Apollo Junction: ‘We’re never short of ideas’

It also boasts seven dozen singles – with even more potentially to come in the next few months.

Releasing so many tracks to streaming sites wasn’t the band’s original intention, says singer Jamie Williamson, “but due to the timescale on how the album worked, because time’s passed by, we wanted to keep busy”.

“We were going to tour the first album this year because we were forced to stop because of what’s been going on (with the Covid pandemic),” he explains. “Luckily we had songs ready to put out so we sort of started the new album campaign six months earlier than intended.

“It think Two Car Family is our seventh single, which is like the Michael Jackson way of doing it.”

With lockdown restrictions to contend with, the band “found new ways” to write. “We stopped doing it the old-fashioned way and went online,” Williamson says. “All five of us come up with ideas, so there’s always lots to go on. We have a collective (computer) folder on our G-Drive which is full of ideas – little bits of drumbeats or piano parts, sometimes a bit of an acoustic song or something someone’s built themselves at home on a computer and got a bit of a demo towards. When it came to the album we first of all looked at what we had in the folder and then just before the first lockdown all five of us were able to sit down together and decide which were the core ideas and started working on them.

“We just sent stuff backwards and forwards. We’d send stuff to Johnny (Thornton) who would start building a drumbeat on his iPad or in his kitchen on his drumkit and then it would go over to Matt (Wilson) and there would be a guitar part, I’d be thinking of melodies or words, then we would bank the ideas together. By the time we were able to get back together we would start jamming the ideas through then went into the studio.

“We’re never short of ideas,” he adds. “The same folder is already half full for the next album just sitting there ready to go. When all this (album campaign) is done, by about April next year, we’ll probably have a completely new song out, we’ve already half recorded it.”

Given the circumstances in which it was made, All In could have been quite a ruminative record. However, Williamson says, it was always their intention to remain upbeat. “The whole spirit of the band, I think, has always been about doing it because we love it. We loved it when there was nobody bothered about what we were doing, we were hoping people would get behind us and start backing us a little bit, but no matter what happened we still loved it.

“Then as people have got into us, and more people have started supporting us or listening in to us, we’ve tried to keep that spirit up and invite people in. We spent a long time working out what to call this album and nothing seemed to encapsulate the spirit of us more than ‘all in’. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, we have all been through atrocious, rubbish times for the last couple of years, but the shining spirit in the middle of it is how much people want to be together, and this album is about that. If you listen to this album you can hear that togetherness.”

Over the summer and early autumn, the band managed to perform several shows, including guest appearances with Kaiser Chiefs at The Piece Hall in Halifax and Scarborough Open Air Theatre. “It was incredible,” says Williamson. “Kaiser Chiefs are amazing, the fact they asked us to join them and do these dates, we don’t take these things for granted. We’ve played a lot of shows to nobody in the past; to be able to play to their incredible fanbase has been an absolute pleasure. They’re really nice guys, we’ve spent a lot of time around them and you can see how much they love doing what they do, and it was a pleasure to play to their audiences and hopefully some of the people who like the have discovered a new band in us as well.”

On November 27 they are due to play their largest ever home city gig, at Leeds Warehouse. The date has already sold out, but Williamson says: “We’ve been talked into playing an ever bigger one in April next year, at Leeds University Stylus. I think it’s about 1,100 people (capacity). This is the sort of people we are, we’re going, ‘Do they know that’s a lot of people?’ But off we go again!”

All In is on Friday November 12 in numerous different versions on the Guiseley-based label Shed Load Records. Various coloured vinyl editions have already sold out on pre-orders, but others remain available from their website apollojunction.com.

A special Apollo Junction beer is also being brewed by Kirkstall Brewery. The band are also doing a series on appearances at local record stores between November 12 and 17 as well as one of Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties on November 18. See twitter.com/ApolloJunction for details.