Tom George, the one-man singer-songwriter behind Isle of Wight based The Lion and the Wolf, played his 100th live show of the year yesterday (Saturday 4th October) in Germany.
2014 has seen him push himself to the limit, dedicating his life to an impressive touring schedule both in the UK and abroad.
To celebrate his achievement, George is streaming a brand new The Lion and the Wolf track from his forthcoming album. The track is available to stream via the player below.
That’s not all though – we spoke to George about his touring life, and were lucky enough to record The Lion and the Wolf play in the acoustic tent on Thursday 14th August at Hevy Festival. The footage of his live version of ‘Run With Us’ (yes, the theme tune for 90s cartoon The Racoons) is available to watch at the end of the article.
How are you feeling as you approach your 100th show of the year? Tired?
I’m feeling good. I’m currently sat in a friends flat in Germany gulping down a delicious cup of coffee getting ready for tonight’s show which will be number 99. In all honesty, this year has gone so fast and show 100 has really sprung up on me quickly.
I can say with my hand on my heart that this has been the best year of my life. I left my job in January so I could tour full time and I am hugely proud and thankful that 2014 has been so kind to me. The first string of shows I did this year was supporting my boy Rob Lynch in Germany and that truly feels like a lifetime ago. Yeah, I am really tired, but I’m feeling positive and am so stoked for the rest of the year and 2015.
What has kept you, or keeps you, motivated on the road?
The main thing is the sheer love of playing live and meeting new people. That, for me, is what music is all about – community. When I first started touring in my old band many years ago I always thought of it as a mini adventure everyday and to this day that still sticks.
I guess, however, for this year the main thing that has kept me motivated is finally getting my album out to the world. In-between tours I’ve been heading back to the Isle of Wight to finish recording my debut full length and being out on the road always gets me excited to head back into the studio with new songs and ideas.
The other thing that I constantly remind myself is how lucky I am to be able to do this, even though it’s not overly glamorous touring when you’re on your own on the National Express! I often see, particularly on social media, people posting about how much they hate their jobs and want to do something different and part of me realised how grateful I am.
I moved to London in 2012 to try and get into post-production audio work as The Lion and the Wolf wasn’t really that active and I needed a fresh start. I had so many interviews and applications rejected that it was deflating and I had always wanted to take music full time, so I ended up handing in my notice at my job and decided to tour the fuck out of 2014. That is a huge motivation, knowing that I could be stuck somewhere with no natural sunlight and not playing music all the time.
What advice would you give someone who is looking to match your touring record?
Haha, firstly I don’t see myself as some sort of touring prodigy or anything. I’m proud of the hard work I’ve put in this year and by the end of it my show count should be approximately 140 shows but there are people out there who tour way harder than that. For example I think when Manchester Orchestra started out they did something like 250 in a year? That is something I would love to match.
However in terms of advice with touring I would say to start off with with a short run of dates and build from there. If you want to take it full time there are going to be days where you will sit in front of your laptop all day just in the effort to fill one date or to get the best deal on travel. If you’re a relatively unknown act, like myself, it may be initially quite difficult to book headline shows but what I’ve found is it’s not out of the question to jump onto bills to open up, especially when you are playing acoustically.
The last UK tour I did I managed to pretty much blag my way onto most of the Signals Midwest dates and this as well as anything gets you meeting people, who in turn take your contact details and before you know it you are doing more and more shows. Without sounding like some sort of businessman, I guess a lot of it is down to networking. What I have had to do this year is get really organised and plan ahead. I tend to book tours at least two months in advance even when on the road so it’s really like a leapfrog scenario. This way you can keep on top of it and book travel cheaply.
If you’re on your own, National Express IS YOUR FRIEND! I would also say that you are well within your right to ask for your travel to be covered at the very least so you are not at a loss, providing obviously this has been pre-agreed.
