The Longest Johns On Tour…

For over a decade, this Bristol based band of buccaneers The Longest Johns have been bringing the ‘rock n roll of 1752’ to rooms full of smiling, swashbuckling fans the world over. Now, after twelve years of charting courses through treacherous waters, from the foggy shores of Europe to the bustling harbours of North America, The Longest Johns are ready to bring their raucous, rollicking sea shanties to Australia and New Zealand.

In Australia now, the crew will dock in a city near you, ready to unleash their four part vocal harmonies with fiddles and drums in tow. With five albums under their hefty belt buckles, including their latest, Voyage, released earlier this year, The Longest Johns are on a mission to turn every antipodean venue into a maritime tavern to be filled with roaring sing-alongs and the clinking of flagons.

The Longest Johns have not only graced the stages of international folk festivals but have also amassed a staggering 400 million streams, half a million YouTube subscribers, and over 200,000 hours of Twitch views. They’ve partnered with some of the biggest names in gaming including Ubisoft, Sea of Thieves, Ship of Fools, Wanderworld and even laid down the soundtrack for No Man’s Wife, a new film from the co-producers of the Fisherman’s Friends films.

The band shot to global fame in 2021 when their rendition of the traditional shanty Wellerman became a viral sensation. A 150-year-old New Zealand folk song transformed into a global phenomenon, peaking at #2 on the US Spotify Viral Chart and #5 globally. The song has since racked up over sixty seven million plays and continues to grow daily. This is one voyage you do NOT want to miss! Jonathan, Andy and Robbie talk to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

Are you finally looking forward to getting this Australian tour underway?
Jonathan: Absolutely, definitely something we wanted to do for quite a few years and just not being able to make it work. So yeah. Finally, being able to make it is very exciting.

Is that largely due Covid, or is it just lots of other factors that prevented the planets from aligning?
Jonathan: One of those difficulties of being a fairly niche band trying to travel the world in a difficult industry. Yeah, I think convincing promoters that we’re not a strange thing that’s going to fail, but actually we’re a proper band that’s going to have a fun time.

Andy: Once we’ve done it once and it’s been successful, hopefully we’ll be back very soon.

Have you been able to sort of gauge what the fan base is like here?
Jonathan: It’s been the most requested place to tour on all our social media. Whenever we’ve put out “Where do people want to see us?” Australia has been right up there every single time, so we use that information to feed to our agents and say, “Please book us.” And they’re like, “Okay, we’ve made it happen.”

How would you describe The Longest Johns show?
Andy: They’re in for zero mistakes. Absolutely none. It’s going to be perfect from front to back.

Jonathan: Every time.

Andy: No, what they can expect is a load of sea shanties, a load of folk songs from all around the world. I suppose there’s a certain element of Monty Pythonesque humour, stupid songs, serious songs. You might cry, you might laugh, you might throw bottles at us. We really might not know.

Jonathan: I think it’s quite a communal experience as well, as much as we’re singing on the stage, everyone else singing along with us is what makes it a magic evening every time we’ve done it.

Do you think it will be mostly expats that are coming down to the shows, or do you hope to stretch a bit wider and broader?
Andy: We’ll stretch as broad as people will let us, really. It’s certainly not just for expats, although I can see why they would have a connection to these songs. But we make a massive point of saying these songs really are for everybody. We want to see as much community as we can, and so far, we’ve found these songs really bring everyone together, so I see no reason why it shouldn’t happen in Australia as well.

Any hints about the tour set list?
Jonathan: We usually try and spread it out. There’s definitely a few that we like to bring back from previous albums and releases. We always try to make the set a nice experience. For us, it’s a journey through different things that we’ve loved over the years, but it’s not just one beat we want to hit. That’s the beauty of folk stuff, you get things which are very heart-wrenching and sad, then you get things which are just absolute nonsense and silly, then fun songs and dancing songs and everything. So, we want to try and capture a bit of everything and make a memorable experience for everybody.

How did you all find each other and eventually start the band?
Andy: Well, it was a dark night.

Jonathan: Um, it was kind of by accident. The lineup has changed a fair bit over the years, but originally, four of us just happened to be hanging out at a barbecue in a friend’s back garden, talking about the music we’d been listening to at the time. Fisherman’s Friends came up because it was just after they got signed to Universal, and there was a whole big thing.

We discovered it around the same time and decided to have a go at singing a couple of the songs we’d heard from them. It sounded pretty good, so we thought we’d try it at an open mic night that evening. People really enjoyed it, we had a great time, and a week later, we stuck something on YouTube. From there, we started getting invited to festivals around the UK and then later to festivals in the Netherlands and Europe. The whole journey began from that point as we discovered more artists keeping the tradition alive, more songs, and new experiences along the way.

Have you been surprised at how influential TikTok has been in spreading the word?
Jonathan: The beauty of social media, YouTube, TikTok, and everything else, is that while there’s still a lot of control from big businesses, these platforms have allowed niche artists to thrive. Shanties and folk music are definitely niche genres, and being able to get this music in front of people who might never have heard it otherwise is really special.

That’s been a big part of our mission: getting people to discover this music and realise how great it is. We’ve explored different ways to do that, whether through video games (which is another interest of ours) or creative approaches on social media. It’s been incredible to see folk music gain fresh momentum in recent years.

Are there plans for new music this year or next?
Andy: Oh yes. Honestly, we’re almost losing track of how much we’re trying to release right now! It’s quite a schedule. We had a couple of singles out recently, with a new one coming soon. We’ve got an ongoing album project called Pieces of Eight, eight three-track EPs, each released monthly for eight months, culminating in a twenty-four-track collection.

We haven’t quite figured out how it’ll be presented yet, but we’ll get there. We’re also working on another new album while that’s happening. Most of what we do, songwriting, recording, merchandise, and more is handled by us. We have a live agent for bookings, but the rest is very much in-house, which makes for a busy but rewarding schedule.

The press release said that The Longest Johns have made folk fashionable again. Do you agree with that statement?
Andy: Uh, I wouldn’t say we’re fashionable, I’ve never said that!

Robbie: Do you think we’re fashionable?

Jonathan: We are not fashionable. Folk is fashionable!

Andy: Folk music has started to breathe through us, I suppose.

Robbie: We’ve definitely seen a lot of people discover it for the first time, which is quite a cool thing.

Jonathan: If we can influence people into thinking folk is cool, then that’s brilliant.

Robbie: When people start saying it’s cool, we’re like, “Yes! We’ve done it!”

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch The Longest Johns on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…