To coincide with the release of ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ on 17 July 2026, Yard Act headed out on a 6 date Record Store tour.
We caught up with them at Rough Trade Nottingham on Tuesday 21 July, where they played two shows. The matinee started at 6pm and the later show at 8pm. We were lucky enough to be at both. They played for an hour without a setlist , taking suggestions from the audience and answering questions.
Here’s a snippet from the Q&A
Q: Whats the worst merch idea you have ever had?
James: I went through a phase of refusing to put the bands name on tshirts
Someone then shouted ‘jockstrap’
Ryan: Youre gonna need a little jockstrap
James that’s what its gonna say on the little jockstrap. I will not sign your jockstrap
Q: Are you going to do a dj set after your rock city gig in November?
James: We are playing at rock city in November , that’s why we have done tonight different. I hope so, we had so much fun dj-ing last time at rescue rooms
Ryan: I like bodega
Someone in the crowd: My back garden
James: Can you fit a 16 seater tour bus into your cul-de-sac?
Some else shouted: I’ve got a loft conversion
James: I think you two need to send your proposals to our agent
Q: What’s the most comically bad show you have done?
James: There was one in Wales where I was throwing up into a bucket. Chris’s keyboard stand collapsed.
Ryan: We did four gigs in one day and the last one was at The British Music Embassy in Texas and we were functioning alcoholics
James: The album had just come out, but a lot of people hadn’t seen us. It was our 4th show of the day at 1am. I’d asked our manager at the start, obviously I’m going to put in 110% but which are the important ones? ‘There all important’. We went on stage, I called everyone Texan Hogs, which didn’t go down well, there was a man with a gun on a horse. I think it was bad, but we don’t remember it. We came off stage and our manager said ‘that was the important one’. But you know, that was a very bizarre time for us, we’d never done anything like that before. At that point we were still being paid in beer essentially. We had no money and there were times we slept in the back of a van and did like 3 gigs in a day and stuff. The only thing that could get us through at that time was the complimentary lager.
Q: Last year you toured with Hives. Who is your favourite Hive?
James: They are all wicked, but Nick he’s the mastermind behind the band. Pelle is my mate now, he bought one of my paintings. I stay in touch with Pelle the most. Nick took me and Ryan to Hansa Studios in Berlin, where Bowie did heroes and he said ‘you guys wanna come see the studio with me’? (in an accent) I’ll stop doing the voice now. He said he was coming on his skates and Nicks a bit quirky, so were thought he was coming on rollerskates and he showed up on land skis. He had a full lycra hiviz outfit. They’re wicked, great people, I leaned a lot from them.
Q: Did your early days inspired the new record? You obviously work hard.
James: Yeah we do. We’re doing two shows tonight. We are locked into the job. We are doing a job we love. But we have to work hard to keep things afloat. Its not easy and people can turn on you at any minute if they decide they don’t like your new record because it doesn’t sound like the old one and we take that risk anyway because its more important for us to pursue art. So thank you for buying the record and coming because we do still need this, even 3 albums in. So we appreciate you all coming down. Nice one.
Set 1
New beginnings – See our video here
Tall tales
Dream job – See our video here
Your gonna need a little music – See our video here
Dead horse
Vineyard for the north
Redeemer – See our video here
Fixer upper – See our video here
Over the barrel
Set 2
Talky talky people
New beginnings
Dark days
Fixer upper
Redeemer
Cherophobe rock
Dead horse
Tall tales
Thrill of the chase
Your gonna need a little music
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