Royal Blood

“Everything or nothing is all I know,” snarls Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr on the thunderous ‘Dead Company’ lead single ‘Ten Over Ten’. “Never half a measure, I go for broke”.

It’s a lyric that speaks to the determination and self-empowerment of their full-throttle new album – one driven by instinct, inspiration, family, and the certainty that it’s only these two friends that can make a racket quite like this. “Bizarrely, we’ve never done this and just gone full heavy, full speed ahead,” says Kerr of the sound and vibe of their fifth LP. “The premise for the record, musically and lyrically, just became about going all-in. ‘How do we set the speakers on fire?’”

It’s a question the band have been trying to answer since they first emerged 12 years ago when they released one of the fastest-selling rock debuts of the century. With each of their four albums having hit Number One in the UK, they’ve made one hell of an impact for a duo in shifting over 1 million records, becoming an arena-filling, festival-headlining tour de force, and forefathers of the guitar rock revival we’re seeing today. And they did it all without really stopping, until the time came to slam the brakes on.

Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher played their last show together off the back of their last album ‘Back To The Water Below’ in the summer of 2024. Usually, they’d at least have hatched a plan to get back to the drawing board and keep the machine moving. This time, they decided to switch it off and step off the treadmill. “It was just to give ourselves time to creatively recharge, rather than mindlessly just going in, going through the motions and making music to then hit the road again,” says Kerr. “We wanted to wait for the inspiration, rather than feeling like we’re obligated to make music.”

It was a long overdue break. You don’t become one of the biggest bands in the UK without putting the hours in. When there’s only two of you, you give even more of yourself. “There’s something very athletic about touring,” explains Kerr. “It’s very physically and mentally demanding. At the end of a tour, your body just needs to reset.”

The two childhood friends also set out “not to use too much of the left side of the brain”, and just let the impact of their success and journey settle to find a little peace. “When the band started, we just wanted to keep the party going,” admits Thatcher. “We didn’t want to stop. We loved every show that we played, we loved making music, and there was a fear of the fire burning out. With ‘Back To The Water Below’, we needed some time out just to be ourselves again and who we are outside of Royal Blood. It's good to reflect and remind yourself of what you’ve done.”

Thatcher, a man of simple pleasures and home comforts, enjoyed his time in Brighton with family, friends and football matches, as well as building a nest to later prepare for becoming a father for the first time. Kerr meanwhile, fulfilled a lifelong dream of spending a month in Japan to allow him “the time and energy for life outside of the band and make sure I was giving that some love”. They both benefitted, but just four months after they took their foot off the gas they were already itching to get back to it. “It felt quite smart,” says the frontman, “like we were revving the engine with the break on. The purpose and vision of the album was percolating and crystallising.”

By January 2025, Kerr and Thatcher were ready to hit the studio, giving themselves the freedom of a whole year’s empty calendar to see what was possible with two people, 12 notes and infinite outcomes. “For me, by that point, I had answered the question of ‘Why make another record?’” says Kerr of his self-analysis. “I really needed to answer that honestly and come up with a really fucking good reason.”

That reason was a reminder of why they first started this band in the first place, a certain “magic” and alchemy.  “There’s just this kind of glory that I don’t get from anything else other than being in a room with Ben and we just hit on something,” recalls Kerr. Now they had a blank canvas and a feeling to chase. After initially feeling like they were back on a “first date”, they just needed someone to break the ice and “crack a joke”. That moment came when Thatcher broke out the pummelling drum intro to ‘Swallow The Bomb’.

“We were just charging at each other,” remembers Kerr. “After that song was created, it all felt really fresh somehow – even though it’s still just the two of us. There’s something about this that feels like this is a whole world we haven’t really tapped into, which is playing faster, playing louder. We became excited by the question of, ‘What if we made the fastest, loudest Royal Blood record?’”

While ‘Back To The Water Below’ was the band breaking things right back down to the basics after the Daft Punk meets AC/DC glitterball metal of ‘Typhoons’, now the mission was to turn things up to the Nth degree to go as hard as they possibly could, with weapons-grade bangers to destroy venues. “I want to create ammo,” as Kerr puts it. “I want to create songs that will be fun for us live. This was untapped territory of things that felt ferocious. Going into the ring and smashing it out: those are the songs that made it.”

You hear it deafeningly loud and clear on the menacing desert rock meets Motörhead menace of the aforementioned lead single ‘Ten Over Ten’. The lyrics and vibe were inspired by the frontman training for a marathon, and it became all about endurance and pushing yourself.

That empowerment charges through the record from the runaway train of the title track opener right through to the scorched and soulful ‘The Closer’ via glam-garage-grunge of ‘Nowhere All Along’ and the emotive space rock take-off of ‘Ride’. Self-produced – or more “anti-produced” – by Royal Blood, they set out to make it as raw, human and visceral as possible.

The literal heart of the record could be ‘Mother Never Told You’. The title and lyric came from something Kerr’s mum said to him when he injured himself before he was due to run the New York marathon, with the song itself written as soon as Thatcher told the frontman that he was going to be a dad. It even uses the pulse of his then-unborn son from the ultrasound as the opening beat.

“The BPM was 170 so we joked about how that was the perfect tempo for a song, given that we were chasing things that were fast,” laughed Kerr. “We went down to the studio and were like, ‘We have to write a song right now’. It felt special. It felt trippy and there was almost a responsibility to make sure this was really good. You don’t want to mess it up because it’s a big deal. That song was written in about five minutes.”

Does baby Thatcher get royalties from the track? “Well it was my idea,” replies the new dad, “and I made him!”

They may be returning to something of a rock renaissance, but to Royal Blood that doesn’t mean much. They are, as they always have been, “hopelessly obsessed” with the genre they’re in and the corners of it they’re yet to explore. “There’s always going to be a time when it’s cool then it isn’t cool. We’re just heads down, doing our thing,” says Kerr. “We’re still gonna be here whether it’s cool or not.”

Theirs is the rock life. As you’ll feel on ‘Dead Company’, it’s all about a certain “positive affirmation”. “It’s amazing what it can do to your body, to your mind,” the frontman reflects. “You can change your entire perception and mood just from a song. That’s why they play AC/DC at the beginning of huge sports events. It makes you believe something that you didn’t believe before. That became the whole theme for the record. I may not feel these things about myself, but I want to create a mantra so that when I play it or hear it, I want to feel better.”

It’s worked, with Royal Blood locked, cocked and ready to unload once again. “I’m excited to get out and play shows again, especially these new songs,” ends Thatcher. “Out there playing is where we belong. After two years of not doing it, we’ve completely recharged.”

Ultimately ‘Dead Company’ is a bold 10-track response to Kerr’s question of why they should even bother making another album. This is what they were born to do, so they might as well turn it up.

“They say that confidence is stacking up irrefutable proof that you are who you say you are,” the frontman concludes. “We’ve convinced ourselves again that we really want to do this. There’s a hunger. We’re choosing to do this out of passion and our hopeless obsession with being in this band. This is a really exciting record and I’m ready to go.”