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X-clusive: The 22-20s Come Out Fighting
Bassplayer Glenn Bartup and singer/guitarist Martin Trimble of Lincoln bluesmiths 22-20s spoke exclusively to Xfm Online to mark the release of their storming single ‘Why Don’t You Do It For Me’. Berating Britpop’s “banal songs” and saturated with the raw power of the Blues, the pair outline their manifesto.
“I don’t think Oasis left any really great records, but they were there on the crest of a wave of feeling with Britpop,” Trimble explains when broached on the comparisons between themselves and the Mancunian indie stars. “What we do is very insular and I’m just not prepared to embrace people the way Oasis did.
“We’ll never have that kind of appeal, and inspire that ‘Band of the People’ mentality. It’s never been a part of what we do, and never will be.”
Unrelenting and uncompromising, the band’s incendiary live show is growing and evolving constantly. Not that this has affected the band’s exposure on a certain national radio station.
“Radio 1 said our record was just too brutal,” Trimble laughs, “But nu-metal got played on Radio 1. It just shows how important a smooth production is: Nu-metal may have heavy chords and dark lyrics, but when it comes to production it’s clean. We’ll never clean up what we do.
“We spent a long time playing and rehearsing before we recorded the album so that we could record the tracks as live and raw as possible,” Bartup continued, “‘Why Don’t You Do It For Me’ is one of the more lively tracks on the record and sits halfway between the live record we put out last year and the rest of the album.”
After headlining the recent Britpack UK tour with The Ordinary Boys, the band are lined up to support Supergrass on their forthcoming greatest hits jaunt. Not that playing large venues intimidates the group: In fact quite the contrary.
“In general, we’re more comfortable with a bigger audience than in a smaller club,” Trimble explains. “I think it suits us better. We don’t work so well in smaller venues, and are quite happy to play bigger halls. If we’re good that night, we’re good. If not, we’re not. That’s just the way it is.”
In terms of inspiration, Trimble is generally uninspired by his immediate peers. Integrity rates far higher than musicality or a certain guitar solo or snare-drum sound.
“We’re influenced by an attitude,” Trimble explains, “People like Bob Dylan and Morrissey, they were aggressive and direct. We grew up on the fag end of Britpop, but I think that a lot of the songs were quite banal. That’s why the blues is so important, it’s a pure form of expression and not contaminated by anything. I know its black music and I’m white, but it’s your attitude and the spirit and the way you carry yourself that’s important, not a chord progression.”
‘Why Don’t You Do It For Me’ is out now and 20-20s can be seen live supporting Supergrass in April/May.
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Weekend Breakfast with Jim Coulson
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