Indiana trio The Cold Stares play Hastings date

On August 30 they play The Carlisle, Hastings; August 31 they play Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham; and September 3 they play The 1865, Southampton – all of which is a homecoming of a kind for singer-guitarist Chris Tapp who’s done the DNA tests and turns out to be 98 per cent Scottish and two per cent Welsh.

“We love it in the UK. It's different in the UK and it's different because you don't have rap and country to compete with and because the Brits like to see people playing their instruments live on stage. It's good to go out there and you get a really great response and a lot of our heroes were the British rock movement and the British blues movement anyway.

"And it feels like people are more involved in the music in the UK. It feels that they're just more appreciative of live music than perhaps things are in the States. Sometimes in the States you get the feeling everyone is out for a drink and the music is a bit secondary but you don't feel that in the UK.

“We were a two-piece band for about seven or eight years and then we added Bryce who is our bass player. We got to the point where we wanted to play live what we recorded in the studio and we didn't want to use samples or laptops or things like that. And so it felt right to become a three-piece and Bryce came along at the right time. Just as soon as he came along we just jumped straight into the frying pan with him and did a UK tour.

“Our music is blues rock that has a storytelling element to it. We grew up on Black Sabbath and heavy music but also Bob Dylan and Robert Johnson, bands like Led Zep and Cream but also music that had a lot of storytelling to it.”

As for the name The Cold Stares: “The first show that we played we were a little bit nervous about playing and we just played brutally loud. I said to our drummer ‘How did you think that went?’ and he said ‘I don't know. We just got cold stares.’ I think people were just stunned by the noise but it has always been great from the start and we enjoyed it.”

Post-pandemic, however, Chris isn't sure that things will ever be quite the same again: “Touring is back up and running but we lost a lot of venues during the lockdowns.

"A lot of venues crashed and just didn't survive so certainly in the States there are fewer venues and really I just don't think it will ever feel quite the same again as it did. I can't put my finger on it but after Covid everything just felt very unreserved at first and everyone was just really excited to be out there but now a couple years later I do think it's harder to get people to come out to live music so really we're just very grateful for anyone who comes out and spends their money on our tickets.”