Page 8 - Black Velvet Issue 85

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light up

ight You Up came to our attention when they performed at Slam Dunk Festival in 2014. Light
LYou Up are a five-piece pop-punk band that hail from Birmingham, comprising of Tom ‘Napes’
Napier (vocals and acoustic guitar), Tom Hill (bass/vocals), Drew Masters (guitar/vocals), Rob Tay-
lor (guitar) and Joe Garey (drums). After impressing us with an exciting set that included Tom
Napier jumping off the stage and into the crowd, we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d
be seeing them again. Cue 2015 and the release of ‘All We’ve Ever Known’, Light You Up’s debut
album, which hit stores at the end of January. With this now under their belts, the band are well
and truly in full gig onslaught mode with tours with Four Year Strong and PVRIS already done and
dusted. We caught up with Tom Napier and guitarist Drew Masters and chatted about bonding as
bandmates, optimism and patience and scrabbles with venue security.

om and Drew begin by telling Black ate about.” lot since their initial formation. “We wrote the
TVelvet that music and being in bands “It’s a little bit of a play on words,” Drew songs, some of them are verging on three
really is all they’ve ever known. “I guess that tells us. “Everyone always says you have your years old, we recorded the record about two
was like one of the initial sparks behind the whole lives, or the first eighteen, twenty years years ago, so we’ve changed a lot as people
album concept and the album title,” Tom says. of your life to write your first record and then since then.” In title track 'All We've Ever Known'
“We’ve been in bands for the last ten years or you have to write your second one in two years Tom sings about change, saying 'I'm bettering
so and in terms of it being everything we’ve al- so, this is our first record and it’s a combination myself trying to make a change.' Drew tells us,
ways wanted to do, there are other avenues of all we’ve ever known.” “That lyric, specifically, is part about living in the
that we’d like to explore but music is definitely Light You Up have been a band since real world and bettering yourself but trying to
something that we’ve all always been passion- 2012, and Tom says the band has changed a do things for the right reasons, and obviously

LIGHT YOU UP