Interview by: Mark Lacey
For a band that have only been together three short years, the Karma Effect have already made that giant leap into mainstream festivals, national support tours, radio play, and now their first ever UK headline tour. Fuelled by their charismatic vocalist, Henry Gottelier, whose vocal style is a welcome reminder of SKIN’s Nev McDonald mashed with Foreigner’s Lou Gramm, the band are set for greater heights in 2025.
MyGlobalMind.com spoke to Henry Gottelier and drummer, Ash Powell, just before the London leg of their first ever UK headline tour.
MGM: So, Henry, the last time MyGlobalMind.com spoke to you and Robbie must have been the beginning of last year. At that point, your debut album had come out, but a lot’s happened since then. You’ve signed to Earache, you’ve released a second album, and you seem to be touring everywhere. How does it feel?
Henry: It feels great. We sometimes have to stop ourselves and remember that we’ve managed to achieve a lot in a very short period of time. But sometimes, being the way we are, we’re a little bit like, it’s not quick enough. We want to do this and we want to do that. I had a chat with Baz from Massive Wagons the other day, and the first thing he said to me was, “Blimey, you guys are everywhere. All I’m hearing about is your band”. It puts into perspective quite how quick things have really been kicking off.
Ash: To think that we released our second album in May, which is two years after our debut album, and we only played our first ever show in June 2021. In the space of three years, we’ve already done two albums. Whilst we’ve been out on this tour, we’ve all been reflecting on stuff that we’ve done. We were like, God, this is our third UK tour in less than a year. We did one in December, one from February to April, and now we’re back out in September. We’ve done quite a lot.
Henry: And most of those have been support tours. We’ve been playing for 35-40 minutes, if we’re lucky. By that point, as Robbie has said a few times, we’re just getting started. But then you’re done. So, to be able to go out there and put our own show together and have near sell-out crowds, and a sold-out crowd in London, it’s been amazing. We’ve been spreading the word and it’s paying off.
MGM: It looks like you’ve really stepped it up in the last couple of years. You were doing a handful of shows a year, but you’ll probably do 30 shows this year.
Henry: When we signed with Earache, we signed to a big booking agent that’s allowing us to go out there and get some of the things we really want. We’re very grateful to be in this position. We don’t take anything we do for granted. We just want to prove to people that we are going to work our asses off. We love being with each other, and we love playing. We cut our teeth, and it’s our bread and butter playing live. We like recording, we like making albums, but nothing beats getting in the van and going out and doing shows.
MGM: The line-up has changed since we last spoke; and you’ve got a new keys player. What happened there? Is that just for this tour?
Ash: No, Jamie Bull, who is playing with us tonight, is our new keyboard player. He’s a good friend of ours, and we’ve known him for quite a while, just doing jam nights. He does some cover stuff that we’ve seen him in before, and festivals along the way.
Henry: We just came to the end of the road with Seb. There’s absolutely no ill will between us. We love him. He’s a dear friend of ours. But this life is not for everybody. He definitely didn’t enjoy the touring as much as we did. He struggled in that environment. As you’ve seen with many bands, for some people, it’s just not for them. Every time we finished a tour, we were going, when’s the next one? Get me back out on the road! I think as we were gearing up to do this, we’ve known for a while, he was just like, I don’t think I can do it. We were like, that’s absolutely fine. Our path is just going in different directions.
MGM: Adam Mackie from Dust Coda recently spoke to MyGlobalMind.com, and he talked about being in that “in between stage” of doing music casually and then breaking through but not quite making enough money from it. Many artists these days have full-time jobs, and they’re trying to do these tours in their holidays. Adam talked about the challenges of keeping a band together in that environment. Are you in the same boat?
Henry: Oh, absolutely. We obviously try and keep our work separate from what we do musically, but we all work. We all work full-time, and we all work very hard. But one thing that is so amazing about this particular band and group of people is that everybody has managed to sort out their day jobs so that we can tour when we want to be able to tour. Ash and I are both music teachers and we’re freelance. So, we don’t get paid when we go out and tour, but it allows us the freedom to go out and do this. Other members of the band have similar agreements with their employers. When you invite those people down to a show, your bosses or whatever, and they see it, they go, “Oh, you should go and do this because there’s something’s happening here”. We are very lucky in that regard. Even when Jamie entered, we said to him, you’ve got to understand about the work thing. He was fantastic. He was like, I’ll talk to them. Then they came to watch us in Tunbridge Wells. It’s not like we’re playing in a tiny pub where there’s one man and his dog. We’re proud to say that we’ve gone past that. When people do see it, they understand why we do what we do.
