Royal Blood marked their new album with a 5k run through Brighton

Royal Blood launched their fifth album, Dead Company, with a 5km run through Brighton on Tuesday, first reported by BBC Sussex. Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher ran with the Brighton club Run the Lanes, and the evening finished in a nearby pub, where the album was played to the runners. The record is out now.

Kerr, the band’s singer, gave up drugs and alcohol in 2019. He told the BBC that running has been “a part of that journey”, and that it found its way into the new songs.

“We were writing these really heavy, full-on songs and I was going out and training but then I was also bringing this refreshed energy from running into the writing sessions,” he said.

Thatcher joked about his bandmate’s training. “Luckily Mike makes plenty of time for me and keeps his runs to around 10km,” he said.

The duo are from the Worthing area and wrote the album at their Brighton studio. They call it a “return to form, to how we started”. Kerr said part of that was the way they made it: “being in our studio, playing live, playing together and placing more attention on the chemistry we have.”

The band’s UK tour ends at home, at the Brighton Centre² on Friday 4 December. Doors open at 6.30pm and the Xcerts are in support. The standing area is 14+, and there is a limit of four tickets each. Tickets are through the Brighton Centre website.

Anyone who fancies the run without the rock stars can join Run the Lanes on any Thursday. It’s free: runners meet at 6pm at 24 Kensington Street in the North Laine and set off around 6.15pm for about 5km. The club runs at a social pace of 6 to 6:45 minutes per kilometre, with pacers so nobody gets left behind, though it suggests you’ve run 5km before. There’s a bag drop, and you sign up on the club’s website.