The past few years have been a less than easy ride for Welsh six-piece The Blackout. Following the release of their second album 'The Best In Town', the band from Merthyr Tydfil came face to face with a good handful of the industry's worst pressures. Seeing themselves part ways with their label Epitaph, the band were left with little choice but to raise their own funds in order to record their newest album, whilst simultaneously coming to terms with the fickle nature of the music industry itself. Throw in a severe lack of live dates, and it's hard to know how they survived. The simple answer would be to say it came in the form of 'Hope'; their aptly-titled third album, born out of both hard work, and the love and support of their fans.

A week or so after the release of 'Hope', we caught up with front man Sean Smith in an upstairs office of Northumbria University, before their show that evening. Sporting white rimmed aviator sunglasses, he warns us that he's not being rude, before revealing a bruised and swollen black eye that he obtained a few days prior to today. Thus, we spend the next twenty minutes catching up with the Welshman - who is as wonderfully hilarious and tongue-in-cheek as ever - discussing everything from why he enjoys playing live to the Pledge Music system, how it was to tour with My Chemical Romance to, of course, llama sex.

OS: How're you doing today?
Sean Smith [vocals]: I'm okay, at best...
OS: And how're you feeling about Newcastle?
Sean: Yes, I do feel about Newcastle... Nah, I like Newcastle, when people turn up. The problem is with Newcastle; people tweet us all the time saying, "Come to Newcastle!" and when we do come to Newcastle...
OS: They're never here?
Sean: Yeah, the motherfuckers don't turn up!

OS: Today is your first time playing at Northumbria University in Newcastle. Yesterday you played in Edinburgh and the day before, Glasgow. When you were up there, you had a little accident. Are we allowed to ask what happened?
Sean: Yeah, of course. I was standing in the smoking area in Glasgow Garage and I, I had a hot flush - I think I'm going through the menopause - and I landed face first on the floor. I thought, "I know, my hands are my most beautiful feature. Let's fall on my face!" So, I did, and I chipped three teeth and scrammed my face.
OS: Well, we all feel for you.
Sean: Thank you.
OS: I can't actually believe you managed to do that.
Sean: I know! Our guitar tech was with us, and Hyro' [Da Hero]s manager, and when I came around, they were all stood around me saying, "Are you okay?! Are you okay?!" Apparently my eyes were open as well, on the way down, and were open the whole time. Scary Sean's dead! Imagine I had just died. That would've been awesome! [laughter] No, but 'Hope' would've been massive. It would've been Kurt Cobain-like!
OS: It would've.
Sean: I'm not saying I am Kurt Cobain, because I'm a lot better than Kurt Cobain ever was, I'm a lot more liked than Kurt Cobain ever was, and I'm not gonna leave a child when I kill myself! I'm not that much of a scumbag.
OS: Imagine you'd died on the anniversary of his death.
Sean: The thing is, surely it's the anniversary every year, now that he's dead!
OS: That is true...
Sean: But yeah, he left a kid, didn't he, so there's only so much.
OS: There's only so much sympathy you can give.
Sean: Well, yeah, there is!

OS: Moving swiftly on - before we get approach by someone from the Nirvana camp...
Sean: Yeah, Nirvana's drummer. Dave Grohl's going to come and be really, really nice to me. [laughter]
OS: Anyway! What have the shows been like so far?
Sean: Really, really, really good.
OS: Really?
Sean: Yeah! Really! Surprisingly good.
OS: And how has it been débuting the new material?
Sean: Yeah, it's been alright.
OS: It's always a little bit tough though, isn't it?
Sean: Yeah, we do a song called 'Hope' from the album, and that's kind of this mid-tempo song. I've noticed since the album has come out, more people know it and are joining in, but I think it's only going to get better really, from here. We're doing a song called 'Never By Your Side' as well, which is about our joint lack of faith, and thinking that there's nothing out there really after you die, so just have fun while you're here. So, we've been doing that one as well, and that's been going up and down. Because kids don't know it, they don't wanna dance to something in case it stops or something, and you look like a tit. [laughter]
OS: At least you're aware of these problems in the crowd!
Sean: Oh, I know it!

