NEW SINGLE: OUT 24 APRIL 2025
Three old school friends – Tom Faithfull, Ben Matthias and bassist Dave Tute – founded The Royston Club before later adding drummer Sam Jones. They’ve risen in tandem with the wider resurgence of Wrexham led by the football club, with its co-owner Ryan Reynolds becoming one of their first famous fans. The band’s position as hometown heroes was underlined by a recent three-night run at the city’s Rockin’ Chair venue, which sold-out in minutes.
But The Royston Club’s popularity certainly isn’t confined to north Wales. They’ve also sold-out London’s KOKO, completed three unforgettable sets at Glastonbury, and played at Liam Gallagher’s Malta Weekender. Meanwhile, festival adventures have taken them from Reading, Leeds and TRNSMT to SXSW, Eurosonic and beyond.
Next up is a London underplay show at Omeara which rapidly sold-out. The Royston Club will then spend the summer playing a blend of major festivals in both the UK and internationally, as well as select outdoor shows as guests to big names such as The Lathums, Bloc Party and Travis
New single ‘Shivers’ sees the band dramatically expand upon their core indie-rock sound. Waves of distorted, melodic guitar comes crashing down like Hüsker Dü reborn for 2025 and then they’re gone, leaving Tom Faithfull’s expressive, impassioned vocals accompanied by a minimalist bass bounce. That thrilling loud/quiet/loud dynamic contrast provides a searing energy quite unlike anything we’ve heard from the band before, while its lyrics are universally relatable (the all-encompassing pull of romance) while taking on new levels of sophistication. Those strengths place The Royston Club in a new light – something akin to their generation’s answer to the craft and invention of The Maccabees or Bloc Party.
Guitarist and main songwriter Ben Matthias says, “‘Shivers’ is a love song. I wrote it in the seaside village of Beaumaris, where the majority of this album was written. My girlfriend had made the trip to North Wales to spend a night with me there in the middle of a week writing, the next day she left again and I wrote this song.
I wanted to portray how quickly and almost morbidly time can ‘slip away’ when you’re spending time with the one you love. Days can feel like hours when you’re with the right person and memories become intrinsically entwined to the point where time spent without them feels wasted.
It’s the first song I’ve written in a minor key which I can only attribute to all The Cure I was listening to at the time and it was arranged in a much more patient way than anything else we’d worked on up to this point.”
