Slaying the stage, rebranding, recruiting and living the dream as a live band despite an absolute nightmare in Spain… high energy modern rockers Juliet’s Not Dead have been going full throttle to fulfil the prophesy of their latest album, ‘This World Is Ours’. And touring a stadium sound with an intimate feel across the globe is not even half the tale, as Devolution’s Jo Wright found out when she spoke with the lads before they killed it at Nottingham’s Rough Trade. In fact, it turns out she has their fans to thank for them being there at all…
But first, tell us about the recent run of dates please chaps. ‘The tour’s been going really, really well. It’s been mint so far,’ smiles frontman and guitarist Stevie Stoker. ‘We’ve gone to places we’ve never played before, and it’s been people’s responses that have helped make it so good.
‘We’ve been on tour since September 14, and we’ve done a few shows in The States which was really cool. Plus we did our first headline tour of a foreign country which was Spain. The amount of people who knew every word of our songs was insane.’
‘And we’ve been playing to faces we’ve never seen before as well as to people we’ve already met,’ adds Drummer Jack Corbett.
This is one of the many joys of Juliet’s Not Dead. Their fan following feels very much like family – a welcoming one that is easy to chat to and that you’d actually choose to hang with, as opposed to real-life relations who leave you seriously scratching your head over your heritage.
Oh, and the band’s music’s not too bad either. ‘This World Is Ours’ went to number one in the Download Chart, number two in the Rock and Metal Chart, number seven in the Independent Artist Chart and number 19 in the Album Sales Chart.
‘The album did really well, and I think off the back of that we’ve noticed a lot of people coming to our shows,’ says Jack.
‘Our Instagram reach has doubled this year and that’s totally organic – it’s just happened!’ Stevie adds.
The boys’ success is also down to their lyrics really resonating with their followers’ feelings. ‘The amount of people who say, ‘this song’s my favourite’, that’s incredible for us to hear,’ Stevie tells Devo. ‘Having people sing your stuff back to you is the most amazing feeling in the world.’
This became a regular occurrence on the Juliet’s Not Dead Spanish stint – a tour memorable for these awesome crowd reactions, but also for the band’s calm response to a broken-down van that was going to take weeks to be recovered back to the UK. At the start of the run. In the middle of nowhere. A cause for low level hysteria? Not even close. ‘It’s testament to how we deal with things,’ says Stevie. ‘Nobody panicked. The maximum it affected us was we were fifteen minutes late for soundcheck. Day one was hard because we didn’t know what we were up against. We had to leave my dad with the van in the Basque Country. I felt massively uncomfortable leaving him. But we got to the first show, then we dealt with the van the next day.’
Remember that fan family we mentioned earlier? This is when they mobilised and raised more than £3000 for their boys. ‘Our manager put a ‘Go Fund Me’ page up on Facebook and that’s what got us home,’ says Stevie. ‘We had to get our gear back too. Everything was in Spain – nothing was left at home. So three days before the end of the tour we had to fly my dad back to the UK to get another van!’ At one point Juliet’s Not Dead had three vans in the same place – their own poorly one (which is now back home and on the road – yay!), their Spanish replacement, and their UK hire! Oh, and they also needed to rent a van to take them on the majority of their tour in this country too. You couldn’t write it could you?
D’ya wanna know what is being written though? Album number three. Ooooof, that was a tenuous link – soz…
‘We’ve got half the next album demoed already,’ reveals Stevie. ‘We’ve got other songs which are works in progress and at different stages.’
Jack tells us, ‘In terms of the writing process, we finished the last album and then started the next one.’
‘We keep the ideas flowing,’ Stevie adds. ‘Once we get into the swing of things it’s like ideas fall out of the sky!’
That’s a new record well on its way then. And there’s also a new bassist who’s settled in nicely. Introducing the most recent JND addition – long term friend of the band, Josh Fodden, known by his surname. So how’s it going Fodden? ‘I think I’m fitting in quite well,’ he smiles. ‘It’s been like going from 0 to 100. Before I’d even finished learning the songs I was told we were going to play in LA. It’s chaos! And I love it.’
‘Me and Fodden have known each other for about ten years,’ says Jack. ‘We went to college and university together. So we know each other’s playing styles.’
Fodden adds, ‘It has been a bit of a weird time, because I was a huge fan of the band before I joined. And that went in my favour – because I listened to them a lot, I could learn the songs quickly.’
‘The biggest thing is we all get on well,’ says Stevie.
Back in the day, the North East-based band initially began their hard rock, high adrenalin assault on the alt music scene under the name Twister. We hate to ask a cliched question, but why the rebrand and where does the new (ish) name come from?
Stevie explains, ‘When we were recording ‘This World Is Ours’ we had a producer called Romesh Dodangoda [who has also worked with names including Bring Me The Horizon, Nova Twins and Funeral For A Friend]. We really respected his opinions on stuff and we really admired him.’ Stevie adds, ‘Romesh told us our band was great, the songs were great, the album was great…’ But the name Twister was not. So if the band wanted to move forwards they had to leave it behind.
This wasn’t really news to the band, to be fair. ‘We’d had conversations about it for as long as I could remember,’ Jack tells us.
‘But we thought, ‘if there’s any time to gamble, now’s the time’, so we spent the next six months arguing about names!’ adds Stevie. ‘There’s a song by a band called Save Arcade called ‘Juliet Is Not Dead’ and that’s actually where it came from. It wasn’t just a case of simply changing the name though. It’s the social media, it’s the merch, it’s the website – they all needed changing too.’
Stevie, Jack, Josh and guitarist Dan King have two more shows to top off this year (Birmingham on Saturday, December 13 and a hometown show in Newcastle on Sunday, December 14, which also happens to be Stevie’s birthday), along with a Christmas cover song to release. Still a fair bit to do this side of the New Year then. But we’re not letting you off that easily boys – so tell us what you’ve got planned for 2026 please. ‘There’s a lot of irons in the fire,’ smiles Stevie. And if 2025 is anything to go by, 2026 is not only going to be theirs, Juliet’s Not Dead will set it alight. There’s gonna be fireworks…
https://www.facebook.com/JulietsNotDead
Interview by Jo Wright