OS: How has general reaction been since the album dropped?
Sean: Awesome. It's had good press reviews and kids seem to like it. I've only read one... I went on iTunes and read the comments. I shouldn't have - if you're in a band, or you're an artist or anything where you're putting yourself out there, never read the comments! With iTunes, we got all five stars! Then, this one girl has ruined it by giving us zero, so it's taken it down to four and a half when you look at it. She's put zero and gone, "This is awful." Thing is, I'm sure the girl was a fan of the band. There's gotta be at least one of those songs on there that she likes, if you like The Blackout. 'Never By Your Side' is still pretty much the same vein as The Blackout has always been, I guess. But, "This is awful. I hate every song"?! That takes some doing, to hate every song on a whole album.
OS: The thing is though, she'll probably come to a show for the old songs, go home and listen to 'Hope', then fall in love with it after hearing it live.
Sean: Hmm, I dunno, if she's bought it and instantly hates it. [laughter] It's gonna take one hell of a job.

OS: So, you do think that you've gone in a different direction with this album?
Sean: Partially, yeah. I think we just wanted to write the biggest songs we could, and this time we knew more about what to do and how to write them.
OS: Yeah, as artists you'll always be learning and growing.
Sean: It's the cliched 'mature' record. The heavier bits are heavier and the lighter bits are lighter. We're really happy with it. We went into this album knowing what Jason [Perry, producer] would want, so I guess that kind of moulded the sound before we got to him.
OS: Would you have wanted to go with anyone other than Jason?
Sean: Nope, not really. Jason knows our limits; what we can and can't do. He pushes us and he wants the same things as us, out of the band, which is childish nu-metal. He loves nu-metal and we love nu-metal, so we came together and tried to make the...
OS: The best childish nu-metal album that could be made?
Sean: Yeah, The Blackout meets nu-metal.
OS: And you've done very well.
Sean: Thank you. I like it!

OS: There's also a lot of back story with 'Hope', whereas there might not necessarily have been with your first two albums. For example, you said yourself, you've been through a relationship change, you left Epitaph, all of the things that came with Pledge Music. So, is it strange to have gotten through all of these somewhat defining factors and hurdles and to have an end product now?
Sean: I guess so. I've never seen it as strange, I guess. That's the thing with Pledge; at first, we really nervous about it.
OS: Understandably so. When you look at the scheme itself, it's easy to see it as amazing opportunity, or a very questionable thing.
Sean: We didn't know how kids were going to be with it. The first day when we turned up at Bristol Zoo one, we didn't know if we were going to be stand-offish, or the kids weren't gonna enjoy themselves. And we don't wanna try too hard, so people go back and say, "They were trying really hard. They were trying to be funny all the time." But it's been awesome, it's been really good and everyone seems to have enjoyed it. We've been really happy with how it's gone.

[It's at this point in time, that my mind goes blank, and thus I ask Sean if there's anything he'd like to talk about, while I re-assess my thoughts.]
Sean: You know me, I'll talk about anything!
OS: I know you will!
Sean: Yesterday, me, Rhys and Snoz got talking about llama sex. Apparently, back in the day on ships, when men went out to in the navy, the most anatomically correct animal vagina - to a lady's vagina - was a llamas.
OS: How did you discover that?
Sean: I think somebody told me. I dunno, I probably found it when I was researching 'how to have sex with animals'. My mother's got a Miniature Schnauzer but apparently that's too small.,[laughter] You've got to have a bigger dog, like a Labrador, or an Alsation. ....That's what I found out anyway.
OS: Okay, back to the album.
Sean: I liked that little pause then! You had enough time to think!

