Tomorrow Is Lost are one of the most promising rock bands we’ve seen come out of the North East of England in recent times.
Tomorrow Is Lost’s second single “We Are The Lost” has been racking up radio airplay across the UK ever since its release and has gained the band their first national radio recognition by being playlisted at Planet Rock Radio. The Newcastle-based five-piece has been touring the UK relentlessly as well as picking up a whole raft of local support slots including recent shows with the likes of As Sirens Falls and Kobra and the Lotus. With their debut album in the pipeline and a packed out touring schedule that includes the band’s first overseas tour alongside NWOBHM legends Diamond Head and an appearance at HRH AOR in Wales, the future is certainly looking bright for Tomorrow Is Lost.
National Rock Review recently caught up with the band’s lead vocalist Cass King to talk about their recent single “We Are The Lost”, their debut album and what the band has in store for the rest of 2018.
NRR: Obviously, you’ve been hitting the road pretty hard quite recently, I notice you’ve been all over the place and up and down the UK. You’ve also been doing some local support slots with the likes of As Sirens Fall. I was just wondering how have the shows been going so far?
Cass: They’ve been going absolutely awesome to be honest with you, we are having a great time. We obviously got off to a really strong start last year and then this year we’ve just really taken off much further than we ever imagined it would. So we are tired but we are having a great time (laughing).
NRR: Your most recent single “We Are The Lost” was released in March and it also came with an accompanying video. I was just wondering could you tell us a little bit about that song and the inspiration behind it?
Cass: Yes, I can but it will take me a while to articulate my thoughts properly. So the song was a proper labour of love, I mean “Insane” was one of those songs that just came together very quickly, with “We Are The Lost” we took a lot longer. There was an original version which if you heard it now it bears no resemblance to the one that eventually went out. So we really put our absolute heart and soul into that song; it was a massive deal for us and we are really pleased to see that it did so well when it eventually came out.
The sort of deeper meaning behind the song and such and the inspiration behind the song lies very much in the sort of Shadow Man/Keeper thing that we’ve got going on. Which is sort of almost without really intending it to be is sort of becoming a little bit of a mascot for the band and it’s almost like a silent sixth member, we are just kind of running with it really. It seems to sort of develop and evolve with us, so it’s really quite an interesting concept.
I suppose for me it’s very much open to interpretation, but it is very much around the sort of evolution of fears, insecurities, dark thoughts and all of those sort of issues that we all deal with on a day to day basis. Trying to sort of funnel all of those energies into something more positive and that character as such or it has become known becomes more of a guardian watchful figure. So it is pretty complicated I suppose, I’m probably not doing the best job of explaining it, but I will get there one day (laughing).
NRR: “We Are The Lost” has also been getting a lot of airplay on Planet Rock. It was only a few weeks back that I switched on the radio and I heard it. How does that feel for you guys to get this great response, especially from the media?
Cass: We were proper amazed, like I nearly passed out when we got the message about Planet Rock, I thought it was a windup, I thought they were joking. Not only that, but for us to get added to the playlist and for us to be on there I think it was for nine weeks, or something like it, it was just absolutely crazy. It totally went beyond anything that we thought we would ever achieve with the single. And “Insane” also did really well, but I suppose we were quite shocked that the pickup on both of the songs has been as strong as it has been for a band that nobody really knows. It’s been absolutely amazing.
NRR: So where now with music. Do you have any plans to do a full-length album or another single in the pipeline?
Cass: We do yes. So we are going to be in the studio all throughout July and August and then we are hoping that the album should be released by the end of the year, maybe tipping into January 2019. So we are aiming for that and we are on target at the moment. We are all very excited about that.
NRR: I remember when I saw you perform with Kobra and the Lotus, you played a really cool cover of Sia’s “Elastic Heart”. Obviously, that’s not a song that’s typically associated with the hard rock or metal genre at all. I just wondered what was it about that song in particular that made you want to cover it?
Cass: We wanted to try something a little different because we had heard quite of lot bands were doing some covers and the pick up on that was really quite cool. We toyed around with a few rock covers and it felt very much like that, it felt very much like a cover. We were struggling to put our own stamp on that, especially when you are talking about these iconic classic rock songs.
