Rival Sons' left turns were worth the pain

Rival Sons guitarist Scott Holiday believes the "left turns" they took during the making of fourth album Great Western Valkyrie were worth fighting back from – because they've received amazing reviews for their work.

The band, complete with recently-added bassist Dave Beste, arrived in the best possible frame of mind for today’s Download appearances after critical responses took them by surprise.

Holiday tells TeamRock Radio: “You make these records really fast. When we’re all done it’s really interesting, because you don’t really know what you’ve got there.

“We made a few lefts turns on this record. You don’t know how people are going to take it – but so far it’s been really well accepted. To get a 1010 from Classic Rock feels fantastic.”

Great Western Valkyrie was released this week.

Rival Sons interview

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.