Touring has grown right into a vastly completely different system for Neck Deep since they first began out. Regardless of travelling the nation on trendy buses with a way more complicated technical rig and a bigger core crew, roughing it in a grungy van nonetheless has a sure allure.
“We used to simply be capable to rock up and plug our stuff in and play a present, and now it’s very a lot a village of individuals,” Ben explains. “I nonetheless form of lengthy for one thing back-to-basics, simple and uncooked. Now we’re taking part in this large present that’s so concerned, the payoff may be very good, it’s nice to see all people’s onerous work come collectively, and for us to sound our greatest is admittedly cool. [But] I feel I’ve all the time been a bit little bit of a insurgent at coronary heart, I nonetheless wish to do issues down and soiled.”
Neck Deep’s fortunes are nicely earned, although. Not solely does their discography span 5 studio albums stretching throughout the 2010s into the 2020s, however simply have a look at the achievements they made throughout the final yr alone: two units in a day at Studying & Leeds respectively, a grand tour of North America, and even a help slot with Sum 41 for the European leg of their farewell trek.
“They’re a formative band for anybody of our technology – particularly in the event you’re into pop-punk,” Ben displays. “We hung with Dave [Baksh] and Cone [Jason McCaslin] in all probability probably the most. Dave, he loves our tune STFU. On the final present, which was a 40,000-cap, sold-out present in Paris, he wished to come back up and play it with us. They have been superior. To have people who we appeared as much as dig our music and provides us that chance, it was a ‘good to satisfy your heroes’ experiences.”
Neck Deep themselves are pop-punk heroes, however there’s no inflated egos right here. We ask if there are any spoken or unstated guidelines that maintain everybody in verify, particularly in cosy circumstances on tour, however there’s not a lot to it. They encourage one another to speak about something that’s bothering them, however aside from that, the motto is easy: don’t be a dick.
“We’re fortunate to be right here, so it’s simply being conscious of that and placing the band and followers first – you’ve received to consider the larger image, actually… It sounds so convoluted and so fucking John Lennon: ‘We are able to deliver individuals collectively by means of music, maaan,’” Ben says, mimicking a spaced-out hippy voice, “but it surely’s true. Large occasions like this the place we’re having a shared expertise, individuals truly are unified in one thing. Hopefully individuals stroll away a bit extra empowered, a bit extra tolerant, and extra understanding.”