Music

"I now find myself moving down to the big smoke, drumming for the group "La Roux", with a top 10 single and a hell of a couple years ahead of me", says William.

The shortlist for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for best British or Irish album of the last 12 months has been announced and La Roux have a nomination and backing from stars such as Lily Allen! "I hope La Roux wins," she wrote on her Twitter blog.

William has just two weeks of rehearsals before playing two warm up gigs with La Roux, followed by Glastonbury, a European tour, America, Australia and Japan.

Thursday 23 July - 2009 - Tour Update

So for the 3rd day in a row, I am sat at Heathrow Airport...

Tuesday morning, we all arrived to leave for our USA tour. Our first show was Wednesday in San Fran but its cool to get there a day early to adjust to the time change etc.

Myself and Dan (who does monitors) went for our work VISA interview a lot later then everyone else, and our passports decided not to arrive Tuesday morning, or afternoon....or Wednesday at all!!

Luckily we got them Thursday (today) morning. We sadly missed the first show last night, but we are about to board a flight to LA, where this evening we will be going to Hollywood to play on Jimmy Kimmel's show...it's like USA's Jonathan Ross but more people watch it and it's actually live.

From there we have 2 more days in LA, then off to Canada, Seattle, and then 4 days in NYC!!

Passport? Check. Disposable cameras? Check. 2 hours sleep the night before so you can sleep for the whole flight before a 25 hour work day?....zzzzzzzzzzzz

Friday 19 June 2009 - A Good and Bad Week

Good - Learnt all the La Roux songs. Bad - Had a super rubbish Brontide show and it's my last for some time. Brontide is my band with 2 of my best friends in the world in.

Good - Finding out my first day starts with GMTV - Bad - Not yet knowing if there is enough space on set for drums.

Good - USA visa being sorted and US/Canada tour dates being announced - Bad - The tour being the same time as a Brontide tour.

Good - Living in London and being very busy. Bad - Feeling like the only person in the world at 11.26 on a thursday night in a city you don't really know.

Good - The Radio 1 live lounge cover. Bad - The Radio 1 live lounge cover practice resulting in me missing soundcheck for my last Rod Thomas show (another guy I drum for).

Good - That this is just the beginning. Bad - That things are coming to an end.

Friday 12 June 2009

So it's been a hectic week. The most part of it spent down at the rehearsal room in Shepherds Bush. Yamaha gave us a sweet drum kit to use so we have been trying to get used to it (loading all the sounds in, making sure it's set up right etc) and then playing through the album songs over and over again. It's going well, and I'm on track to having them 100% by my first gig, which seems to be the Live Lounge with Jo Wiley on Radio 1.

So I'm sat on my bed in Collingham packing all my things up as I am moving down to London this Sunday. It's funny how you're life can turn around so quickly. In the space of a week my "little cottage in Nottingham" idea turned into a pretty big job and a flat in London, still not sunk in really.

So rehearsals again Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then the others go off to Barcelona without me for a festival! Well that's just fine!! 
I'll happily sit in my new room...on my own....in England...not Spain at Sonar Festival...yep.

Right, back to packing! Update next week