Royal Blood talk new album ‘Dead Company’ at Reading 2026: “It’s pretty relentless”

Royal Blood spoke to NME backstage at Reading 2026 about their upcoming album ‘Dead Company’, and reflected on their debut appearance at the festival back in 2014.

The Worthing-formed band, comprised of singer and bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher, caught up with us just after they played a mid-afternoon secret set at the Gallery stage, which attracted a huge audience .

Reflecting on the show, Kerr said: “We’re really happy.

It went really well.

We’re playing live again after two years of not doing anything, so we’ve had a real road to Reading.

We’ve done a bunch of shows and dusted off the cobwebs.

Today, it felt like we’d arrived.” It’s one of a number of smaller shows that the duo have played in anticipation of their fifth album ‘Dead Company’, which was previewed by single ‘Ten Over Ten’ and is due for release on November 13 .

Royal Blood backstage at Reading Festival 2026.

Credit: Andy Ford for NME These underplays “never feel small”, Kerr said, adding: “There’s always a level of intimidation to them.

I think that’s just playing live by nature.

There is that element of excitement because when you play, things can break and go wrong, so that’s big enough for us.” This led the duo to look back on their first appearance at the festival, back in 2014, when they played a similarly packed gig at the NME/Radio 1 Stage .

Asked what he remembered of that show, Kerr replied: “Being pretty scared – exactly what we were just talking about.

We were playing probably 100-capacity rooms on our first or second UK tour.

“Reading was just a stop-off in that tour.