Amber Run celebrate ten years of 5AM down under

UK alt-rock trio Amber Run are set to tour Australia for the first time this April, celebrating ten years of their breakthrough debut album, 5AM. Fans can expect to hear the album in full, complete with hit singles such as I Found, Spark and Just My Soul when they hit Rosemount Hotel on Thursday, April 23—with tickets on sale now. RACHEL FINUCANE sat down with Amber Run frontman Joe Keogh to find out more about celebrating the album’s milestone anniversary down under, their proudest moments as a band, and revisiting fan-favourite tracks onstage. 

Congrats on the 10th anniversary of the 5AM album! This is your first time coming to Australia—what made you want to celebrate this massive milestone here?

I think that it encapsulates what we were feeling at the time because we started this band, definitely because we wanted to make music but also because we wanted to see a bit of the world. You hear about bands getting on flights and then just touring in places that you wouldn’t have even dreamt of going to. And we’ve done so many places, and we looked around and were just like, ‘Where are the places that we’re really desperate to go to that we haven’t been able to go to?’ And it just feels kind of beautiful that 5AM is that record that helped us get out to Australia and meet everyone that’s been listening out there. Because it was our dream when we first started the band. We need to tour the States; we need to get out there because that was the dream. Imagine we’re in Almost Famous or something. We did that, and then we realised that we got to see so much of the world as well. We’ve been wanting to do Australia for a really, really long time. So we’re just really excited that this has given us the opportunity to do it.

When you tour a new country, are you bumbling tourists with a list of places you want to see, or more of a “we’ll see what we see when we get there” kind of band?

I’m a big coffee snob. I’ve heard that coffee’s great. It’s rained here for about sixty days straight. So I think, just feeling the sun on our skin—I think we just go and soak it up. Out in Europe, in the UK, as the 10-year anniversary would say, we’ve been a band for a long time. So we’ve been to a lot of these places; we tour a lot. And we have those Google Maps things, where I must have fifteen killer spots in every city that we go to. And I’m excited to pin some stuff in Australia and just go do some exploring. We’ve had so many friends move over to us. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and exploring a new spot. My kids are big Bluey fans, so I’ll probably have to pick something up. Stuff like that. And also, whenever we go to a new place, you get to meet some beautiful new people, because the dream is that this isn’t the last time that we get to come. So the thing I’m looking forward to most is just meeting some new folk from across the world, because this band has given us some beautiful friendships. And hopefully, this tour won’t be an exception to that.

Australia has a reputation for really embracing bands that feel like they belong here, even if they’ve never set foot in the country. Have you felt that connection with Australian fans already, and what are you most looking forward to about finally being in the room with them?

We’ve definitely met tons of Australian fans before. You guys are really good travellers; you get to see some places. I guess you have to, with the island being so far away. But I think socially and culturally, I feel very akin to every Australian person that I’ve met. It feels like we’ve lived a pretty shared experience, apart from you being a lot more tanned and good-looking. So I’ve definitely felt really attuned to Australian fans that have come before. And it’s always nice to go to where people are. You guys have been coming to us for so long. It’s going to be fun to come and meet you where you are.

And it’s exciting. I’ve never been to Australia. I don’t think any of the rest of the guys have been to Australia. And it might feel a bit boring to you because it’s where you live. But it’s exciting to go see the world. And we just feel very privileged that our band still lets us do that. We just wrote—especially with 5AM—some silly songs that we hoped were good. And then it just turned out that people liked them. And then ten years later, we’re still able to do this stuff. I just think it’s crazy that we would soundtrack or inspire that stuff, but then also that we’ve been able to create an economy where we can pay for a very expensive airline flight and then go out to a beautiful place like Australia. And then we just get to play music. How crazy is that?

There’s a song on the record called Noah where you talk about the things you’re proud to have built. Looking back over the last ten years, what’s your proudest career moment that came off the back of this album?

I don’t know about specifically our careers, but the thing that I am most proud of, and I’ve been feeling it quite intensely recently, is that being in a band can be tricky. And there’s a reason why there’s a ton more solo artists rocking out in the world than there are bands. I think the thing that I’m most proud of at the moment with our band is the relationship that we’ve managed to keep with each other. Henry and Tom are my dearest friends. I love making music with them, but I’d much rather be their friend than in a band with them. So I feel really proud of us being able to create that kind of environment.

Hopefully, that also feeds into how people can enjoy the show as well, because I’ve known these guys since I was literally a kid. For Tom, since I was 11 years old, we’ve still been getting out and getting to do these kinds of adventures. So I feel really proud of the growth and the relationships that we’ve built together. That’s the thing, because I think about the kids that wrote and recorded 5AM, and then I think about who we are now. And then I think about how proud of us I am. And that’ll be my answer.

What’s unique about your touring circuit is that you’re doing specific tours for different countries—we’re getting the 5AM Anniversary Tour, while the UK and Europe are getting the Acoustic Tour. Where did these ideas stem from?

