Good Trip, Bad Trip: The Orwells

Illinois band on touring life, secret shows, and why London suburbs make the worst pizza...

The Orwells live to be out on the road.

Sure, the Illinois group excel in the studio – the controlled chaos of new album 'Terrible Human Beings' is testament to this – but some switch seems to turn on when they hit the stage.

Returning to the UK, The Orwells are set to play a very special show at Metropolis Studios, West London tonight (March 6th) alongside Our Girl.

A unique opportunity to catch the band in such an intimate environment, it comes as The Orwells prepare to close their UK tour at London's Scala venue tomorrow night (March 7th).

Ahead of this, Clash caught up with The Orwells for another instalment of Good Trip, Bad Trip…

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Best Trip…
Maybe our second SXSW. We had all the main boys with us and threw a house show at our AirBnB that easily topped any show we've ever played down there. Fireworks and broken glass galore. Kegs, too.

Worst Trip…
Maybe last time in London? December of 2016. The last day there was something of epic proportions. Literally in the middle of London's suburbs, hungover, with nothing but shitty, shitty pizza and our hands. Plus it was December, I counted about 14 minutes of sunlight.

Our favourite foreign venue…
Electric Ballroom, London. Possibly had our best show ever there. Great venue.

We’re surprisingly popular in…
My mother's car.

Best or worst exotic foodstuff…
London suburb pizza. Honestly, just whip up a Tombstone or something… it's impressively bad some places in Europe.

Most interesting individual you've met on the road…
Tony Morrison, our U.K. tour manager. The man is something else. An animal.

Worst on-tour injury, or infection, or accident…
Grant once ended up in an Italian hospital. The circumstances leading up are still debated…

My essential travel item…
Great book.

My essential travel tip…
Read. And don't be the person who comes back from overseas only talking about the bars they went to. "We went to this one pub!"… cool, dude.

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The Orwells new album 'Terrible Human Beings' is out now – catch the band at London's Scala venue on March 7th.

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