After being discovered on The Voice on UK TV, Mitchel Emms is eager to hit the road with his new band mates in The Treatment. With new album, Generation Me recently released he’s raring to go. Mick Burgess chatted to him on the eve of the tour.
You’ll be starting your headlining tour of the UK in a few days. Are you looking forward to getting out on the road again?
It’s going to be brilliant. For me personally this is my first headline tour with the band. We’re all really excited to get out there and show everybody what we can do. We’ve only done one tour with the current line up and that was with W.A.S.P. back in October last year. That was a brilliant tour, we loved that but we just can’t wait to do our own headline shows and play the new material from our new record.
Will these be your first shows of the year?
These will be our first shows this year. We’ve just been concentrating on our new record and making sure the release goes well and we’ve been building everything up for this tour. It’s been a really exciting time for us and we’ve been waiting to play for a couple of months and we’re all set now to get back out onto the road.
What sort of show can we expect from you on this tour?
We’ll obviously keep all the old favourites in, those songs that have gone down well over the years. We haven’t forgotten about the previous two albums but we’ll definitely be playing a lot of the new material. It’s almost like a brand new start for everybody with this record and the live show will be slightly different to what people have seen before. There’ll be a lot more energy, a lot more highs and lows and we might even bring a couple of acoustics out but people will have to wait and see but it’ll be a really great tour and we’re really excited about it.
Last year your UK shows with W.A.S.P. was your first tour as the singer with The Treatment. What did you learn from that experience?
For me the W.A.S.P. tour was my first tour with the band and it was about learning to get comfortable with what I’m doing on stage. I learned what my stage identity was, how I was going to move on stage and how I was going to talk on stage. I think I just ended up getting more and more energetic and aggressive on stage and just giving it to the audience.
Dhani’s Dad is Laurie Mansworth of Airrace and he has worked in the industry for years. Has that experience helped you avoid the pitfalls that many young bands fall into?
Oh, yes absolutely. He’s been fantastic. It’s a tough role to be a manager but he’s done a brilliant job of helping us understand and avoid the pitfalls of the music industry and his experience has certainly helped us in a big way and that helps us to focus on doing the best that we can do. Having that extra push of inspiration and motivation is absolutely fantastic.
Do you have any plans to perform with Laurie and his band?
We thought we’d do something special for the London show. We wondered if Airrace would fancy doing a show with us so they’ll be joining us at the Islington Academy which should be great. We’ll have a special line up and a bit of a party for that as it’s the last night of the tour. Laurie and Keith Murrell will be there from Airrace and Dhani will be playing with them too so he’ll be doing two sets that night.
Have his contacts helped get you hooked up on some great tours too?
I wouldn’t say it’s his contacts as such but more his hard work ethic and we’ve adopted that hard working ethic. Any coverage that we’ve got is as a result of hard work not through any backroom handshakes. It’s all down to hard graft.
You’ll be on tour with Scottish all girl band The Amorettes as special guests. They’re creating quite a buzz at the moment. It promises to be a pretty lively tour?
They seem to be really great and we can’t wait to meet them and have them on the tour. They seem a really fun band to play with.
Your latest album Generation Me has just come out. What’s the reaction to it been like so far?
It’s been absolutely brilliant. We’ve had amazing reviews left, right and centre. It got to No.4 in the Rock chart in the first week of release which is absolutely fantastic. To see our name amongst Muse and Bring Me The Horizon is absolutely fantastic. It couldn’t have gone any better.
How do you see this as a progression from Running With The Dogs from a couple of years ago?
I’d say I’m quite varied as a vocalist as I’ve done different styles in the past. When it came to the record the band could pull off different songs. We’ve got Backseat Heartbeat that is quite a big Rock ballad and I don’t think the band could’ve pulled that off with Matt Jones. There’s some tracks that require a heavier style of vocal and there’s more highs and lows. I think the band has become more dynamic. The band is experimenting more with the new record but not steering too far away from our roots but we are branching out beyond our earlier records. We’re trying to take the essence of what made Rock great and bring it to a new generation and hopefully we’ve achieved that with this record.
How long did you spend on the writing and recording process?
I started working with the boys at the beginning of last year and they already had a couple of songs ready for the record that they’d been playing live like Bloodsucker that had been road tested. It only took us a couple of months to get the whole album ready, trying out new ideas and experimenting with what I could do as well. It’s tough for a band to transition from having a singer for 7 years and then a new guy steps in so there was a lot of trying new things and a lot of those new things ended up on the record like the Punkier songs like Cry Tough. We’ll be playing that one on the tour.
How did they handle the loss of two members at the same time? Did you think it might be the end of the band?
A lot of things can happen in a band and it’s a test of spirit and that’s one thing you can say about The Treatment is that the boys have never stopped fighting for this band. That’s why we’ve been able to make such a great record and move forward with the new line up. There is a constant commitment and belief in the band.
How did you end up in the band?
I was on The Voice on the BBC and ended up being a finalist. Two years later I had a message from Dhani on Facebook. Apparently he’d searched on YouTube for UK Rock singers after Matt had told the band he was planning on leaving and I was the first result. He got in touch with me and I thought, why not? I’ve been involved in Rock music before but haven’t done traditional Rock so I thought I’d go for it.
What about Tao Grey, where did he come into the frame? Is he related to Tagore Grey?
He ‘s Tag’s little brother. He came into the band around about the same time that I did when we were looking for a new guitarist. He’d been around the band for quite a few years and had been to a lot of the shows. He played guitar himself but he was a couple of years younger than the rest of the band and he wasn’t old enough back in the day when it first started but he’s coming up 19 now. We just thought it made sense to bring him in and have someone we knew rather than having a stranger coming in. It’s been good for the band and good for Tao. We’ve got someone new into the band but they are also familiar so it’s been a smooth transition. The chemistry is just right, like Angus and Malcolm Young.
Your tour ends in London on 13th May. Where do you head after that?
We’ll be doing a festival in Copenhagen so we’ll be going straight to Gatwick Airport after the gig to get there. We hope to return to Europe soon to do some more shows and we’re on with booking those now.
The Treatment are on tour in the UK now.
New album Generation Me is out now on Frontiers Records
Be the first to comment