When I catch Matt Weedon of the UK trio Tors, he’s in a jovial mood – resting up after a massive arena tour supporting James Blunt in 15k capacity arenas, and gearing up for the release of the band’s new EP Miracle, out worldwide via Glassnote Records. Tors, made up of Matt, brother Theo, and close friend Jack Bowden, have seen their star rise to unprecedented lengths through their authentic artistry and community-building efforts that have brought nearly six hundred thousand followers into the fold. You’ve probably seen them online – the three bandmembers have a grasp on harmony that’s unmatched, and their TikToks and videos of them singing in wide open cathedrals have exploded in popularity – their entire US tour is sold out, making 2024 a remarkable debut for the UK trio.
Miracle, crafted alongside super-producer Simone Felice (The Lumineers, Noah Kahan) seems to pave the way for Tors to ascend to the level of their arena-filling peers. The songs are intimate with their harmonies and acoustics, but massive in their reaches as you can practically hear throngs of thousands singing along. Read on for a chat with Matt about touring arenas, Miracle, and double-edged sword of virality –
How’s it going, Matt? It’s great to finally talk with you.
Matt Weedon (Tors): It’s really good to talk with you, dude. I’m good. I’m just currently enjoying being home for a couple of weeks until we hit the road again. It’s nice to sort of just stop.
Yeah, you all just finished up the James Blunt tour? The support run?
Yes, dude. It was amazing. I think it’s kind of like we’ve been home now, a week and a half, two weeks maybe. But yeah, it was an incredible, life-changing tour in so many ways. But it definitely took every part of our souls. (laughs)
I look at Tors as a band that kind of thrives on intimacy – you’re super close and quieter with these lightly placed harmonies. And then, BAM, you’re playing arenas and it’s a massive shift. How did you shift the tour’s experience to be able to fit into a room of that size?
Yeah, well, firstly, thank you for observing that about Tors. I think it’s such an interesting thing. We love – and I love the fact you said it – intimacy. Like, we really love to connect with people, and it’s sort of such a privilege for us when we’re doing shows. We genuinely love playing 150 cap rooms, because you see everybody’s face. And when you’re singing these songs and they’re looking at you and you’re looking at them, I don’t know, there’s like this magic moment. We were kind of nervous going into this arena tour, thinking like, “how do we translate that to a bigger room?”, but I think just really fortunately for us, we’ve always been incredibly ambitious.
We’ve always wanted to like fill arenas. Like it’s even though we write songs that are very personal to us and seem to connect to a lot of people, we want to reach the biggest audience ever. We’ve been really lucky to work with this incredible producer, Simone Felice, and he keeps talking about, you know, “we’re taking everyone to church and our music’s here to heal.” It took us a few shows to get into it. But when you really go for it and let them into your world, like it doesn’t matter if it’s 150 people watching or 15,000 people watching — if you’re putting your heart into it, they seem to react the same way. So it ended up being about, you know, “don’t get nervous, don’t worry about what you look like, just let it all out.” And you know, we seemed to make it work and Europe is this special place for us now. That James tour has done so much for us.
Was there a moment early on for a show, second show, whatever, where you guys get on stage and it’s like “holy shit, we’re here?”
Yeah, dude, I tell you, the show that did it for me was, maybe a week and a half in. We played Zurich and I already love that city. It’s a beautiful place. And we got on stage and it was 15,000 people. I don’t know what it was about the energy in that room, but it was electric – from the first song, they were up for it. There’s a song of ours, which was our last single called “Only For You” that sort of cuts to me on the guitar…I start the song, for a verse and a half, like until the boys come in. And it was just me singing to 15,000 people. I was just stuck on the fact that I was trying not to be sick in this moment (laughs). It was mental! 15,000 people had their lights on — like, they’ve never heard the song, what the hell is going on? It was a beautiful amalgamation of so many feelings. After that show, it got a lot easier, because I think I needed to feel that to be okay in that space. It’s so easy to get imposter syndrome when you’re on the road in rooms this size.
In a room of that size, I can’t even imagine — just the energy of what you’re putting out and what they’re giving back to you. It can just feel overwhelming.
I think that’s the most fun part about being a support band on a tour like that. We were very lucky that every show we played, we had fans coming in, which was very special for us. They always managed to get to the front row and sing along, which made us feel like we were home. But, you know, 99% of that 15,000 people have never heard of us and you have to win them over, and it’s so exciting. It’s like it’s a drug because I’ve got to win this crowd. We’ve got 35 minutes to get them loving Tors. And, you know, in most places it seemed to work.
I’ve heard conversations that are like, “yeah, that crowd absolutely hated us.” So that’s like almost another hurdle is not only you’re playing for you in this massive room, but you’re also playing to, you know, generally speaking, a crowd that’s not full of your fans.
Big time. It was a beautiful experience. And, you know, it’s funny — I think in a week and a half we’re heading out on a UK tour. And these are rooms now sold out and full of our fans. I think that’ll feel even more exciting because even though, it’s only 900 people watching you, they are all there for you and they’re all singing along. And that’s a feeling like no other, you know?
The American shows are interesting too, because those are small rooms – less than 500 in most of the cities.
