Guitarist Scott Holiday previews an eight-show trip around the UK and Ireland.

SAM HUDDLESTON/PRESS

“It’s been cool to get to know the [Pressure & Time] songs all over again. Some of them had never been played live, or very rarely.”

When Rival Sons kick off the UK and Ireland leg of their tour, in Norwich on June 27, it will have been 10 years and 364 days since the release of their second album, Pressure & Time, which will be the focus of the shows. “It’s been cool to get to know those songs all over again,” guitarist Scott Holiday tells Classic Rock. But by the time the last note rings out at London’s Kentish Town Forum in July we might be less than six months from their seventh full-length studio release.

Each of us suffered during lockdown, but how challenging were those times for you?

It was tough because we were in the cycle of our most successful album [2019’s Feral Roots], which had brought us two Grammy nominations, and everybody in the band felt good. A tour had been booked, and suddenly the brakes were thrown on.

Many people learned a new skill or perhaps spent time working on a defect of some kind. Did anything like that happen to you?

The upside was that each of us in Rival Sons is a family man. I have a couple of kids, and at Christmas time I got them a puppy. I learned how to be a better dad, which felt great. I got comfortable and did some DIY. Just before everything closed down I had found myself thinking: “I could really do with two years off.” I hope I didn’t bring this on myself!