It’s all about the music — and fans, Lost Alone’s Steven Battelle tells Tim Hughes

With their crashing riffs, ear-pounding walls of guitar, kinetic live shows and soaring vocals, LostAlone are a band who were made for arenas.

Among the best of the new breed of metal bands, this no-nonsense bunch of East Midlands rockers have acquired a cult following through support slots for fellow rockers Paramore, My Chemical Romance and The Darkness, and are now embarking on their own headline tour, brandishing a new album.

For frontman Steven Battelle it’s all part of a long game plan which began in his Derby bedroom while he and bandmate Mark Gibson were at school — young metal fans with bad mullets.

“After school, we’d go home, put on Iron Maiden’s Hallowed Be Thy Name and mime along with air guitar and vocals. It was just a natural thing to do.”

On April 4, Steven, drummer Mark and bass player Alan Williamson play the O2 Academy Oxford on a tour of medium-sized clubs to support the launch, that week, of new album Shape Of Screams. Steven admits it’s a refreshing change from the super venues they have made their home.

“We’ve done some amazing tours where we’ve been playing to 10,000 people a night, which is incredible,” he says with genuine delight.

“But I’d take playing to 500 of our own fans over playing an arena any time. Playing stadiums are great fun but not human. You are acting out. It’s ridiculous and insane. We are three mates and sometimes it’s scary. Imagine running on stage at Wembley Arena and it’s not your audience. They are not there to lap up what you do. You’ve got to impress them. It’s a gladiatorial thing and it’s a crazy thing to do. Of course, when you are in the bubble of touring it seems totally natural.

“You’ve got 30 minutes to make sure people fall in love with your band.

“It’s a high-paced blur. When I’m there I do enjoy it, but I can’t wait ’til I’ve done it and it’s a success. “And when you look back at it on video, and those thousands of people doing what you have asked them to do, it’s ridiculous.”

He is referring to a show they did at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre which they dedicated to Freddie Mercury — and got the entire crowd to raise their fists in the air, Freddie-style.

Like many metal artists, the real-life Steven is nothing like his terrifying stage self. Self-effacing, engaging, and armed with a rich Derbyshire accent, the 28-year-old guitarist bubbles with intelligent enthusiasm — eager to share anecdotes and insights into the often murky world of rock and roll. And, despite the image — black leather, snarled vocals, piercing eyes staring from a shock of hair — he is disarmingly charming.

“I literally work 24/7 on the band,” he says, talking from his family home in Derby (“it’s not worth having a place of our own at the moment”).

“When I’m not writing music, I’m on social media all day. It can be stressful, but if it’s something you care deeply about you definitely can’t treat it as a nine-to-five job. It’s a massive fight and I don’t think I’ve stopped in five years. The most relaxed I am is when I’m on stage doing what I do. Everything else is a worry.”

The band, who have also supported Tonight Alive, 30 Seconds To Mars and Evanescence, recorded their latest album in the depths of the Hampshire countryside. As rich in vocals as guitars, it moves beyond bone-crunching rock to encompass lighter moments of uplifting melody and high drama. Album closer Breathing In The Future Exhaling The Past, comes across as a hymn while he describes his song Requiem as his My Way. And while there’s no obvious humour, it’s hard not to detect a knowing wink at tracks called The Bells! The Bells! and Doooooooooomaggedon.

“I never expected this situation, but everyone who has heard the record says the same thing: they can’t pinpoint what it is. For me personally, we are a rock band but there are a lot of vocals. It’s like a musical with heavy guitars.”

As if to secure their place as the thinking fan’s metal band, Steven describes the album as about “time and lack of it” but also as a fight back against “the formulaic and soulless metallic buzz where the completely generic is hailed as incredible. It was our responsibility to melody to make this album as a first wave of the fight back.

“I take music extremely seriously but nothing else seriously at all. I never want to make anything remotely boring or spend time talking about chords.

“ I would never say to anyone ‘this record nearly killed us’. Not only did it not kill us, it made us immortal!

“The whole idea of rock & roll — of three mates walking on stage in front of all those people — is ridiculous. It’s weird, but I could never have imagined, when I was 14, that I’d be on a poster in Kerrang! three times in a year — one of them dressed as Rambo!

“For us it’s about music alone — and that’s why we’re here.”

Knowing what he does now, what would he say to his younger self, playing air guitar in his bedroom after school? “I’d say ‘just do exactly what you’re doing, as I have zero regrets about anything we’ve done musically,” he laughs.

“But I would say this: sort your hair out... because it’s shocking!”

LostAlone
O2 Academy, Oxford
Friday, April 4
Tickets are £7 from ticketweb.co.uk