MGM: You’ve just completed your first ever UK headline tour, and you’ve been the length and breadth of the country. Where’s been the most fun?
Ash: For me personally, the Forum in Tunbridge Wells was very special. It was a Sunday night; it was lashing down with rain. It was like monsoon weather outside, and we’re going, oh, God, no one’s going to come. But it was heaving in there, and we had quite a lot of friends and family there as well. It just felt like a real moment. But my favourite place we’ve been to was Cardiff.
Henry: I love Cardiff. Cardiff was really good. We did it on a previous tour, so we were worried we were maybe saturating it a little bit. But this time round, it was a really good show. I also really enjoyed Glasgow. We did King Tuts last time, when we were supporting Bad Touch. And we did the Garage this time, which was really good. The Welsh crowd and the Scottish crowd are different to the English. The Scottish crowd don’t heckle you, but they’re chanting you on. Whereas, the English crowd cheer and clap and then they go silent. They wait for the next thing. The Scottish crowd really get involved.
Ash: We always try and make the crowd part of the show, but we don’t have to encourage the Scottish. Milton Keynes was awesome too. The Crawford Arms was a bucket list venue for us. You see it on tour posters all the time, and when you’re younger and reading Kerrang magazine. To say that we headlined a show there and pulled a good crowd was really cool.
MGM: I noticed you’ve had two songs on the playlist on Planet Rock recently, including ‘Wild Honey’ and ‘Living It Up’. To have radio play and so many festivals so early on is a real endorsement for what you’re doing.
Henry: Dare I say, when we were putting the album out, there was an assumption that this was going to happen. We’ve since learned from talking to people like Baz in Massive Wagons …. He said “that shit don’t come around all the time. It’s really cool to be this early in your career and be getting big radio play”. It just reaffirms where we’re at and where we’re going. We’re so lucky. This year we’ve done Firevolt, and Made of Stone, and last year it was Steelhouse and Stone Dead. It’s been good.
MGM: Has this adventure taken the path over the last 18 months that you expected? Or has it surprised you?
Ash: I think it definitely has taken the path that we expected and the path that we wanted it to go down. The great thing about Earache is that they’re so on board with what we want to do. They’re very hands-on. Our vision is their vision. It’s like a match made in heaven at times. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect a top 20 UK album. I don’t think any of us did. The plan was to maybe try and break into the top 40, and it’s surpassed our expectations in that respect. The numbers, streaming, the numbers on this tour, it’s really surpassed all our expectations.
MGM: So, what happens next?
Henry: I’ve started writing again. I do a lot of the writing in the band and bring it to the boys, so I’m always writing, and as a group, we get together and we fine tune and finish off songs and make them into the Karma Effect. So, for the rest of the year, we’ll do a couple of one-offs. The plan after that is more support lots for next year. We’re looking at trying to take this to a slightly bigger place, and getting on some bigger shows with other artists.
Ash: There is stuff going on behind the scenes which is very exciting. We’re very good friends with the guys in the Bites, and obviously, they’ve just been out with The Dead Daisies, and it looks like they’ve had an amazing run. In our minds, we’re going, that’s what we want to do. That’s the next step for us, to go out with a Kris Barras, or a Massive Wagons, or a Skindred.
Henry: We’re looking to make the most out of every opportunity that we’re given as a band. We’re such harsh critics of ourselves. We expect to go out there and if it’s not the best show of the tour every night, it’s almost not good enough. That’s how we are. That’s how I am with my writing. We just want to make the most out of everything that we get. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but all I can say is that we have some very high expectations and we want to be the best. I think if you don’t go into it with that mindset, then you’re doing it wrong. We know we’re capable of being the best.
Karma Effect are playing a handful of exclusive pre-Christmas shows:
12th December: Westerham Brewery, Westerham
13th December: The Patriot, Crumlin
14th December: Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool
15th December: The Corporation, Sheffield
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