The Vamps announce Meet The Vamps: ReVamped and talk to us about what to expect
The Vamps have announced the release date of their mini album and spoke to us about what to expect from it.
It has been 10 whole years since The Vamps released their debut album, Meet The Vamps, and now they’re back breathing life into those original songs. Meet The Vamps: Revamped is due out later this week, on 20th September, and contains six reimagined tracks.
James, Tristan, Connor and Brad have already released three of the songs, leaving fans extremely excited for the next set of songs. They got together in the countryside to work solely on this reimagined mini-album and it promises to be one of their most exciting pieces of work.
I recently sat down with The Vamps to discuss their coinciding tour which you can read about here. But we also talked about the Meet The Vamps anniversary and the eagerly awaited revamped album.
We chatted about the ‘Meet The Vamps’ anniversary tour in the last interview. But you are also rerecording the entire ‘Meet The Vamps’ album, naming it ‘Meet The Vamps: ReVamped’. How does it feel rerecording all those songs 10 years on?
James [J] – It was great. We re-recorded the majority of the stuff last summer. We went to a studio for two weeks. What was nice was a lot of the rerecords are just organic instruments which is how we started as The Vamps with just our guitars. I think it’s really nice to just produce it ourselves and do it in a way we wanted to.
Brad [B] – Yeah, there was a moment when I was trying to put a synth part in and it was quite late. The studio had loads of cool synths and I just remember being like I’m going to make this synth work. I was there for like an hour and I looked round at the boys and they were like nah.
Tristan [T] – I think I know which one you mean and it’s genuinely in there.
Connor [C] – ‘Oh Cecilia’ was done in majorly one take with James and Brad. I overdubbed the bass in after.
T – Con played the banjo too, battered!
C – ‘Somebody To You’ was fueled by rosé!
Was the process any different this time round to when you first recorded the songs 10 years ago?
J – 100% different, in every way.
B – We did all the re-records completely ourselves. They were all self produced, there was no one else involved. I think that’s testament that we’ve spent ten years learning from really good musicians, producers and writers.
Do you enjoy producing the songs yourselves?
B – It’s fun. Everyone pitches in. It’s very open and collaborative, we try out everyone’s suggestions. We built up all the songs. We stayed in one room together, all the instruments were set up and we did it there and then. Then we started tracking everything and we’ve never done that before.
T – We’ve always wanted to do that.
Did you ever think you’d re-record any of your albums? Was it ever an idea before?
All – No.
B – The idea came up a few years ago. I was always like my voice has changed over the years as well and I can’t hit any of those notes anymore. So it was nice to see how we all redid our parts.
T – I think also we always liked our favourite artists reimagining their songs and if they release it and it sounds better, awesome. We wanted to do that.
Do you think the songs from ‘Meet The Vamps’ sound better rerecorded or the originals?
B – I think when you listen back to the originals there is such a sense of nostalgia behind them, they were the soundtrack of our lives for so long. That’s all we used to listen to, just ourselves. But then the re-records are cool because we remember the process of making it. For us, it’s got a different feeling to each song. It’d be interesting to see what the fans think.
Do you think the fans will prefer the ReVamped version or the original ‘Meet The Vamps’ album?
B – I don’t know, really.
C – Some of them are very different.
J – ‘Can We Dance’ is.
On the tour, will you be singing the ReVamped versions of the songs or the originals?
B – Maybe a bit of both. I think we’ll maybe try to keep it consistent with the sound of the revamped versions. It’s nice though because people can still connect to the song and the lyrics, it’s just a bit dressed up.
Do you think you’ll ever rerecord any of your other albums?
T – I think it’d make sense to do ‘Cherry Blossom’.
J – In another ten years!
T – We’ve literally only just brought it out so it feels a bit too early to redo it. ‘Married in Vegas’, ‘Would You’ and ‘Chemicals’ are such good live songs so it would be a no brainer to include them at some point.
You’ve also branched out into solo careers as well as continuing with band. James you’ve just been on a headline UK and Europe tour, Brad you’ve released two singles and announced a tour recently and Connor you have a few EPs out with LUNARS and have done many shows too. Tristan, do you have any solo plans?
T – I had a makeup brand that got released, that took a bit of time. I’m working on music but just experimenting right now.
Is doing solo careers something you all always wanted to do alongside The Vamps?
B – Personally I’d never thought about it really. I think it was the same for all of us. It wasn’t bred out of a place of unhappiness. We all come from such different musical backgrounds. It really works in the context of relations we can pull from and then that creates The Vamps sound. I think it’s quite healthy the way we’ve done it, we can all indulge in our influences separately and then bring it all back into the band. I think it was just us all trying something new in between writing albums.
T – We’d never be the ones where we’d be like oh you can’t do that, it’s part of the process and it’s so healthy. It’s so good hearing what we all do individually.
Is there anything else you’d like to add about the tour, album or anything you’d like to say to the fans?
B – A massive thank you to our fans. We’re so excited to be back!
The Vamps are also currently on a UK tour celebrating 10 years of ‘Meet The Vamps’ and playing the album in full to delighted sold-out crowds. The tour sold out in less than an hour but there are limited tickets left here.
‘Meet The Vamps: Revamped’ is available this Friday.