Also, partying is great on tour but I would try to limit it – just from personal experience. I once did a tour where I started with a fucking horrible hangover which lead me to getting ill which meant I played really badly and had a bad time on the road. It’s so important to look after yourself, get enough sleep and eat well. Otherwise you will probably burn yourself out! I SOUND SO BORING.
Have you got any particularly memorable moments from these 100 shows?
So, so many memorable moments. It’s actually quite difficult to remember exactly which ones stand out the most. One of them I would have to say was when I played in Dusseldorf with Rob Lynch back in March when five of my friends flew out to Germany to have a holiday and watch me perform. It was one of the best shows I had ever played and for them to see me play in such a packed room felt great.
Another memorable moment was when I played in Amsterdam with Big Fin and we ended up staying in a commune called Ruigood (seriously Google it, it’s mind blowing). It basically houses about 45 people, all surrounding a Church which holds a bar where they all have raves. We stayed at a man called Peter’s house and I genuinely thought we were going to die. We walked into his front room and he had all of these self made collages of teeth and legs and eyes all over his walls and proceeded to tell us that he was ‘born again’ in the 1980s after a time he took lots of LSD. When we all went to bed he was still downstairs listening to Led Zeppelin really loudly in the dark, I went downstairs to use the toilet and he jumped out on me from behind the door. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.
In the morning though, he made us coffee and eggs and wished us well on our way. One more, fairly recent moment was when I played at Southsea Fest on my last UK tour. I had played the same room a year before to about 10 people but this year the room was absolutely packed, everyone was silent when I played and although I was running on three hours sleep it was one of my favourite shows of the year.
Tell us a little about your new track. Does it represent your forthcoming album?
Yes I think it does pretty well, it’s actually one of the last tracks we recorded / I wrote for the album. It’s about somebody I knew up until recently who has a condition called ‘Synesthesia’ which is where when saying certain words or sentences, colour or shapes will appear which I feel, is a really beautiful thing. I originally went in the studio with the idea of doing a short, mini-album but we decided to take our time and spend a year on it.
It’s fairly different from my earlier, self recorded EPs due to the fact there is much more instrumentation and experimentation going on, however I wanted to keep some of the raw sounding aspects of my previous work which I feel we have achieved. Moving across to electric guitar for some of the tracks was an idea I wasn’t overly keen on to begin with but I am so glad we ended up doing it for this track especially. The album itself sounds really warm and organic due to the fact we recorded with barely any digital plug ins and a lot of the gear in the studio is from the 1950s and 60s so it sounds wonderful. I really couldn’t be happier with the way it has come out and can’t wait to show everyone.
Are you going to up the ante next year?
I wanted to achieve 100 shows this year, and next year I would love to do 200. I always want to progress in what I do so to get to a milestone like that would be amazing. The record will have been out, in the UK at least for a few months by then so I’ll be wanting to get some full band shows together as well as touring solo. I have played more shows in Europe than the UK this year and in 2015 I really want to play in further out places like Poland, Romania and Hungary and to do a run in the US!
Ultimately – I am in a really great place right now, I have met hundreds of people this year that I am proud to call friends and played some of the best shows of my life. I’ve actually documented the past year by taking a guest book to each show that people can write / draw in. I have two full books now and will be doing something really cool with it when the album is released.
Providing I can continue touring as much as I have this year, if not more, I will be more than happy!
Catch The Lion and the Wolf in the near future on the following dates in Germany… (yes, he’s not done yet):
OCTOBER
22 ERLANGEN E-Werk
23 MUNICH Sunny Red
24 STUTTGART 1210
25 RAVENSBURG 104
27 DORTMUND FZW
28 LEIPZIG Wärmehalle Süd
29 BREMEN Tower
30 HANNOVER Lux
31 GOTTINGEN JT- Kantine
01 OSNABRUCK Kleine Freiheit
03 WIESBADEN Schlachthof
04 JENA Café Wagner
05 BERLIN Privatclub
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