As they played two sets each day at Reading & Leeds festival, we caught up with West and Matt from Neck Deep to talk live shows and their upcoming plans. RS: Tell us about preparing to play the two different sets on the same day? WEST: Yeah, lots more songs – there is not a repeat song. So, yeah, lots of practice.
MATT: Lots of, ‘Oh shit. How do you play the bit?’ Half the prep was picking the fucking setlist. WEST: It’s hard, especially when people are like ‘Oh, why aren’t you playing that one? Why aren’t you playing this one?’ We literally can’t.
We’re not doing a third set. MATT: Honestly, it was so sick to play ‘The Beach Is For Lovers’ and ‘I Hope This Comes Back To Haunt You’ and ‘Serpents’ and just hear everybody singing those bits loud. This was the first time we’d ever played ‘The Beach Is For Lovers’ at a proper show.
WEST: It’s the first time we’ve played ‘Haunt You’ in the UK and that opening riff to that song has been haunting my life for the past three months. RS: It has got to feel extra special this weekend playing the same day as Blink-182, a band that have always been such an important inspiration to you. WEST: They shouted us out on main stage last night, and we went ballistic.
It was like we were four again. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear us over the PA, we were going insane. So yeah, it’s still cool to just even be on the same bill as them.
I think we’ve waxed poetic about blink so much in the past 13.