Dude, it’s just like mind blowing for us. We are so excited for America. Anytime someone mentions it to us, we’re like, “what’s going on?” (laughs) I don’t know, I think it’s like a British thing. Every British band wants to get to America. And, you know, at the start of this year, our management and our wonderful label Glassnote were like, you know, you should come and do a couple of shows here. We were like, “nah, that’s crazy, no one wants to hear us in America.” And the label was like, “no, just put up a couple of shows to see and, you know, the show sold out in two days, three shows and we’re just like, “What?! Who’s buying tickets? Who are these people?” So now we’ve packed the trip with even more shows and festivals and I mean, I have no idea what it’s going to be like. We’ve only done one small show in New York, a little showcase, which was a beautiful experience, but we’ve never played a gig out there. I don’t know how different it is to UK or Europe.
I first became familiar with Tors, as I’m sure you could guess, by seeing you all pop up on TikTok and watching you go viral. And so I think that’s where probably a lot of ground support comes on over here. As a band that’s come up in this new sort of generation of really utilizing video and social media and like catching lightning in a bottle, what is your relationship to those platforms as like you kind of move into this new phase of new music and tour dates?
I think it’s like, with all social media, a blessing and it’s a curse. It’s like this double-edged sword and you have to walk this really strange line where you’re trying to be authentic and trying to be an artist, but you know that you have to use this tool to promote your music. We kind of, it’s really funny, when did we start using TikTok? Maybe like two years ago, two and a half years ago? Everyone at the time was like, “don’t worry about it too much.” And we were like, no, we should, so we started doing these harmony videos. Like, I don’t know if that’s good or if it’ll take off. You know, everyone was like, “do some of these dances that everyone’s doing or try and do these trends.” And we were simply couldn’t do it — firstly, it’s already hard enough, but secondly, we cannot dance. (laughs) So we kept ahead with the harmony videos of just our natural sound, and it took off so quickly. And then you know, you’re asking yourself “Why did that work?” Was it the space? Was it the audio? Was it the quality of the video?
Sometimes what I’ve found is that there’s no reason whatsoever.
It just truly takes off randomly. We just do not to like plug our own selves here, or like, boast, but we just put up a reel like a few days ago on Instagram. It’s almost on like 40 million views in two or three days! Jesus Christ! I think we’ve picked up 30,000, 40,000 new fans. And all of them are like messaging, like, and then they go into Spotify to stream the song.
And I think, you know, the other side of these things is not so glamorous. It’s really funny because if you think about it, look back to like great, I’m saying maybe British music, I don’t know, Oasis or Coldplay, like, especially Oasis, those guys would not be doing fucking TikTok, man. They’d be like, fuck no. And, you know, would it have ruined some of their songs? Because they’re like, we’re not trying to get a catchy viral song. (laughs)
You bring up something interesting, which is just kind of the gimmicky schticks we’ve all seen since TikTok really took off in this sphere. I just had like a flash thought of Liam Gallagher’s tweets, just thinking about how he would react if he was asked to make a TikTok, but it feels as if Tors does it really honestly.
(laughs) And I think that’s the key, you know look at Lewis Capaldi. That guy is a GENIUS, and he’s so naturally funny. When he did his socials like he crushed it so much and I swear it helped his albums get even bigger because he was just so real and funny. But not everyone can be as funny as Capaldi! You know, I had a friend that was signed to a major record label in the UK and his team were like “you need to be funny like Capaldi because that’s working. Do some funny videos.” And he’s like, “I’m not fucking funny. I write bad songs for living.” (laughs)
You mentioned Simone Felice. I grew up loving the Felice Brothers and was fairly familiar with his production work for The Lumineers. How did you get linked in with him and how do you feel like this new EP sits with the rest of your discography?
I think Simone is this beautiful boy of Woodstock — like I can’t even explain it. We’ve been a huge Felice Brothers fans for a long time and then even more like we’re such big Lumineers fans, right? For a long time our management would be like “is there anyone you’d love to go and work with” and we just threw out Simone’s name and we got really lucky to join forces with him.
As soon as they found out Simone wanted to work with us, we flew out to New York and drove up to his place in Woodstock. We were really nervous because we’re, like, – we idolize this guy and what’s it gonna be like? He records in a very old-school purist way in his studio in the Catskills. We got in the studio with Simone and he immediately looks at these songs and he starts changing a few bits that we were a bit like protective about, and then we just let him do his thing. Within two days, we’d recorded this song “Happy Enough” and we were just like, holy shit. He just gave us a belief that no one’s ever given us before and the sound is just getting closer and closer to what we’ve always wanted to make. And you know, I’m just really excited to keep working with Simone and keep pushing ourselves because I think this is like just the beginning. It’s taken a long time for us to get here, but this feels like the most authentic version of ourselves that we’ve ever been.
You talk about Tors healing the world with their music and Simone giving a similar line. Do you consider that your mission statement for the band?
I think like, healing the world can sound a bit patronizing or overambitious. But I think for us like if we were to pick a word it would be “community”. Something that has become apparent is that the more we tour, and the more we release music, we’re building this family and this community of incredible people all across the world who relate to the songs. It feels so special. I mean, I’m sure every artist’s fan base feels incredible to them but these fans truly travel around the world with us. On the James tour, there were a few fans that came to every show — I can’t imagine how much it cost them and I’m always asking like “why are you doing this?” And every time they answer that our music is a happy place for them. So I want to keep releasing music that continues that feeling and brings more people into the fold.
Listen to Miracle HERE via Glassnote Records.
Keep up with Tors: Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // TikTok // YouTube // Website
