"WE LIKE TO GO OFF THE RAILS!"

GUTHRIE GOVAN IS HITTING THE ROAD WITH THE ARISTOCRATS – AMP-FREE, AND WITH A SONG ABOUT A PENGUIN…

- Amit Sharma 

Guthrie Govan has just played an arena tour with soundtrack composer extraordinaire Hans Zimmer. “I’ve had worse jobs,” he grins. This month he leads his instrumental trio The Aristocrats for a UK tour that includes some of their biggest headline shows to date, including a night at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.

What are you most looking forward to on this run?

There’s a new track from me we’ll be introducing called Sergeant Rockhopper. People might remember the cover of our Freeze live album, which had three lego Aristocrats being apprehended by a giant penguin in a police helmet. I decided that character would surely be called Sergeant Rockhopper – rockhoppers, of course, being a type of penguin with the big comical yellow eyebrows. I had this picture of a penguin officer on patrol,  charging around the Antarctic on his snowmobile and thought ‘What would the soundtrack be to that?’