Jade's Music Blog

They have already seen a fair bit of it – with tours of China, Japan, America, Spain, France, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Austria and Italy under their belts.
And now, at last, they’re coming to Liverpool for a homecoming gig – make that two homecoming gigs – on Sunday.
“We can’t wait to play Liverpool again,” says bass player Dan Haggis, from Garston. “We haven’t played here since May, and we’ve been everywhere else since, so we can’t wait.
“We’re doing two gigs on the same day – an all-ages afternoon show and a 16+ one later on. We’ve got fans of seven and fans of 60, so it’s a way of everyone being able to come along.”
It’s been an unusually quiet week for the trio – Dan, plus Woolton-born singer/guitarist Matthew Murphy and Norwegian drummer Tord Overland-Knudsen. They had to cancel gigs in Sheffield, Newcastle and Glasgow after Murph was struck down with laryngitis.
“His voice was starting to go last Sunday, he was getting growlier and growlier,” explains Dan. “I thought it sounded quite cool, but then his voice completely went after we got offstage. He’s in bed now. His girlfriend is in there, stroking his hair and making him Lemsips.”
Murph has got a girlfriend? How is that going to work? The Wombats songs typically tell of their frontman’s romantic disasters. How will it work if he’s happily loved-up?
“I hadn’t thought about that,” laughs Dan. “What do you think we should do? Should we cause a bit of trouble? Make him a bit miserable again?
“Maybe we should just do some really surreal songs instead, about mermaids playing tennis or something.”
Sounds interesting. Will you be playing that one on Sunday?
“I’m working on one called I Live in Kenneth Clarke’s beard. I’ll play that for you if you like.”
One thing they’re sure to play is upcoming single Let’s Dance to Joy Division.
“It’s going to be great to play that to a home crowd,” grins Dan. “It’s all about Liverpool, so I can’t wait to hear how it goes down. The first line is ‘I’m back in Liverpool, and everything seems the same’. I’m really excited about it.”
All seems to be going well for the marsupial rockers. Thinking of it, if you’re thinking of setting up an indie band, a good way to get noticed seems to be to name yourself after an animal. First Arctic Monkeys, then Lyons & Tigers, The Bees and Peter and the Wolf (not forgetting the originals - The Beatles and The Monkees of course.)
The band’s other secret weapon seems to be their relationship with their fanbase. Their time after graduating from LIPA – the lads met at Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts – was spent building an enviable fanbase around the world, largely through MySpace.
“We’re always on MySpace,” says Dan. “We still try to reply to everyone who messages us on there, but it’s hard while we’re on tour. We haven’t got internet on the tour bus. We’re getting hundreds of messages a day now, so it’s taking us a while, but this week because we’ve had a bit of time, we’ve been on it loads.
“It’s really good to be able to talk to people who like your music – the people who come to our gigs.”
A fairly high percentage of the crowd tend to be pretty girls intent on bagging themselves a Wombat.
“There do tend to be a lot of pretty girls, but Murph and I have got girlfriends, we try to keep out of temptation’s way,” says Dan. “We send everyone Tord’s way. We should do an announcement on Sunday – ‘Tord is single and looking for a girlfriend. Please form an orderly queue ladies.’”
For more information, see www.thewombats.co.uk myspace.com/thewombatsuk.

Also, the deadline for bands to apply to take part in Liverpool Music Week is now next Friday, September 28. Merseyside artists should contact the organisers at info@liverpoolmusicweek.co.uk, or for more information see www.myspace.com/liverpoolmusicweek.