Sitting in his record company’s Dublin boardroom, Phil Etheridge of neo-baggy hopefuls The Twang casts his mind back to his first brush with lad-rock royalty.
“Shaun Ryder did the same telly show as us and afterwards we went up to him to say 'hello'. We were a bit reluctant because he was surrounded by people who just wanted to hang out with him. But you only get one chance, so I went up and said ‘Alright Shaun’. He said 'alright back'. I think he knew who were were – well, we’d just been on the same TV show!”
Traffickers in terrace-friendly indie, The Twang are hailed as heirs to Ryder’s yob-of-the-people pop crown. Chatting with the Brummie five-piece, their ‘street’ credentials are plain to see. They’re gobby and unmistakably English, strutting in a manner not seen since the heyday of Oasis. There’s a great deal of swagger to their music as well: recent hit ‘Wide Awake’ was a quintessential lad’s anthem, yearning but in a sweaty, unapologetically blokey way.
For all their braggadocio, though, it irks The Twang that they're pigeonholed as guitar-wielding football hooligans (not that they make it easy for themselves – bassist John Watkins was once ejected from a pub for possessing a samurai sword).
“All the posters for our Irish tour described us as ‘yobbos’,” says Etheridge, a Brummy wide-boy who converses at 100-mph. “I mean, I share a season ticket with me dad [Etheridge supports Aston Villa]. But we’re not hooligans or anything.”
Actually, Etheridge’s passion for soccer runs deeper than Aston Villa. Prior to The Twang, he coached underprivileged inner city kids.
“I wanted a job that was different. So I got me badges and ended up giving classes to kids. Well, just about. The band got signed just after I got the job. I was only in there a week.”
Having recently finished recording their debut album, The Twang make no bones of their ambitions: the wish to be the first British band to truly matter since Oasis.
“It’s music for lads, isn’t it,” admits Etheridge. “You want to bring people out of themselves – bring them together. You don’t need to be clever. You just need to do something that’s important. Nothing else matters.”