OS: So, lyrically, what did you want to explore with 'Hope'?
Sean: Rhyming words! [laughter] Basically, how it comes about, is we come up with a melody first. I remember hearing that Mike Patton from Faith No More comes up with a melody and then he uses words that sound good with that melody. So, when we write stuff, we know have an idea about what we wanna write, and then when we're singing the melodies, we see that certain words will fit there and that we have to change the sentences around the words. So, sometimes it was just melody first and then whatever word kept coming up.
OS: So, in that way do you think that possibly the words don't mean as much, or do you work hard enough to make sure they do?
Sean: Um, yeah, you work it out so that they do mean something to someone, or some of them are open to interpretation, rather than go into detail about whatever we wanted to speak about.
OS: That's the thing, you seem to deal with bigger themes, than specific inspirations.
Sean: Yeah, it's just, we had certain songs where we'd say, "This is what the songs going to be about. This is the lyrical content. I want to get these sentences in. I want to say this." But, they've all got meaning, but we left some open so that people can put it to their own lives.
OS: Do you think that's an important thing to do?
Sean: Yeah, I think it is because it helps people connect. You can write a selfish album all you want, but then... like, rock stars can talk about their cars and their money and bitches and drugs, but then if you've never experienced those things, why would you connect or feel anything? You'd just say, "Oh, here he goes, bragging again." Or even inner turmoil! People going, "Oh yeah, I've had it so hard being a rock star, being so lonely." Shut up, you knob. You're fucking playing to thousands of people every night and loving it. I just think it's easier to keep... We always write about things we know. We don't write about things we don't know, like, I've never been a hip-hop star, so I can't write about my Escalade and stuff, so we just try to write about what we know.

[...The mindblank strikes again and Sean is quick to save me.]
Sean: Right, well, if you go to motherless.com, that's my favourite porn site. I just thought I'd put another segway in while you think of something. [laughter]

OS: You were recently featured on the cover of Kerrang, and they highlighted the fact that, whilst you're a band that's always had a reasonable amount of success - you don't play to empty rooms, your venues are always decent sizes - there are a lot of bands who have risen to fame a lot more quickly, like You Me At Six, Young Guns. We've spoken to Calum Doris from Flood of Red about the same kind of thing; this sort of slow but steady rise, that surely must be a little frustrating sometimes. Plus, people are under a lot of illusions and misconceptions about the inner-workings of music.
Sean: I think with Flood of Red, the problem is they are such a niche market, whereas we are open to radio play. Lately, we've been doing press with Sugar and Bliss, girls magazines, you know, and I guess that's due to the way we dress and stuff. But with Flood of Red, it's such a small thing that it's very hard for them to blow up. Whereas You Me At Six come along; five good-looking boys who have got these lovely pop songs and people just go, "Jesus Christ, yes! That's the band I'm looking for!" With Young Guns, when they started out, they probably weren't as good songwriters as they are now, so they've written an album and just skyrocketed. But, another bunch of five good-looking boys and the front man has beautiful eyes, so they were always going to be successful.
It's not frustrating really, because we're all friends. It's when the shit bands.. when shit bands with shitty people. I hate shitty people - everyone hates shitty people. No one goes, "Oh, he's super shitty but I like him." [laughter] But shitty bands that do well fucking blows my mind. There were so many bands on Warped tour who were fucking douchebags that were doing so well, it made me sick. I was just sitting there sometimes thinking, "how is this happening?!" I liked to think that we're nice people and we can actually play our own music, whereas a lot of these fucking bands. A load of American bands these days are fucking miming. It's unbelievable. It's like, why be in a band?! You are literally only in it then to feed your ego. Whereas, literally, I just love going out there and playing. Last night, I used five different microphones in four songs because they fucked up and apparently, our sound guy said last night, that that room is not ready for gigs yet because it just can't cope. But, we just love going out there, playing, making a mess, but if you're miming, how much fun can you be having? It's just literally, a horrible pop act then.

