It is easy to imagine the new songs going over very well indeed at Reading and Leeds. The pair, both 32, are speaking to NME over video call from Columbus on the eve of the release of their sixth album ‘Scaled & Icy’. Those shows at Reading and Leeds specifically have influenced decision-making and songwriting that we’ve done since then, so they’re very special to us.” That sort of connection is something I’m still pursuing and searching for. We just happened to usher that song to them, and then they interacted with it. It impacted me so much watching the fans connect with that song. “Playing that song, man, it made me want to go: ‘Why can’t I write a song that good?’” he says with a self-deprecating laugh.
“It was one of my favourite moments of our career.”įor Joseph, the band’s songwriter, playing the Oasis classic and hearing the crowd come together in one voice to sing it back was equally memorable – but it also made his competitive streak itch. They did this by covering ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, and it’s safe to say the choice went down well. When the pair were asked to headline the legendary twin festivals for the first time in August 2019, they decided to do something special, marking the occasion by paying tribute to the giants of British music.
Reading and Leeds was always a big dream, and a high benchmark.” “We’ve always had such respect – and kind of a fear – of coming to the UK and playing our music. “We were looking at those crowds and trying to wrap our minds around the British music listener,” remembers Dun. Deliciously stripped down and vibrant, '68 excels in intimate environments, to be sure, but is no less unignorable on giant festival stages or the road with Bring Me The Horizon, Stone Sour, Beartooth, Avatar, August Burns Red, The Amity Affliction, and Underoath, where they've earned new converts every day.When they first became friends a decade ago, before they were even in a band together, Twenty One Pilots vocalist Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun would sit around at home in Columbus, Ohio watching videos of bands playing huge sets at Reading and Leeds Festivals, fantasising about whether their music might take them to those hallowed stages someday. The passion, the hunger, the good humor, it all connects with diverse crowds. The '68 roadshow has taken them from Moscow to Tel Aviv, across Europe and Australia and all over North America, often splitting up 20-hour drives between the two guys. Creative, disruptive, frantic, even when dipping into a bit of Otis Redding or James Brown-style funk, '68 sound urgent. There's no "plan" with '68 so much as a ride, with the duo hanging on for dear life in the eye of the storm every bit as much as the audience. Like a Delta Blues reimagining of Bleach-era Nirvana or the disgraced punkish cousin of The Black Keys, '68 adheres to a single ethic: unbridled authenticity. And there's a muscle car-sized rumble beneath the hood of what the Atlanta, Georgia native and his percussive partner-in-crime, Nikko Yamada, unleash with an array of guitar, bass, drums, keys, and pedals, careening between swinging barnburners, wild haymakers, and moody atmosphere. Josh Scogin kickstarted his small band with the big sound in 2013, naming the two-person outfit he modestly undersells as "a little rock, a little blues, a little hardcore" after his father's old Camaro. It's a primitive impulse delivered with postmodern purpose a blacksmith's resolve with an arsenal of electric distortion and raw nerve. These are songs that could almost fall apart at any moment, yet never do, devilishly dancing between life and death. How much noise can two people make? '68 is the sound of simultaneous implosion and explosion, destruction and creation, unbound.
Not an album but cooler than your typical stop-gap project, Love Is Ain’t Dead will sate fans and electrify new listeners." Read the full interview here. Raskulinecz was available, and the band busted them all out in a week. Josh recently spoke with Alternative Press where AP states, "Scogin had written three new songs and was aching to get them recorded. Produced by Grammy-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz, this EP is the first crop of new songs we've heard from '68 since the release of Two Parts Viper in 2017.
The EP is titled Love Is Ain't Dead., and the music video for "Bad Bad Lambo" is available to watch now.