BBC Radio Lincs Interview Collabro - 3rd Feb

So the guys were interviewed by BBC Radio Lincolnshire's Jono Brine on 3rd February 2016
Here is the link if you want to listen to it however I have done a transcript of the interview!
http://bbc.in/1nRoImg

Jono travelled to London to speak to several Lincolnshire born people who are currently doing well in their musical careers!  He joked that he doesn't get to leave his studio very often!

A recent picture of Collabro looking suave

JB: So it's just been an incredible few months for you guys, you've just been in America, right Tom?
TR: Yeah...we got a really good reception when we went out there last time, we went to New York and LA and people actually flew across America to see the shows which was amazing!  This time we just did the east coast, we did Natick, Sellarsville and New York and again people couldn't have been more supportive.  It's amazing the sounds you get from the crowds over there!
JB: It's amazing, the Collabro story, just remind us for anyone who may have forgotten, just remind us of how Collabro came about?
JL: Well...basically Matt and I were on a contract to holiday companies abroad, he was in Spain and I was in Cyprus.  We were just a bit sick of not getting auditions for the west end and its very difficult nowadays so we thought we'd try and get something together that would be for corporate use like cruises and stuff and it was a five piece musical theatre boy band.  Then when we sang together for the first time we were so bowled over by the sound that we were making that we wanted to take it to a bigger audience and then the Britain's Got Talent auditions came around and that's where it all happened!
JB: So how did the five of you come together?
RH: Well...above a pub at London Bridge, we were all just there randomly...(he laughs) err no...so basically the boys looked on Facebook and contacted each one of us separately, they found myself on YouTube!  We all got together and started singing and when we realised actually we could do something bigger than just cruise ships and corporates which obviously is fun but, we thought hey...we wanna take this to a bigger audience and BGT was the answer!

JB: So the first time you sang together it must have been instant realisation that this was not just the normal five piece band singing together.  It must have felt incredible to hear the sound!
MP: Yeah...originally we were gonna sing 'Bring Him Home' for the first audition but, we decided we'd sing 'Stars' lets just have a run through and see what it sounded like.  There's a chord on 'The Flame, the Sword' and we hit that chord and we just thought wow this is the song we need to do and we did it and it went a bit better than we thought it would!

JB: I think the incredible thing about Collabro is you started off being a band singing musical theatre songs, you've occasionally moved away from that, you can pretty much sing anything in Collabro style, that must be amazing!  You must get such a good reception from that!
MA: Yeah definitely, I remember the first day we went to Simon Cowell's office and there was a piece of paper on the desk in front of us and it said 'All of Me' John Legend.  We thought, that's not from a musical is it?  That was the first pop cover we did in the studio and we just started singing it and we thought 'this is amazing!'  We have an amazing vocal arranger Richard John and it's great...we've coined the term 'Collabro Sound' so give us any song!  We now do swing songs, pop songs, musical theatre and we've even tried a bit of opera in a different language, when we went to Japan we sang 'I Dreamed a Dream' in Japanese, that's pretty exciting so yeah...we can do anything!

JB: So I've travelled to London to meet some of the people from Lincolnshire who are doing really well and here we have Tom from Louth! And Tom you've done so much in Louth before you came to London, you actually moved here before you were in Collabro.
TR: Yeah...I moved here quite a while ago actually, I came for Uni.  Before that when I was in Louth I was in the local Playgoers for a long time, for a good few years!  I did a show when I was 8 called 'All My Sons' I played the little boy...was it Bert...I think that was his name!  I kept doing shows until I left.  I was in the local choir at St James' church as well.  I came to London for Uni and tried to get into the west end and it's very, very difficult as Jamie said so I was pleased as pie when Collabro came along!

Collabro performing on tour in 2015

JB: How do you decide where Collabro is going next?  Do you have a say in what you are doing? Are you able to go to your label and say this is what we want to try or are you still at the stage where you're being dictated to...dictated is probably the wrong word...are you being told what they expect you to do?

TR: In the start we'd never been in the music industry before obviously we listened to their opinions and we followed what they thought would be best.  Now we're kind of thinking we want to do something different, something a bit more upbeat so we've started to add some swing numbers into our sets and it's always good to do that at corporate shows and stuff cos you can gauge a reaction from the audience and they've been absolutely loving it!  So I think we're going to add some more for the tour and some surprises in there and some more upbeat stuff just to get people going!

JB: The thing I have noticed about you and so many bands say this, that they are still grounded and that they are just normal people.  I have noticed that you are so normal and you haven't changed since the first time I met you!  You were in the reception area of this building that we are in now and were showing each other your new shoes!  What do you do when you are not working, when you are not on tour?  You've had a few days where you haven't seen each other, what do you do to try to relax and to feel normal?

JL: I think we all do different things...I personally like to play Xbox, that's my kinda escapism.  Also I joined Laithwaites Wine Company so keep getting boxes of wine delivered, I've got the most ridiculous amount of wine!  So that's what I quite enjoy doing.

TR: Every time I have a day off I still chat to the others, we're constantly sending each other funny pictures and things so really we're never apart!

JB: So the new material you're working on when can we start to see that coming out, will that be during the tour?

TR: Yeah...last tour we tried out a few songs just to kinda gauge the reaction and they ended up on the second album!  We gonna go away and have a think about what we want to try out on this second tour whether it be swing, musical theatre or pop and see how the audience like it, see the kind of reaction from that and you know you might be seeing it on the next album!

JB: So just remind us again, you're coming to Grimsby, when and how can we get tickets?

TR: That's on the 1st April and I promise we'll be there it's not an April Fool, you can get tickets from Gigs and Tours or you can ring Grimsby Auditorium themselves!

The interview ends with the host playing Memory from Cats!