Resolution Calling!

Everyone enters January vowing to go to the gym, eat more healthily or blah blah blah. They’re commonly known as New Year’s Resolutions, but they may as call them ‘Ridiculous Fantasy Blather’, because we guarantee they’ll be a distant memory come February. Any, we all love a challenge, so we sat down with load of musicians and asked them what they hoped to do this year…

FRANK TURNER

“Mine are to pay absolutely no attention to people who make New Year’s resolutions because, come on, really? Maybe they help people but they seem pretty strange to me. If you’ve got something that needs doing in your life, then just fucking do it. Don’t wait for a certain day of the year to come round. But in terms of things I want to achieve this year, I’d like to get the mixing and presentation of the record right because I want it to be a success. I want to keep doing what I do in a way that is interesting to me and to the people who listen to the music.”

BECCA MACINTYRE, MARMOZETS

“My New Year’s Resolutions are probably to get a little healthier, cut down on smoking and stuff. I’m going to have to!”

ANDY CAIRNS, THERAPY?

“This might sound like an odd thing for a guitarist to say, but my resolution is to play more guitar. I got really lazy for a while, but recently I’ve started playing for hours at a time, as I used to do, and so I’ve decided that this year I really want to improve.”

SEAN SMITH, THE BLACKOUT

“My New Year’s resolutions are to have a completely different year to 2014. Start a new band, try not to die, maybe try and get slimmer… or fatter. I haven’t really decided which one yet. I’m also hoping to win the lottery or find a sexy older business-type woman to be my sugar momma. Apply through Twitter @seansmithsucks.”

CODY CARSON, SET IT OFF

“Tour for a majority of the year, expand our fan base, and take over the world!”

STEVEN BATTELLE, LOSTALONE

“My New Year’s Resolutions are to write, record and release my first solo album, then repeat this until I ultimately perish. I want to record the Dr. Battelle medical musical – each song is a diagnosis, prescription and cure of 12 deadly diseases. I want to encourage people to use pen and expose the actor Alan Dale for the evil overlord he is. For those unaware, he’s infiltrating your lives by strategically placing himself as a figure of authority in all of the biggest TV shows of the past decade and is moving into film as we speak. Deny Dale!”

GEOFF RICKLY, NO DEVOTION/UNITED NATIONS

“Don’t fuck up!”

SAM MCTRUSTY, TWIN ATLANTIC

“I’d like to read more. That’s quite a standard answer, but I’m really bad at getting through books. I’ll have like six books at the same time and I’ll get four chapters through each one and then not ever finish it. So I would love to say that I’ve read all these books in my life, and not just partially.”

MIKE KERR, ROYAL BLOOD

“Hmmm, well, I’m not sure how seriously I take those things, but I have made them in the past. I prefer not to tell others though, because then you’ve something to live up to.”

BROCK LINDOW, 36 CRAZYFISTS

“I don’t know if I do because I don’t really put much stock in them, but my hopes and dreams for next year are just to work really hard, see the world with the band and connect with our people, get back to where we left off and build from there. I want our new album to be something our fans are still interested in, because it’s a special album to me and I think it embodies everything that the band is, has been, and needs to be, and it represents where we are today in life. I’m really proud of it.”

MATT CAUGHTHRAN, THE BRONX

“I had a New Year’s resolution last year that I wasn’t going to take any elevators and it didn’t really work out! I think I went for about a month. There was no real reason behind that one. I just wanted to try something different, and I failed. But as far as 2015 goes, it hasn’t hit me yet. I think you need time to reflect on that stuff and come up with real, heartfelt things like not taking elevators…”

Born in 1976 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Simon Young has been a music journalist for over twenty-six years. His fanzine, Hit A Guy With Glasses, enjoyed a one-issue run before he secured a job at Kerrang! in 1999. His writing has also appeared in Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog, and Planet Rock. His first book, So Much For The 30 Year Plan: Therapy? — The Authorised Biography is available via Jawbone Press.