ARTIST INTERVIEW: LEIGH MATTY of ROMEO'S DAUGHTER

Leigh Matty of Romeo's Daughter 
Talks To The Dedicated Rocker Society
Interview by Tony Sison

British AOR mainstream rock band Romeo's Daughter are back with their fourth studio release, 'Spin'. Leigh Matty (Lead Vocals), Craig Joiner (Guitar), Ed Poole (Bass), Tony Mitman (Keys) and Andy Wells (Drums) deliver a premium blend of melodic rock that goes down smooth like a shot of whiskey. The new album captures all of Romeos Daughters' style and verve with a little bit more on the side. Well-crafted melodic rock that sticks in your head. In this era of empty headed corporate robot music for the masses, it is refreshing to hear such thoughtful and powerful music. 

Leigh Matty was kind enough to give me the lowdown on the band's latest release, 'Spin' and the band's plans on coming to America. 

Q:. The new album is titled 'Spin', are you satisfied with how album turned out? 

Leigh Matty: Hi Tony – yes, we are all very happy with how Spin turned out ( in fact, I would go as far to say that I think it might be my favourite Romeo’s Daughter to date!)

Q: How long did 'Spin' take to record? How many songs did you actually write for the album? 

Leigh Matty : It actually took about 1 year to record but it has taken about 3 years between our last album ‘Rapture ‘and Spin to be released. The reason it seems to have taken so much time is that we ‘worked’ and promoted Rapture all of 2012 and early 2013, so only starting getting the song ideas after that – once we had decided which songs we wanted to demo, it all went quite quickly from then and we finished the album pretty much at the end of 2014. The reason why we have held off releasing it earlier is that we wanted to wait for a tour so we could promote it properly. The tour in question is starting on May 1 st where we are opening for a fantastic band called FM (who we opened for on our first ever tour in 1989!) We have come full circle!

Q: I listened to the "Spin Sampler" on YouTube. I think the songs sound amazing! Which song is slated to be the lead off single? Will there be a video shot for the song? 

Leigh Matty: Thanks for your kind comments – we have decided to promote ‘Touch’ as our lead single and the video is going to be live on Face Book from today ( Fri 24 th ) We plan to make as many promo videos as we can for this album as there are quite a few tracks that we feel are worthy of one! We actually film, edit and produce them ourselves so there is no reason why we can’t do them all (although finding the time is sometimes tricky!)

Q: Memorable moments, good or bad in the making of 'Spin'?

Leigh Matty:  Every record that we make is memorable as we haven’t made that many of them! It has been such a joy to reform and play together again and the response to us now is just as good if not better than the 1 st time around –hopefully we will stay together this time for the foreseeable future ( well as long as our fans still want to hear us!) 

Q: This past March, I believe, you performed at The HRH AOR festival. In your opinion, how did that show go for you? Which songs off 'Spin', did you perform? Was that performance captured on video for a possible DVD release? 

Leigh Matty: We have always enjoyed playing at HRH and this was our 2 nd invitation since we reformed. We decided to be brave and we played 2 new songs off Spin ( why I say we were brave is that we only had a 45 mins set so to put 2 new songs that no one has heard before in it was pretty nerve wracking!) The 2 songs were Touch and Radio and they both went down really well which was a huge relief.

Q: I understand there are plans on doing shows here in the States next year. When was the last time you guys toured the States? Who did you guys tour with then? Who would like to tour with now? 

Leigh Matty: Unfortunately, we never got around to playing in the USA . We did 2 radio tours to promote the 1 st 2 singles of our first album as they were so well received over there, but due to poor representation and bad management, we never got around to playing live – it was a huge disappointment and a regret of ours. We would be so happy if we were invited to do some gigs over there and live in hope that someday it will happen! 

Q:  The musical industry has changed since you guys broke out onto the music scene in 1988. How have you been able to adapt to the many changes the music industry has gone through? 

Leigh Matty: I actually think we have all adapted really well to the changes and most of them, we prefer! We have got pretty much complete control of our product and as we all have home studios, we have been able to record everything in house – we make all our own videos as well and are enjoying getting to grips with the new technology. 

Q: Speaking of changes, Twitter, Facebook, these social media outlets were not around when you came out in 1988. In your opinion, how has social media help promote your band? 

Leigh Matty: We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without Face Book and Twitter! It has been a life saver for us as it has been the only way to reach out to our fans and the word has spread from there. We have our own website –www.romeosdaughter.co.uk which is kept really up to date but really everything goes through FB first – I am a big fan! 

Q: Any parting comments you'd like to pass along to your fans here in the States? 

Leigh Matty:We would love the opportunity to come over and play some gigs for you so please spread the word! Thanks so much for all your support and hope you like ‘Spin’ Love Leigh xx 

For more information on Romeo's Daughter, please visit:
http://romeosdaughter.co.uk/