Before Metal Gods TV broke off for the Christmas festivities, I had the pleasure of interviewing The Bad Flowers’ vocalist/guitarist Tom Leighton via email. Below is the transcript of our conversation:

Hello Tom, Chris here from Metal Gods TV, how are you today?
Hi! I am very well thank you! I hope you’re too!

Why “The Bad Flowers”? How did you all come up with such a name?
The name “The Bad Flowers” comes from when me and Dale used to be in a band together, I think it was a lyric in a song we had used, so when that project disbanded and Karl joined us, we needed a name and that is something that had always stuck out to me, I suggested it at a rehearsal one day and the guys loved it, it’s been the same ever since!

Your first single, “Thunder Child”, has been out since September. What has been the response from both the band’s fans as well as the music media?
Yes, that’s correct, the response we have had to “Thunder Child” has been absolutely incredible from both our fans and the industry alike! It reached just under 20,000 hits in the first couple of weeks on YouTube then we got the call that our very first single was to be added to Planet Rock Radio’s playlist! Which as you can imagine made us all very happy, it still is such a surreal experience!! Everyone has seemed to have had a real good energy about the single and the reviews have been awesome!

What was it like playing together with Blues Pills at London’s Jazz Café for Planet Rock’s Christmas party?
Wow! That was an awesome experience; however, also a nerve racking one! Been put into what we would consider being “out of our comfort zones” really made us think about our stage craft and having to rework our songs completely! Then on top of that getting to play with someone like Blues Pills was awesome and they were all really nice to hang out with too!

Moving on to the debut studio album, “Starting Gun”, which is due out early next year, the cover artwork is an interesting piece. Can you describe how you all arrived at such a design?
We really wanted to keep it fairly simple yet effective at the same time. So we just incorporated the starting gun with flowers as an idea and then once it had been drawn up we were all really impressed and happy with the outcome!

The album itself contains 11 songs. What was the writing process and how long did that take?
The process was a lot of fun! Hard work but a lot of fun! The writing process took probably about 6 months – 1 year

Were there more than the 11 songs written during this process and, if so, how did the 3 of you decide which ones should be on the album?
There are a few tracks that we have put on the shelf for now but they were swapped out for some songs that we believe are stronger for the album, which will make the album stronger and flow better.

The album flows nicely with a great heavy Rock N Roll feel to it, you must be delighted with the outcome?
After a year of writing recording and production to call this our debut album we are all stoked we have put our everything into this album and we really are over the moon with how this album looks, feels and sounds!!

In February 2018 you hit the road with Stone Broken and Jared James Nichols, a tour which includes an appearance at Planet Rock presents Winter’s End on the 23rd, you must be extremely excited?
We are really excited to get back on the road again! Especially with the festival appearance being the 2nd show of the tour! It’s great a line up who are all good friends of ours, too! So it’s going to be an awesome two weeks!

What do The Bad Flowers hope to achieve on this UK tour and is there anything that can be learnt from the bands you’re touring with?
We would like to achieve a bigger wider spread fan base, hopefully people that haven’t seen us before like what they see/hear and jump on board with us. We also hope to gain as much exposure for our new album!

Finally, are there any other plans for 2018?
Play as much as possible, play as many new venues as possible, meet as many people as possible and keep on working as hard as we have done in previous years and keep on making our reputation stronger and stronger!

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat. We at Metal Gods TV wish you all a Merry Christmas and Rocking New Year!

THE BRAND NEW DEBUT ALBUM
RELEASED – FRIDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2018

RELEASED ON CD, LIMITED EDITION RED VINYL AND STANDARD DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

ALBUM LAUNCH SHOW AT BIRMINGHAM ASYLUM 2 ON SATURDAY 17TH FEBRUARY

TOURING THE UK WITH STONE BROKEN
AND JARED JAMES NICHOLS IN FEB/MARCH 2018

THE BAD FLOWERS
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS|
EXCLUSIVE ALBUM LAUNCH SHOW
Birmingham, The Asylum 2
Saturday 17th February 2018
Tickets: £8.80 (Inc. Booking Fee)
Book Online: https://www.seetickets.com
Venue: 0121 233 1109
38-43 Hampton street, Birmingham B19 3LS
https://www.theasylumvenue.co.uk

STONE BROKEN
FEBRUARY & MARCH 2018 UK TOUR
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
JARED JAMES NICHOLS AND THE BAD FLOWERS
PLANET ROCK 48-HOUR TICKET PRE-SALE
WEDNESDAY 25TH OCTOBER FROM: https://www.planetrock.seetickets.com
TICKETS ON SALE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC ON FRIDAY 27th OCTOBER
FROM https://www.myticket.co.uk
FEBRUARY 2018
22 – Brighton The Haunt
24 – London Islington Assembly Hall
25 – Manchester Club Academy
26 – Glasgow G2
28 – Newcastle Riverside
MARCH 2018
01- Nottingham Rescue Rooms
02 – Pontypridd Muni Arts Centre
03 – Birmingham O2 Institute2
04 – Sheffield Corporation
06 – Mar Chester Live Rooms
07 – Bristol The Fleece

https://www.thebadflowers.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/thebadflowersband
https://twitter.com/thebadflowers

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