OS: Coming back to Pledge, when you did that, you did so many acoustic shows and house shows, and really got involved on a deeper level, whilst some bands would've just said, "Well, we're not doing that. We're too big to do that."
Sean: Well, when we sat down with Pledge and they explained it to us - because at first, I thought it was begging, and I said, "I don't wanna do this. I'd rather just skrimp or sell our souls to any fucking label just so we can make a record." And they explained it to us, and we saw it as... At first, I guess we'd taken it for granted; they were like, "Oh, you can sell things like, 'come to soundcheck and hang out', but we were like, "Well, soundchecks are shit." But if you'd told me five, ten years ago that I could go and watch the soundcheck of my favourite band: if I could go watch Limp Bizkit soundcheck, I would pay anything. I'd make my parents sell the house.
OS: You probably would have to with Limp Bizkit.
Sean: [laughs] Yeah, just to meet them and see them would be amazing. So, when they gave us the list, they said, "This is the list of everything you can do, but most of the bands cross off loads of it." We literally looked at it for a second and said, "Yeah, we'll do all of that. Can we also go to a zoo, go to Thorpe Park..." Some of them were meet and greets for fifty quid - some ridiculous thing - and we found out that other bands had done them where you come in, say hello and go.
OS: Which you're doing today for free in HMV.
Sean: Yeah! Meet and greets are boring because they're awkward and you just come in and the person's either quiet or shaking or just weird, so we were like, "If we put an XBox in the room, we can play Xbox and that can break the ice." We've done it where, this kid has come in the room and he's been silent, but after we've played Xbox and he's beaten me, he's chirped up a bit and it starts conversations. In Liverpool the other day, two girls came, they watched us soundcheck and we hang out all day. They have passes so they can come back and forth and have drinks or whatever. We found out about another band who did the soundcheck one; their pledge was £50 more than ours and you literally just come in, watch one song, shake their hand and then leave to go back out to the queue and start again. We literally just went, "Look, we don't care. We will hang out with anyone. Anyone who wants to hang out with us, awesome." I think we're a very accessible band, whereas some bands would say, "I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna meet these people." But it worked really well for us. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to that has done the pledge stuff with us has really enjoyed it. Even, there was one girl who did Bristol Zoo with us, who was quiet and seemed really miserable, but after it all, I messaged her on Facebook to check she'd had a good day, and she was like, "I had the best day of my life!" I was like, "Hanging out with six?!" My best day would be probably getting away from us six.

OS: It must be so rewarding to get to do all of that and make people happy, whilst also giving them an integral part within the album.
Sean: Yeah, of course, of course. When we first did Pledge, we thought it'd just be the same five to ten people all the time, just chipping in and pledging for these things, so we expected to see the same faces over and over. But, literally, we did maybe five house parties and five acoustic performances, and each one was with a different bunch of people. It was really humbling to see how many different people got involved and how many people actually did give a shit about the band. When you open the CD cover up, there's a thousand names in there, so it was just awesome to see that people gave a shit.

OS: So, what's the plan for the rest of the year?
Sean: Hopefully just tour. Reading and Leeds.
OS: You're on main stage? It's going to be a good day!
Sean: Yeah, second on after 'Archy-tects'. It's going to be a really good day. It's the first time I've seen a line-up on main stage where you could literally just stay there all day.
OS: I'd love to just go and stay at main stage all day.
Sean: Yeah, I remember when we opened the main stage before, it was just us and a load of shitty indie bands up until The Killers came on. But this year is 'Archy-tects', The Blackout, New Found Glory, Bring Me The Horizon, Rise Against, Deftones, The Offspring, 30 Seconds To Mars and My 'Ch-emical' Romance.

OS: Speaking of them, how was supporting My Chemical Romance on their UK tour?
Sean: Great! Lovely boys. Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely boys. They're fantastic. They sent us a bottle of champagne after we finished the tour when we in Australia. So we drank that and got drunk really quick thanks to My Chemical Romance. They were lovely, everyone was really accommodating and their fans seemed to take quite well to us, so we had a great time on it. It was pretty much perfect timing too - the week before, we were on a hill in Guildford having press shots taken and we got a phonecall saying, "You've been offered the My Chemical Romance tour." And I was like, "I'm too cold to care! Call me back later!" But then we realised, it was the perfect lead-up. The last four or five months have been. The You Me At Six tour came about because Josh [Franceschi] tweeted at me saying, "Come on tour in December" and we were like, "Wellllll, we've got nothing on!" So, we did that, and that got us some hype for the album, then the My Chemical Romance tour came around, then we did Australia and now we've back here.

OS: And Australia was good?
Sean: Warm. That's how Australia is. Dusty and warm, full of spiders.
OS: And the shows?
Sean: They were alright as well. Big festival, kind of like a Warped tour vibe. We were on between The Maine and Mayday Parade, which kind of felt like the same band twice, but with different singers hair, but they were all nice guys. We were on stages next to each other, so their crowd was in front of their stage, so they didn't move and so they were just kind of, watching at an angle. We were on the second Bring Me The Horizon finished, on a different stage which was normally miles away. So, by the time kids got to our area, it was halfway through our set. But, it'd always end with a big crowd, and it was lots of fun!

The Blackout will be touring the UK in late October/ early November. 'Hope' is available now.