Interview: THE TWANG - GigslutzGigslutz

After two years away Birmingham’s The Twang are finally back with their fourth studio album ‘Neon Twang’ released on the 10^th of March. We caught up with bass player, Jon Watkin as he trudged through the muggy streets of Birmingham in the pouring rain…

Hello Jon, how are we?

I’m alright, not too bad. Just tracing through the rain.

Oh no that’s the worst, are you in Birmingham?

Yeah yeah.

So, here at Gigslutz we have been missing you. Since the release of ’10:20’ where have you been? What have The Twang been up to, have you finally found yourselves or what not yet?

Erm, just been making the new record, this is the quickest time it’s taken us to get a record out actually. We ain’t be away for that long.

It’s only been two years and of course we heard a little bit from you in 2013. However, the new sounds are pretty good, particularly ‘Larry Lizard’.

Thank you, thank you!

It’s sounding a little different to previous Twang sounds so where has the influence come from this time?

Kind of the thing that started us off down the road we go on really, is we didn’t have a drummer at the start of it. We sacked our drummer after we heard he had been stealing from us. So we obviously got rid of him. Then we had a new drummer, Ash but he kinda came along later on. So we wrote a chunk of the album making our own beat and that pushed us down the path we went really. It’s just whether we planned to go down it or not but we’ve not planned things so much this time. It’s a lot more offcut and instinct really.

It’s sounding pretty good, do you think it will be as successful as past albums?

Yeah I hope so, I certainly hope so. I think it’s up there with our best, it’s different. We went with a producer Rory Attwell who does a lot of lo-fi guitar bands, indie bands. We sent him some demos and he liked them and agreed to do it. So hopefully it’s got a different, actual sound to it. So hopefully people will like it and I think the song writing has developed a bit so yeah.

So far the feedback has been good, let’s only hope. So on the subject of ‘Neon Twang’ of course ‘Neon Twang’ was in fact The Twang before The Twang. What’s made you go back to that?

There’s not a massive story behind it. We erm, it’s kind of referenced to where we are. Before we got signed, before we signed the record deal we did everything ourselves. All the creative things, it was all done ourselves. Then we signed a record deal, we signed a massive deal and had all these creative people on board and they kind of messed us up really. We agreed to do stuff because they were Polydor records. It kind of, we lost our way a little bit. Now, we have our own studio, record label and kind of self-manage ourselves. We have got a manager but we’ve done the thinking side to it ourselves. It’s kinda a reference to that you kind of homage to the band that we were.

So ‘Neon Twang’ is the real sound of The Twang would you say?

Yeah kind of. As I said, it’s not like it’s to be taken too seriously. Kind of looking for a name as well and it sounded good.

Good thinking. So you can’t really mention The Twang without the slip of the word ‘Brummy’. Of course, Birmingham are becoming quite significant on the music map at the minute with new acts emerging. Do you think Birmingham could ever be as significant as Manchester?

I don’t see why not, got a bit of work to do, we’ve gotta make up for a lot of time to compete with Manchester. They’ve got more than a few good acts but I think there is some really good bands that have just came through, some really cool bands.

When we signed and were trying to get a deal, all the bands around us were pretty rubbish to be honest. They were all like living in the 60’s, they all thought they were mods and kind of rubbish Liam Gallagher impressions.

I’ve noticed that still happening a lot now.

Yeah that type of band when we were trying to get a deal. We kind of hated it really. It was quite stale. I can understand when Ocean Colour Scene broke all that big pop thing but people were still doing in 10 years later and it’s like jheeze. But now you look at the scene and it’s like young, cool kids who are taking influences from bands like The Pixies. Cool Indie. It’s good, it’s refreshing, it’s nice.

So yeah, whether we’ll ever be on par with Manchester, we’ve got work to do.

Completely agree. So, obviously you’ve got your tour coming up this month. Will we be seeing The Twang anywhere else this year? Any big plans for in the pipeline?

Erm, we are hoping to get a few. We’re going to Ireland sometime this year and we’ll be touring out. Kind of seeing how the record does. If people like it, it goes on from there and opens doors. If everyone listens to it and hates it then that’s all the doors closed. But we’ll be out and about.

On that note, It’s been an absolute pleasure! On a final note, do you have a top 3 of ultimate tracks that we can play on Gigslutz Radio on behalf of The Twang? Make it nice.

1) Miss You-The Rolling Stones

2) Bad Liver And A Broken Heart-Tom Waits

3) Boy With A Thorn In His Side-The Smiths

Well thank you, you’ve been brilliant, good luck in the rain and of course good luck with Neon Twang!

Cheers! All the best!