by Adam Aiken
Like so many others in the music industry, it’s been a frustrating few years for Bad Touch, with the pandemic bringing their progress to a screeching halt when it hit.
When life came to a standstill in March 2020, the release date of their third album, Kiss The Sky, had already been inked in.
And although Bad Touch did later play some dates to support the record, there remains a nagging feeling that Kiss The Sky never got the promotion it deserved.
That’s something the Dereham outfit intend on putting right this time around, though, as they gear up for the release of their next album, Bittersweet Satisfaction.
Frontman Stevie Westwood is certainly full of beans as he looks forward to what promises to be a busy second half of 2023, and he’s particularly excited about the album-launch show at The Waterfront, Norwich, next month.
“The album is completed and signed off, we are now in the headache of promotion and all the things that go around that,” he says.
“The main point of interest is our Waterfront show, which will be the first chance for people to hear songs off the new album.
“It’s nice to have something to push. It’s been a few years since Kiss The Sky was out, so it’s nice to have something fresh and a bit different.
“We’ve been sitting on these songs for a good few months now so this is very exciting to be able to think about people hearing them for the first time.”
Westwood – who’s chatting while packing his camping stuff ahead of setting off for Download the following day – says Bittersweet Satisfaction shows Bad Touch at the next stage of their development, without deviating too far from their previous sound.
“We’ve not gone all hard drum and bass!” he says.
“But it is different. We think we’ve slightly evolved into – dare I say – something more contemporary, but I think the core feelgood factor that I hope people know and love is still there.
“It’s not a repeat of the stuff we’ve done before but it still holds the Bad Touch candle high in the sky.”
After the Waterfront show on Saturday, July 8, Bad Touch will hitting the road ahead of the album’s release later this year, and they hope it’ll be a more successful promotional push than Kiss The Sky had.
“The pandemic was our worst enemy,” says Westwood.
“Hindsight is 20/20, and if we’d known what we know now then perhaps we wouldn’t have released the album when we did.
“It’s one of those things. We love Kiss The Sky and we’ve been very happy to have had it as our latest release for the past three years, but it did take a little bit of a hit when it came to the live side of things.
“But we love that album and we’ll still be playing quite a bit of that stuff.”
And one of the next dates in their diary will be a slot at the inaugural Maid Of Stone festival (which replaces the defunct Ramblin’ Man Fair).
“We’re really looking forward to that,” says Westwood.
“It’ll be nice to get back and play on a big stage, as it’s been a couple of years since we’ve done it.”
Click here for tickets to the Norwich show.
