Fresh off the back of releasing their debut mini-album, “The Hiding Place”, Brighton-based quintet Lostaura are already looking ahead to bigger things.
Having toured all over the UK already this year with Bombay Bicycle Club and Band Of Skulls, Lostaura are keen to spread their stadium-rock influenced music to a wider audience.
Speaking about “The Hiding Place”, guitarist Craig Montgomery said: “It’s a six track album, that we’ve been working on for a year… I think it really compliments our sound. We’ve got a video for the first single we’re going to release called ‘One In A Million’. I think throughout the record it sounds like what we’re all about.”
In response to when the band will release a full LP, Montgomery says: “We’re just going to see what kind of feedback and response we get from this record.” However, bassist Kevin Anderson believes it will be late this year or early next year.
Described by BBC Southern Counties as having “absolutely towering songs”, Lostaura have also been touted as one of the bands to look out for in 2010 by BBC Introducing. Montgomery said: “They’ve been really good support and really on board with it. We don’t want the comments to get to our head, just still push it further and further.”
Lostaura have gained a large following in Brighton as well as their hometown of Bournemouth, and have a growing fanbase in London as a result of constant gigging.
The band are now hoping to make some new fans and friends in the north. Frontman Dave McCormack said “We want to come up north more ’cause everyone is much friendlier. Once we came back from the most recent tour we were like ‘why didn’t we do that more often?’.
“I think we’ll definitely play in Lincoln. We played with Lincoln band Lost Souls who are a great bunch of guys and [who] said to come to Lincoln… that’s definitely going to be one of the points on the tour.”
“The atmosphere up north is just a completely different vibe,” Montgomery says. “People are just more appreciative of music. After [a] Liverpool gig we got better feedback and compliments in one gig than we did in 20 gigs down south. People just seem a lot more into it.”
Looking to the not-so-distant future, Lostaura are hitting a few of the summer festivals. “There’s one in Kent we’re playing” Anderson says. “Reverend And The Makers are headlining, there’s also some funk guys like Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, quite a lot of dance acts as well.
“We’re also in talks with Football Fusion Festival which is back down in Bournemouth. It mixes football with live music, there’s people like Frank Lampard there, [Jamie] Redknapp, Heroes Of ’66, as well as some live music all day.”
“We might not even be on the stage, we’ll just be following Frank Lampard around all day. I’m gonna chill out with Becks and Vicky,” Montgomery says.
After the festivals, the band are going to try to do a national tour. Following that, the band aim to head to America either late this year or early next year. “We’ve got nothing else to do! We’re really bored down here.
“We’re trying to mix it up as much as possible, and to meet as many people as we can and generate [a following]. We’re all really proud of our live performances. I think we’re a really good live band and we just try and put that out as much as we can,” Montgomery says.
“Certainly in this day and age with people getting music whenever they want it, live music is really what it’s all about. That’s where the money is really spent and that’s what people really crave for. People can just get an MP3 from anything, I think if we just push the fact that we’re a good live act and we’re all about it live, we can try and get that to as many people as we can.”
Lostaura’s stint of summer dates begins on June 5th with the Soundlocker Summer Showcase. For more information on the band’s tour dates, check out their Myspace page.