The Treatment is an amazing up-and-coming hard rock band originating from Cambridge, England. After listening to their debut CD, This Might Hurt, it is evident that the band is hell bent on bringing hard rock back to the masses.
Interview by Chris Eason
To celebrate the debut album release, This Might Hurt, in the United States on July 17, The Treatment will make an exclusive iTunes bundle available – a five-song covers EP originally released exclusively in the UK as a 300-copy limited edition.
The covers EP features The Treatment’s interpretations of:
“Run Run Run” – Jo Jo Gunne
“Evil Woman” – ELO
“Motor Biking” – Chris Spedding
“Lets Work Together” – Canned Heat
“Take Me Back Home” – Slade
The covers EP was produced by Laurie Mansworth, who also produced This Might Hurt. Three days after the release of This Might Hurt, the band will commence its 43-date opening slot on the Kiss/ Motley Crue tour on July 20 in Bristow, VA. See the band’s official Facebook Page for more info and tour dates.
Bassist Swoggle took the time to answer a few questions before the tour starts:
How hard was it for all of your members to find each other and get the music started?
Dhani decided when he was 15 that he wanted to form a band, and along with his dad Laurie’s guidance, started putting the feelers out to find other musicians interested in a similar thing. Ben sent him an email and they got on great. From then on it was sort of a domino effect. Ben had known me for years, and I jumped at the opportunity to join. I knew Tag from school, and we stumbled across Matt on myspace! We jammed together for a while, refining our sound and working up our chops, but as regards to actually finding each other, I guess you could say fate bought us together.
At what point did all of you realize that you had all of the elements and chemistry to create a kick ass hard rock band? How did it feel when you realized it?
Although we’ve not all known each other all of our lives, all of us were raised on rock and roll. We all live together, and we all share the same dream. I personally don’t remember a particular moment where we all thought, wow we really have something special going on here, because we’re a very un-egotistical bunch of people. But that’s not to say that we don’t think we’re all very lucky to of met each other, and I am very proud to be a member of The Treatment, and love playing hard rock music!
What musicians or bands have inspired you to play the type of music that you play, and have the type of image that you have?
For me personally, the first person that really inspired me to want to play bass is John Entwistle from The Who. As I said before, we’ve all been raised on a diet of rock n roll, and all love the classic bands such as AC/DC, Kiss, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Motley Crue etc… But we all also have a strong love for great pop melodies and as for attitude and image, I personally don’t think you can beat the early punk bands, or the early metal bands.
What type of music fan would like “The Treatment”?
A thing that always surprises us is the age range of fans turning up to our shows. We love looking out and seeing 16 year old long haired kids, jumping around and banging their heads, and next to them is a 50 year old classic rocker, still with long hair and wearing leathers going just as crazy. We also have a lot of people that are normally into much heavier music coming down to our shows. We’re a lot heavier live than we are on record, and I think people get off on the amounts of energy we put out as well.
If you could go back in a time machine to see any band live during any time period who would it be and why?
That is an extremely hard question! Being English and a musician, The Beatles would have to be high on the list. There’s so many to choose from! AC/DC with Bon Scott in a sweaty club would of been amazing. The original line up of The Who would have to be a contender for me to.
How does it feel to be opening up the live concerts of not just one, but TWO of the greatest hard rock bands in all of music history? Any pressure there?
Honestly, we are just so excited! We can’t wait to get out there. It is an absolute honour, and a dream come true to be given this opportunity. Kiss and Motley Crue are two of all of our favourite bands. Just to get to see them each night is going to be amazing, let alone opening the shows for them. The shows are going to be the biggest shows we’ve ever played in our lives, so obviously the nerves on the first night will be high, but we just plan on going out and delivering our set to the best of our abilities. We’ve been rehearsing hard each day, and we really can’t wait to play in front of so many great American rock fans.
When writing and recording your CD (at Barnyard Studios) did you run into any obstacles/setbacks or was it smooth sailing all the way through?
We recorded the guitars and vocals at our managers studio in Cambridge, and recorded the drums and mixed at Barnyard Studios. On the whole, the album was pretty plain sailing, unless you count our manager Laurie and our engineer Tony seeing a ghost! Certainly helped to have an extra set of ears listen in on the mixing process!
The tracks on the CD are raw and powerful! How do you think the live versions of the songs come across to listeners compared to the recordings on the CD.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people are surprised by how heavy the songs transcend live. We always go out and give it 110 percent in all of our performances, and people often comment about the energy we have live. Our live shows are just all about everyone having a good time.
While touring around so far, where do you think the biggest following of the type of music that you play is located? Where have you had the best response?
We’ve been very lucky to of been given the opportunity to play in a lot of countries so far. There is still a lot of great UK rock fans, and we always have a great time in mainland Europe to. The diehard rock fan is still the greatest fan of any genre of music. So in answer to your question, we really just love playing anywhere! We can’t wait to get out to America for the first time and experience American rock fans for the first time. We have heard a lot of great things!
What advice would you give aspiring musicians of the hard rock genre?
Get yourself a band together. Make sure you have all the right characters, and that you all gel together. Keep working hard, writing songs, and listening to a wide variety of music. Dreams can come true!
What do you guys have planned for the future of the band?
After the Kiss/Motley Crue tour, we come back to England. We’ve got about a month off, but we’re hoping to use this to work on the follow up to our debut album ‘This Might Hurt.’ After that we go out on a UK tour with Thin Lizzy. A couple of days off for christmas, and then hopefully straight back on the road! Taking breaks is not really something that interests us!
Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with us! It has been a pleasure and we wish you the best! We look forward to seeing you guys tear up the stage!
Thank you guys! See you there!
