4.52am Issue: 033 11th May 2017 The And The Hangnails Issue

So who are you?
“I'm Martyn. I'm the singer and guitarist.
I've been playing for about 17 years
now. Ever since choosing to build a
guitar whilst at school for design
technology project I've been into
modding out and building my own
guitars.
Steve is the drummer and also sings a
bit. We're both from the York/Selby
area, though I've been living in London
recently, we've both been travelling a lot
for gigs and recording etc.”
When and where did you meet?
“We originally met through other bands,
playing in different bands on the
independent music / toilet scene in
Yorkshire. I thought he was a great
drummer, but seemed to like much more
indie/post-punk bands than the bands
I'd seen him playing with, so thought he
might fancy it.”
You share influences then, how
does that work with the band then?
“Originally I was inspired by the likes of
the Black Keys, White Stripes and Death
from Above 1979, to try out playing with
just guitar and drums. But there were a
huge number of bands that we were
inspired by. We wanted to try the two
piece approach, to streamline the
writing, recording and administrative
(political) aspects that are ubiquitous
with being in an independent band.”
How would you describe your
sound?
“I suppose you'd describe it as
Indie/Punk. I like fuzzy guitars and old
amps. I originally come from a bit of a
blues background, musically, but Punk
was what first caught my ear as kid and
has always stuck with me. I suppose a lot
of what we do is more anthemic than it is
bluesy though. A lot of energy, fast noise
pop songwriting. We always put the song
above anything else but we write some
stuff that's a lot trickier to play than it
sounds.”
Who is listening to you, buying the
records, coming to the gigs?
“Our fans range quite drastically in
regards to demographics. One of my
favorite things about playing gigs is
looking out and seeing in one bit of the
crowd some punk blokes getting rowdy
and pushing each other about a bit, then
on the other side there'll be a couple of
teenagers dancing and having fun, then
there'll be some serious muso guys arms
crossed, looking very focused and
nodding slightly. It's like everyone is
attending a different gig, or listening to a
different band. And then there's usually
one or two members of staff on the bar
who are paying attention intermittently.
We often get a few surprised "that
actually wasn't shit" kinda comments
from a lot of bored / overstimulated
venue staff. Haha.”