Cardinal Black

Back with a new album and with Slash in their corner, they play UK dates in October.

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Formed officially in 2021 (but temporarily extinguished during lockdown), Welshmen Cardinal Black call themselves “the oldest new band in the world”. With their freshly released second album Midnight At The Valencia drawing widespread praise, singer Tom Hollister and guitarist Chris Buck preview the band’s 14-date British and Irish tour in the autumn.

Most bands have a lifetime to write their debut album but then just months, or even weeks, to come up with a followup. In their second lease of life Cardinal Black found themselves in a rather different situation.

Chris Buck: The way the first record was made over the space of ten years, it felt like it just happened. So there was a little nervousness, but it [the new album] wasn’t a difficult record to make, actually.

Tom Hollister: I quite like the challenge of writing to time restrictions because it focuses my brain. Otherwise I can be a bit sloppy.

Your 2022 debut January Came Close took the band from playing university bars to sharing a Royal Abert Hall stage with Peter Frampton, so the pressure was on.

Buck: The biggest issue we faced [with the debut] was making it sound like a coherent record, as it was written over such a prolonged period of time. We felt it was nice to have a blank canvas and to write something completely new from scratch.

In around a year, Cardinal Black went from headlining London venues The Lexington (200 people) to Islington Assembly Hall (890) and Shepherd’s Bush Empire (2,000). Did it feel like the thing took on a life of its own?