The Beat Surrender

Being asked to join a band whilst sitting in your local hairdresser’s is not the way I imagined it to have all begun, to be honest with you… At the time, it didn’t really seem like anything special, we had about six days to practice before our first gig, who’s venue was Hitchin Football Club… but everything came together after that 20 minute set. Not many bands sell out their first gig, and it sure as hell set the standard for the next year to come.

I had no idea it would ever turn into a career, but after a few months of getting our music around myspace, we were already getting major label interest. We didn’t really know how to take it… I think we got too excited too quickly, but we soon learnt that the music industry, as brilliant and glamorous as it is, is also a pig-stye of shallow, temperamental arse-holes, who like your band, as long as no-one else does. We found ourselves a brilliant lawyer, well, he found us, and he gave us free advice for as long as we needed it, until the day we could pay him… which took ages… Our souls, hopes and dreams were crushed, but about a year on from the birth of the band, we got involved with our management company, Biglife.

Juggling school was difficult- all our tours were over half terms, or summer holidays, and when exams came around, we had to cut the touring down, which is the bane of any band’s life. So, we made the decision that when James, Elliot, and myself had finished our A-levels, and Mitch had finished his GCSE’s, we’d leave education. Now, when people say their life-long dream is to be in a band, I’m telling you now, unless you’re really bloody lucky, it’s not what you think.

All our mates went off to uni, and we stayed behind in the in-bred hell-hole that is Hitchin… the amount of sitting around, waiting for things to happen was maddening. I think there’s been many times over the past year, where we’ve each considered packing it all in and following our mates with the whole uni thing… In between our album recording sessions, we’d have a few gigs here and there but you JUST CAN’T spend 5 hours a day, rehearsing the same 20 songs over and over in a practice room. There’s more variety in a padded cell, I swear to god!

But I’m so glad we just moaned about it to get it out of our systems now… we got on the Wonky Pop tour, supporting Example, which was really fun… Hardly anyone came to any of the gigs, but we had a great experience being the support band instead… By this point, which was back in June, I think, we’d been in talks with EMI for months… but the more months that it went on for, the less we started to feel the excitement, and the more the novelty wore away. I guess we just thought it was going to be a repeat of the interest we’d had years before…

However, it may have taken half a year, but we signed that bloody deal about 4 weeks ago now. Our lawyer said it’s the longest deal he’s ever had to confirm… signing that dotted line, it felt bloody brilliant! It’s really going to move our career forwards, since we’ve been at the same level for about 2 years now, so we’re hoping this takes us up a notch or two, or five, whatever.

Already we’ve got on the uLive tour, supporting Kid British, from October 9th-31st, which is going to be brilliant! We’re releasing our single, Get A Reaction, which is out on the 21st September, and soon enough, but god knows when, the album should be around!

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