For the UK and Europe, I think our most recent release is an EP called Sunflower, and it does lend itself more to that kind of world. But then also, we’ve toured for a really long time, and our show is a lot more rocky than people realise. It is more indie rock than it is ballads and chilled stuff. So I think people are often surprised when they come see our live show that it is quite so rocky as it is. We grew up in an alternative scene in North London. So it was heavy rock music. And we played that show for years and years and years. And I think we really wanted to challenge ourselves to lean into the songwriting of what we do a bit more and to lay ourselves bare a little bit more. And it felt like a good time to do it with the release of Sunflower, which is a little bit more acoustic feeling. And it’s been really, really beautiful.

I think that we’re probably going to take some of the songs from this tour and how we’ve been playing them and put them into the set out in Australia as well, because I think people have really enjoyed it, and we’ve really enjoyed just having a soft touch on some of these songs. And I think maybe for all these years, we might have just been a little bit scared to rein in the rock element of the whole thing. I don’t really know why. I think maybe you just get comfortable, but it’s been really beautiful to just have these, to play a ballad as a ballad. So it’s been really fun. I don’t know if that answers your question. I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent in my head.

You’ve said the final songs on Sunflower are “pretty much in the form they were conceived.” How is this approach different from your previous records, and what’s your process for protecting that initial spark once you’re in the studio?

Oh, lovely question. I and we are chronic overthinkers. I think lots of people are. And I think we just actively went out of our way to make sure that we did just that. If it was written acoustically, we kept it in that guise. And the moment that you capture the feeling of what it should be and you feel that excitement, that is the feeling that we wanted to put across as well, especially because we’ve soundtracked a lot of more difficult moments in people’s lives. But I can definitely still go to those spaces. But I’d say our lives feel slightly more well-rounded now. I’ve got two kids, and I got married last year, and it’s been a beautiful moment in my life, personally.

So just being able to try and capture that kind of excitement, I think, is by, when you’re feeling it, throwing it out in the world and then trying and capturing it and sharing it. And that’s what that EP felt like to me. And that’s a bit how we recorded the first record as well: just not overthinking it, naivety, and the innocence of just writing some music and putting it out. So it’s felt quite akin to that experience. But other records and stuff—it’s difficult not to overthink it because you want to do better than the last; you want to create something cooler or whatever. But I think I don’t really give a shit about that anymore. I think the guys feel the same. So it’s been fun, and it’s been freeing, and I’ve enjoyed making music more in the last year than I have probably since making the first record.

That’s good. It’s nice that it came full circle as well, how it mirrored the same way that you made the debut.

I wouldn’t have thought about that without that question. So thank you very much.

On the original album, both I Found and 5AM were entirely your own vocals, and now Freya Ridings and Billianne have joined for duets on the re-records. What was it like hearing those songs in that new arrangement?

It was fun. It was nice to get good singers on it, finally. They’ve got beautiful voices, and they brought their own kind of story and narrative to it. And it’s fun working collaboratively with people. We’ve kind of existed on our own island for a long time. We haven’t really peaked or looked elsewhere. I don’t really know what that is. I guess it’s because we’re a band and we’ve just had each other. And so that’s where the collaboration was coming from. But it’s been really fun to bring other people into the project to be able to sing and stuff. I mean, we’ve known Freya for years and years and years, and she’s obviously a beautiful vocalist and a lovely girl. But we’d only just met Billianne, and I just couldn’t believe the feeling that she gave me when she sang.

I remember there was a show that we played in Glasgow. She was supporting us. And the catering was organised in the main hall. So we’d be watching. We watched her soundcheck whilst we were all eating. And I just remember there were seven or eight of us in the crew just eating our dinner, watching Billianne, and every single one of us—there were seven grown men—was just all crying, watching this girl sing. And the fact that she shared her talents on our music felt really beautiful because if that’s how she was able to make us react, the dream was that she was able to bring out another emotional tone of that song.

Finally, I Found has had over half a million videos created using its sound on social media. What’s it like seeing a song from 2015 still resonating like that, and how excited are you to feel that energy in the room when you perform it here?

It’s super exciting. It’s really nice. You just don’t think about it when you write this stuff. And then we’re just so lucky that it’s just resonated and continued to impact people. And it’s crazy because people are still listening to it for the first time, especially when you release something so long ago. You just are, OK, well, that’s gone. What’s the next thing? But just how many new people keep engaging with it as well and singing that song? It’s always a joy, even though it’s a sad one; people react to it so beautifully, and they’re so excited. And when you just hit the first note, and you can just see people grabbing their mates, it’s just beautiful.

And I think that’s what especially live music is all about: that sense of community, that sense of excitement, and of sharing in something you’re excited for. And that’s one of the reasons why I still love playing live shows: that feeling that you can feel move through the crowd when you play a song that they really want to hear. And I Found seems to be one that people really want to hear us play. And we’re excited to see what that looks and feels like in Australia. I can’t quite imagine it because when I think of Australia, I just think of it being really sunny and beautiful. But you guys will have dark, dingy venues like the rest of the world.

Amber Run bring their 5AM Anniversary Tour to Rosemount Hotel on Thursday, April 23, 2026. Tickets are on sale now from oztix.com