THEY are the rock band whose journey to the top has taken in Southampton every step of the way.
Reading four-piece The Amazons began playing gigs in the city’s smallest venues, but with three top ten albums under their belts they are returning to headline The O2 Guildhall for the first time on Tuesday (October 11).
It is a rapid rise for the band, who not long ago were playing intimate settings like The Joiners and defunct nightclub Lennon’s. Last month, their latest album How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? reached the top five of the Official Chart.
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Their gig on Tuesday will not be their first time at Southampton’s biggest venue as frontman Matt Thomson, guitarist Chris Alderton, bassist Elliot Briggs and drummer Joe Emmett supported American rockers Jimmy Eat World there in 2016.
Matt told the Daily Echo: “Then, it was the biggest gig we had ever played. It was daunting to walk out on stage, and it probably will be again, but it is exciting to come back. It is a full circle for us.”
He added: “We have used the last couple of years to reset ourselves and to get back in touch with the things that made us want to make music in the first place. This is a new chapter for the band.”
Renowned Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian and Adele producer Jim Abbis worked with The Amazons on their latest album. “Talk about records that made us want to be in a band!” said Matt. “Jim was at the helm for most of them. It was amazing to work with him and he pushed us to be our best.”
The band also roped in one of the world’s most famous mastering engineers, but how they found him is just as impressive as Matt explained: “I was reading a Rolling Stone magazine article about Greg Calbi and saw he had worked on unbelievable music like Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.
“We tracked him down and, luckily, he is still working and agreed to work with us. He did a great job.”
Tickets from academymusicgroup.com
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