍

Definitely. People play in multiple projects. I haven’t done much because we’ve been busy, but there are always opportunities to do gigs and collaborate. It’s welcoming and a really nice experience.

Are you writing new music?

Yeah. We have one new song for HELP(2) [from War Child Records], a charity album originally from the 90s, releasing March 6th. It hasn’t been played live yet, but we’ll perform it in Australia. As for the other stuff, we’re always constantly writing little ideas for future projects. There's a couple of unusual style shows, which I actually can't say anything about but we're going to be writing a lot of stuff for that.

Was James [Ford, HELP(2)'s executive producer] involved in the recording?

He wasn't there on the day,  he was on Zoom, but our producer on our track was Marty Solani, who's really amazing as well. She produced several of the songs on it in the room. James was overseeing the production, shaping the whole album. So we worked with him on the mix, sending notes back and forth. He's always great to work with. We only had one day to record it in this little room in Abbey Road. There's going to be a film coming out with it at some point where you can see the process and all of these children from local schools  came in to film it and were chatting to us and playing our instruments. It was really funny. It made it a lovely little experience. So usually everyone's stressing about their playing in the studio and worrying, and we didn't have enough time to with all these kids cracking up the whole time. It made it a lot more fun.

Is recording in iconic places like that still exciting?

Absolutely. When you hear a take through insanely nice speakers, like a Neve desk, it just sounds like real music - the kind you’ve grown up hearing.

The world feels chaotic at the moment. Do you have any advice for younger creatives who might be discouraged or feel like creating and promoting their art is difficult to do right now?‍

On a personal level, I've always been quite uncomfortable with that side of this job, the promotional side. In the current state of how media works now, you're not just going to have a CD put out and loads of people buy it. You've gotta get exposed and I've always been uncomfortable with that side of it. I always try and keep out of that conversation but when that space should be being taken up by other stuff it becomes more complicated. I've struggled with the idea of how worthwhile making art is. I do believe that it is valuable and helpful for people. I think that if we didn't have any of that to relate to or hold onto and make it feel like we are connected with other people, then the empathy in the world would be massively reduced. No one would be finding new ways to tell each other how we feel about whatever's going on. You know, emotionally or politically.

What’s inspiring you lately?

I found an album by Linda Perhacs today. Parallelograms [1970].

With the song Hey, Who Really Cares? I love that album.‍

It's amazing. Sometimes music I loved before isn't hitting the same emotional buttons for me and I get a bit disillusioned. I'm like, 'maybe i'll never get excited about this again'. But then it only takes one song to reignite that [passion] and you realise that it is possible again.

Aside from music, is there anything important you want to use your platform for?‍

That's a good question. I don't want to seem like I'm preaching from my position or anything... but I think one thing that's on our minds at the moment is being aware of where we're deciding to place our music and sell it, and what channels we use to do that, because that's one way we can actually make a difference. I can say things like, fuck the U.S. or Free Palestine and things that I believe, but it's the choices that we make with where we try and make money, where we try and perform our music, that mean something. It's something that we've all been thinking about recently. It's very tricky especially with things changing so suddenly. We do think about and try to find good ways to do things, like promoting music platforms that are more ethical... It's stuff we actively consider.

What’s next for you and the band?

‍We have a U.S. tour coming up, as I was alluding to there. We're doing a sort of special kind of show later in the year or a couple that have some special features about them. So we're going to be working on that, which will be announced fairly soon I think- though those will be for people in the UK and Ireland, I'm afraid. Then I think we're going to try and work on some new songs. There's no plan for a date to record or anything but we always like to try and get them in and play them for up to a year or so before... So hopefully some new music.

Listen to Black Country New Road HERE.

@blackcountrynewroad