Jade's Music Blog

Unheard of until October, Birmingham five-piece The Twang were suddenly the subject of discussion in the pages of the NME, the message boards of a hundred band sites, the A & R departments of every big UK record label and their demos were being played on Radio 1 by December.
The lads - Phil, vocalist Martin Saunders, bass guitarist Jon Watkin, guitarist Stu Hartland and drummer Matty Clinton - are in the middle of an extensive tour, playing 27 sold-out dates around the country. Despite this, they are still relatively unknown, and The Twang’s lead singer admits that fame hasn’t reached them yet.
“We’re just on tour. We don’t recognised on the street,” admits the 28-year-old.
“We’ve only had one single out. We’ve not done nothing yet really, but it’s a compliment to be playing sold-out gigs and stuff. It’s really good.”
With Phil and Jon (the duo have been friends since they were 10) on the writing helm, the band - then known as Neon Twang - formed in 2004. But chasing the big time was just a pipe dream.
“I just wanted to be in a band and I wanted to be with my mates. When we formed the band, it was open to everyone. I said to all the lads, `Come and join the band.’ No one really took us up on it,” Phil says, laughing.
“I asked all my mates to join `cos that’s what I wanted it to be. My group of friends, not just the ones in the band, were all bulls*** dreamers who wanted to do something. We were all sitting round, getting high, wondering what we could do with ourselves.
“We gave up work to do this - we thought we’d give one last push at it. We all gave up our jobs last October.”
Luckily for them, things changed in December after they signed a record deal. Suddenly, they were touted as the band to watch by NME, the band’s debut single, Wide Awake, reached No 15 in March, and they have since supported the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and James.
“We were shocked when our first single got into the Top 20 - it’s just amazing,” he adds.
“You can’t say much else, it’s pretty obvious. We’ve been writing for years, me and Jon, and finally, we have the chance to get it out there. We’re playing to 1,000 people a night at the moment. It’s just mad...
“We’re playing Reading and Leeds festivals this summer, so just to be there is a dream. We’ve stood in the crowd at festivals, doing the usual, `It’ll be us one year,’ and now it really will be.”
The band is reluctant to embrace fame and get caught up in its heady heights.
“Everyone in the band’s just normal lads. We did a video with Mike Skinner from The Streets last night, and that was a bit mad. The Streets are one of my favourite bands ever. To be with him doing a video, a remix of Either Way, was kind of cool.”
But he hasn’t always been such a cool cat.
“I was at Glastonbury one year and Noel Gallagher walked past. I had my demo in my pocket, and I went over to him and asked him if I could give him my demo,” Phil recalls.
“He said no, he didn’t have any room. But he had a backpack so I didn’t believe him. But I didn’t argue - it was Noel Gallagher - I just walked off. I was a bit starstruck then.”
He adds: “He probably thought, `Who is this little knob?’ I think he said some nice things about us recently, so that’s amazing. I haven’t seen him myself but someone said he was on telly and said that he likes us.”
With Phil’s knack of defining normal life experiences with humour, The Twang have drawn comparisons with other bands such as The Streets, Happy Mondays and Oasis, which Phil is pretty happy with.
“Just to be talked about in the same breath as some of the people we’ve been compared to is a compliment. I don’t think we sound like any of them, but we’ve certainly been influenced by certain bands,” he says.
With the plethora of new bands around at the moment, Phil is also keen to denounce any rivalry with them.
“It’s not a competition. We don’t think about it at all. You don’t form a band to have a competition with another band, yeah?” he grumbles.
“You do it `cos you’re writing tunes with your best mates and you want to do something with your mates instead of doing f*** all and be in a s*** job.”
Those days are now firmly in the past, as The Twang eagerly conquer the charts. While life has changed for all of them, Phil insists that the change is more noticeable for the band’s girlfriends.
“We have a bus now, I didn’t have one before,” he grins.
“I like the change. I think the only people who have to suffer are the girlfriends. It changes for your missus. Three of us - me, Saunders and Matt - have girlfriends. We’ve been with them for ages. For them, life has changed for them `cos their men are in a band now and we’re not around as much.”
But one thing that isn’t going to change is them.
“We’re having a laugh. We’re just doing what we do, and what we’ve always set out to do. Which is to be in a band, get a record out, and tour together. We’re just normal lads who like to get drunk and write songs.”