Interview with REGENT: ‘It gave me that instant “I think this is a deep song” feeling, it took me back to addiction’

Southampton rock band REGENT will release their new track ‘Oh No, I Know’ tomorrow (11 August), a track about addiction, taken from their second album Beggars Belief, which is due out on 26 April next year.

The band comprises Ben Rooke (lead vocal, songwriter and guitarist), Chris Woolf (lead guitarist and keys, plus multi instrumental player), Luke Trundell (bass and guitar), Ed Cesar (lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist) and Chris Blackman (drums, bass and guitar): ‘I knew of George, he’s gone now, but he lives round my area, he went to music college with Luke,’ Rooke said. ‘We did auditions for the others – there were some awful ones (laughs) and some good ones. We’ve had a new drummer for eight months and a new guitarist.’ Their band name was suggested by Music Management USA.

‘Oh No, I Know’ is a poignant slice of indie-rock that sees twanging acoustic guitars give way to driving choruses filled with fuzzy riffs: ‘The song is about love and how it helps fight addiction,’ Rooke said. ‘Before I met my wife four years ago, I was on the mend from a spell in my life taking Class A drugs. As soon as we met, I got back into music.’ The new track also marks the band’s first offering with new member Ed Cesar on guitar. Rooke continues: ‘I was struggling with a lot of addiction and troubles, she turned things around for me, she had a positive effect on me. This song came instantly. It was one of them tracks you smash in five minutes. I’m so proud of it and how it came out. With this particular song, I picked up the acoustic guitar, played the first four chords and knew where I was going with it. I’m playing a semi-electric Epiphone, it’s got a lovely tone. It gave me that instant “I think this is a deep song” feeling, it took me back to addiction.’

‘That’s one great thing about everyone in the band, they can all play many instruments’

It’s also a special track for the band as Woolf and Cesar both met as 14 year olds and learnt guitar on the same day and are now playing in a band together for the first time since they were teenagers. Opening with a Spanish sounding guitar, it builds to a catchy guitar solo: ‘Our bass player played it. I set the tone for the whole track but we thought we needed a solo there,’ Rooke said. ‘That’s one great thing about everyone in the band, they can all play many instruments.’

Regent have notched up a string of releases under their belts, including an EP ‘Believe’ and last year’s debut album Just A Revolution. With the band’s recent singles ‘Here We Go Again’, ‘Can’t You See’ and ‘Freight Train’,  they’re continuing to give us their own insurgent brand of rock ’n’ roll.

They tackle political mistrust, economic struggles and personal hardships head-on, particularly on tracks such as their last single ‘Here We Go Again’, filled with urgent and incensed vocals and seesawing riffs that threaten to tumble right off the tracks: ‘The song is about constantly moving forwards in the industry and being fearless,’ Rooke said. ‘The lyric “Living life to the full, got a band made of gold and a head like bull” is about the relentless charging forwards that our band has become known for.’

It’s a track full of sonic surprises, switching it up from jangly guitars to metal riffs and back again, coupled with shoutier vocals in places to match: ‘It’s a case of I sit down and think “I’ll work on a song today” but I have no idea what’ll come out (laughs). They’re more the fast way of writing 80% to 90% of the time. I don’t like to leave a song for three months. I’ll stay up all night to finish something if I really like it. The riffs are more metal, I wanted to push the boundaries, the screaming is almost metal! It’s crazy, it’s got a Rolling Stones outro, it’s an indie banger! This one’s also about the cost of living crisis, COVID, the government, people going to food banks to eat but they have mortgages. Oil companies are the new Mexican cartels. I was in a hotel in Mexico when I wrote it, I sat out on the balcony on my own and I liked the way it started, it sounded beautiful but I wanted a different chorus. That’s where the metal came in but I wanted it to run away a bit like Led Zeppelin.’

‘It’s aimed at politics and the way things are done’

‘Can’t You See’, on the other hand, is all about the fuzz and has more of a grungy 90’s feel, merging barbed guitars and BritPop vocals: ‘I wrote it on the acoustic first, I knew exactly where I was going with it in the first chorus.’ The song is essentially about how there’s one rule for the rich and another for the poor. It’s about the poor management of our current government, and how love gets us through it: ‘In the lyrics, there’s a line “To the rich, they can fuck off and off we go”, it’s aimed at politics and the way things are done, they’re all corrupt. It’s becoming a crowd fave!’

That’s not to say that they can’t do real love songs, too, as exemplified by one of their rockiest songs, ‘She Rocks My Soul’, which Rooke sweetly wrote about his wife: ‘I wrote it over COVID, ‘ he said. ‘I proposed over the phone, I couldn’t go to India, which is where she’s from. We battled how to get me accepted by her parents, to win her hand, it was a hard time. Her dad gave us his blessing but he passed away before I could meet him. We got married with just 12 people, that’s all that was allowed during COVID. It’s a very powerful song, it’s one of our most connected songs.’

Beggars Belief will comprise 12-14 tracks when it’s released next year: ‘I think the themes on our upcoming second album are love, politics and economic struggles, i.e. the cost of living crisis and how it’s been dealt with through the current government, the shambles,’ Rooke said. ”Liberation’ is the next single to drop in November after the August release ‘Oh No, I Know’. ‘Liberation’ is about liberating ourselves in a tough world where people can be tough to deal with and lives’ obstacles can be also very tough to deal with. The follow up single after that will be released in January and it’s called ‘Flying High’, it’s an upbeat high tempo love song.’ He describes ‘Beggars Belief’, the title track, as ‘an upbeat, angry song but more fun – it’s a dig at the government.’

If Rooke could go for a pint with anyone, he picks John Lennon: ‘I’d ask him: “How did you die?!” He was blatantly assassinated but what really happened? What’s the whole story? Or Jim Morrison, for a party. Was it the heroin that killed him? They’re both legends, I want to know the full stories (laughs), they always hide stuff!’

They’ve had some funny onstage moments: ‘The funniest moment to date is where a band supporting us tried to jeopardise the mic stand to try and ruin our set. I quickly realised and held the mic for the remainder of the set! It was an amazing gig and turned out to be a funny memory.’

His dream line up would be a crowd pleaser: ‘It’s an easy choice, The Beatles are the best ever band in history, I believe. And Jim Morrison was the best poet ever, so I’d have the members of The Beatles all playing their normal roles but with Jim Morrison on vocals. How cool would that be?!’

(Top photo from left to right: Chris Woolf, Ben, Luke and Ed .)