Forming in 2019 after meeting online and bonding over similar backgrounds, English-Irish trio New Rules have taken 2023 by storm with their headline shows, supporting Sugababes at Silverstone Festival, and releasing their recent single ‘Ghost Town’. We caught up with them ahead of their show at Islington Assembly Hall this October…
How’s 2023 treated you guys so far? What are your highlights?
It’s been a good one – can’t believe we’re in October! We kicked off the year with some more intimate acoustic shows and are ending it with a bigger full band show. That’s something we’re really excited to get back to especially with the new tunes coming out. We did a road trip around the UK recreating old memories for our song ‘Old Days’ and did a writing camp in New York and got to play a couple of sick shows out there. Those are a couple of highlights. Honestly one of our favourite things about 2023 is putting some of our most fun songs out that we’ve been sitting on for a while like ‘NOPE!’ and ‘Ghost Town’ So we’ve got a lot of new music like that going into next year that we’re dying to play on stages around the world.
What would you say makes you stand out from other artists and bands in the game right now?
I think the fact that we’re all singer/songwriters in our own right makes us unique as a band. We’ve got 3 distinctive voices but when they come together and we amp up the harmonies I think you know it’s us. I also just think the world could do with a boyband right now. Not necessarily a conventional boyband but as a group that plays and writes our own music we like the idea of redefining that label.
Your new single, ‘Ghost Town’ is set for release this Friday. Tell us about the meaning behind the song?
The songs about being lost without someone you love. It’s about feeling unseen by that person you care about most and subsequently feeling alone when when you’re surrounded by people.
Favourite show you’ve ever played?
I think our favourite show might be two back to back headlines in Dublin back in 2020. It was one of the loudest crowds we’ve ever had and got to do it twice so maybe a combination of those two.
The Olympia in Dublin and Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London – have also been stand out gigs for us. They feel like a rite of passage almost, and to be part of the first shows we played back after Covid felt really special.
Dream venue?
We’ve been to the Royal Albert Hall a couple times recently and think everything feels so special there. We’d love to do that room… plus its not too bad a tube journey from our house!
What can we expect from your headline show at Islington Assembly Hall on Tuesday 24th October?
We kind of love that we can now have a long show with old songs, new songs and covers and still have songs of ours that don’t make the setlist (fan backlash incoming). We’re excited to mess with arrangements / transitions and stage setups and most of all to play the new ones for the first time as they just feel like they’ve been made to play for a crowd.