I think if I remember rightly, it was Adam our bass player who suggested Sia. I mean Sia is an amazing female vocalist and a hugely successful songwriter. We just started having a bit of a bash at it really and we absolutely loved what we were working on and what was coming from it and we just ran with it from there. It was a great way to sort of get the name of the band out there right back in the early days. We went into the studio to record the original version of that track back in July last year and then obviously we went and did the 2018 re-recorded version which was the B-side to “We Are The Lost”. It always goes down live as well, it’s become a little bit of a signature track for us to cover. It’s been pretty cool.
NRR: Do you have a particular favourite track to perform live at present and if so which one and why?
Cass: Oh this is going to sound really cheesy but I’m hellish enjoying all of them at the minute (laughing). It’s obviously very exciting times for us in terms of the writing process, we’ve pretty much always got new material coming through the works and then trialling those songs out at live gigs is always really exciting; it’s great to see people’s reactions to that. But if I have to sort of narrow it down to two or three I would definitely say “We Are The Lost” is up there as a good one to play live, we’ve got a track called “Man Within His Mind”, which is another high impact/high energy riff filled piece of awesomeness in my opinion and then we’ve got “No One Knows”, which is another one that’s an absolute banger; that’s the one that we close our set with and it’s always great fun to play.
NRR: I just wanted to kind of go back to the start of the group. I just wondered can you tell us a little bit about how you all came to meet and how the band came to fruition.
Cass: I mean I’m not a one for talking about things such as this, but it really does feel like fate thrust us all together in the strangest of ways. Myself and Joe we had been in a band before and that came to a pretty abrupt end. So we were busy trying to form something new, we were looking for members, we had already entered one of those music competitions and there was a chance to play at the O2 Academy Newcastle, so we were rushing around trying to pull something together.
We did manage to do that, in my opinion, we played a dreadfully awful set of three songs and that was our first gig. We were sort of thrust into that after about three weeks and two rehearsals. Then on that day we also met Dave who is obviously now our manager; he must have seen something on that night, I’m not quite sure what it was but he did see something and he’s been with us ever since. So it’s been a bit of a roller coaster since day one really.
NRR: You had only ever met twice before the first time you had played together. Did you sort of feel an immediate chemistry with your new bandmates?
Cass: Absolutely, and I think when we met Dave that night, that as well had a very instantaneous connection, and it’s a great relationship. We’ve since had a line-up change with a new drummer, and obviously, Ryan joined us a few months down the line as our second guitarist. But the chemistry and the dynamics in the band right now is very exciting and we bounce off each other. We fight like cat and dog every single day, but in terms of the creative process and the writing, there’s nothing I would change about it, nothing.
NRR: Which vocalists would you say have influenced your sound and your style?
Cass: We get asked this question quite a lot, and for me, it’s very much more than being an exceptionally talented vocalist because there are so many amazing vocalists out there. For me it’s about having the whole package, it’s about the presence, it’s about the persona, it’s about their vocal ability, it’s about the engagement and the rapport with your audience. For me as cliché as it sounds you do sort of look to the greats like Freddie Mercury, the likes of Bruce Dickinson, the likes of Ronnie Dio and those guys for me are the goal, the epiphany, the whole package and that’s something that I consider to be very important.
NRR: In terms of your own musical tastes, what would you say is the one album in your record collection that you couldn’t live without?
Cass: Oh my god, I want to make sure I get this answer right. I think for me and it may be an unaccepted one but The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance probably has to be one of my most listened to albums. I don’t think there is a bad song on that album, I really don’t. But yeah I think I would probably have to go for that one.
NRR: We are roughly halfway through the year, what have you got lined up for the rest of 2018?
Cass: It’s going to be an absolutely crazy year, we’ve got so many announcements that we are not yet able to talk about, which is making my head want to explode but I’m having to use all of my energy and all of my willpower to keep my mouth shut.
We’ve got loads in the pipeline. Obviously, we’ve got the album, so we are going to be in the studio recording that and we are aiming to still have that out by the end of the year. We’ve got tour announcements coming up, we’ve got festival announcements coming up, we’ve already got some amazing gigs confirmed. So we’ve got Wildfire coming up, so we are really excited about that because it took us so long to get up into Scotland even though it’s only 50 miles away – it started to become a little bit embarrassing how long it had taken us to get up there. We’ve got a couple of trips to go back down to London and we will be going back down to South Wales a little bit later in the year. So there are loads of exciting shows to come and we’ve got a lot to look forward to.
Tomorrow Is Lost
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