The Twang

Music-News caught up with The Twang at their London hotel where they chatted about the new album, filming their new single 'Barney Rubble' in the beautiful Montenegro, a bizarre incident in an Amsterdam show and about loyal fans who get to hang out in their dressing room. They emanate energy and fill the room with infectious laughter. If I had a whole afternoon spare, and they didn’t have various appointments, we would have no doubt spent long hours in a nearby Notting Hill pub.

You’re just back from T in the Park, how did you find it?

Phil: It was an amazing festival. We played there in 2007 and it was just amazing. T is just really well organised and has a really great back stage area.
Matthew: I think it’s probably the biggest festival in Scotland too.
Phil: Maybe it is Matthew! The Barrowlands too, is probably one of the best gigs we’ve ever played.

What do you do before a show to prepare? Any strange rituals?

Saunders: A band song, yeah a band song
Phil: We bond, band bonding (all laugh). We’ve all kinda got different routines. We all do our own thing but a half hour before the gig we’ll all turn up to the dressing room, have a drink and a cuddle.
Saunders: Just a cuddle.
Jon: If Saunders doesn’t randomly scream in your ear when you’re walking past.
Phil: A drink and some tunes, and at about ten minutes before I go on, I have my lucky shit.

Your new album, Jewellery Quarter, is coming out soon, are you all excited?

Saunders: I mean yeah, the album has been done for ages and we’ve seen all the artwork, but we haven’t actually seen an actual copy of it.
Jon: I bet that the day it comes out will be the day we get to see it.
Phil: It sounds cheesy or whatever, but all you ever want to do when you’re signed, is to be able to go into a record store and see your album. I remember when our first single came out man, like a nerd I was straight in the music shop and saw it amongst all the others.
Saunders: My Nan used to go into HMV, take our CDs and put them all to the front. Bless her.
Phil: We’ve really been through the mill with this record, and to meet Neil Claxton who produced it was great. We’ve just gone through a lot of different stages the point where its finished now and we’re all proper chuffed with it. You’re always gonna have a regret whenever you make a record, we’ve realised that now, you can take a look back and think 'should that guitar have been louder?’ You’re always gonna nit-pick cos its your record. We just wanted to make sure that it’s good as we can possibly make it. And it is, it’s a beautiful record, have you heard it yet - don’t tell me you listened to a couple of songs and thought 'that was shit.’

MN: (nervous laugh) Well I've heard a few of them... but I have just been watching the video for Barney Rubble, tell me more, where was it filmed?

Saunders: At first we were considering Ibiza, we thought that would be amazing, sending us to go and have a party but I think the label thought twice about that. Obviously money is always an object as well. Montenegro was that little bit cheaper, but equally as beautiful. It’s just an amazing place, you’re surrounded by land. All the beautiful things you can have in the world were there all at once.
Phil: We were waking up and going for a swim. You have to pinch yourself. I mean it's summer and a bunch of 5 f**k-wits pretending to be pop-stars, jumping up cliffs and...
Saunders: 'Pretending to be pop-stars’ Philip?
Phil: You know what I mean.
Saunders: Everyone will be going to that places soon, real good value for the family. (all laugh) For example for the price of fags and beer.
Phil: Your son could smoke as much as he wants, it wouldn’t cost you anything.
(all laugh)
But yeah, the locals were buzzing like, they were the actual extras. And there’s bits of actual sea, which just looks like a lake.
Stu: Its like the coast of Norway, the fjords.
Saunders: It’s just a beautiful place

What’s next for you guys?

Phil: We’ve got V Festival coming up. The main academy in Brum has moved, and they’ve asked us to open that on a Friday night which should be pretty special.
Jon: Then we’re gonna go on tour .
Phil: And we wanna just keep doing what we do man, we wanna keep being in a band man, I know it sounds obvious but we don’t take it for granted. We want to just keep making music so whenever we’re not gigging, we wanna write some more songs. You gotta get yourself ahead of it and not spend too much time. We don’t wanna leave it as long cos when the first record came out we toured for a year and we did plan to release the following year but it just didn’t work out. We do make summer records so it would be nice to get something out next summer. Or maybe we’ll make a dark cold winter record, with a Christmas hit, and move to Dublin.

On asking where I was from (Netherlands) Phil shared a (non music related) adventure about his trip to my country (though Amsterdam does not equate to the same thing). His experience with the lads involved drinking, smoking, a lady nicknamed Waxy-Nut concerning an incident with a cigar being smoked out the wrong end, and a candle being held by the most intimate of places to Alice Cooper’s 'Poison’ (As Phil enthusiastically shows my voice-recorder). They remark upon seeing her in a supermarket the next day:
Phil: They’re normal people, with normal clothes; they’ve got lives too, 'have you got any candles?’,and because we were so stoned anyway, it was twice as funny.

So, on that note, any strange fan-mail, requests?

Phil: Not really no, but we’ll probably get one now,
Saunders: we get one or two which are real nice, you know what I mean?
Phil: Some of them are really moving man, some of the messages we’ve had. Remember that kid, there was a geezer who turned dup on the last tour, his son had died and he had 'Either Way’ playing on the way in and on the way out. Everyone’s got songs that help them, or do something.

Do you get out and talk to the fans after you play?

Phil: We try to yeah, well Stu does.
Saunders: We’re not exactly unapproachable. We had a chat every night when we played the Birmingham shows.
Jon: If the opportunity is there, every time man.
Phil: I’m starting to recognise quite a few of the same fans at the front. I recognise a couple from a few shows, and then when I walk into the dressing room and I look at this bird and I’m like, who’s banged them? Stu had obviously recognised them as well, straight into the dressing room.

Stu makes a note to tell us how these girls had followed them around the whole country, so he kindly took them to the dressing room meet the rest of the band,

I thank the boys for their time, and they insist that next time round i come have a drink with them.