INTERVIEW: By Hilary Porter
NEW Forest Indie band The Magic Gang continue to celebrate their rising success after being nominated for Best New Artist in the prestigious 2018 NME Music Awards.
It is another feather in the cap for talented foursome - Jack Kaye, (vocals, guitar), Kristian Smith, (vocals, guitar), Angus Taylor, (bass), and Paeris Giles, (drums), who are set to release their debut album in March.
The boys signed to Warner Brothers Music in 2016 - the year Common People organiser Rob de Bank tipped them as ones to watch and put them on the main stage at the Southampton common based festival.
They were so popular he booked then to play again last year and since then they have been playing at major festivals throughout the UK.
The band's signing sees them sharing the same label as the likes of Duran Duran, Green Day, Michael Buble, Muse and The Red Hot Chili Peppers - to name but a few!
Angus (Gus) told the Daily Echo: "The NME nomination is really cool. We are really flattered by it. We grew up watching the NME Awards and our favourite bands. Everything's been great! We are getting everything set for the album coming out mid-March. The exact date as well as the name of the album have yet to be revealed. Our single will come out too. It will be a brand new song that we wrote this year and we've just shot the new video for it. I'm very excited about it as it sounds much bigger. We produced it with Jolyon Thomas - he produced Royal Blood's record as well as the last U2 album. He brought a lot of energy to it and it's a real step-up in the sound. We recorded the album over 20 days in a lovely farm house in Banbury. We would kind of start at midday and continue until 3am. It was great working like that so it sounds like a real old school album.
"It's about 60 per cent new material and the rest is our older stuff but recorded with a bigger sound. There will be some surprises on there people wouldn't expect , including some piano, ballad-type stuff with a bit of depth. They are all 'bangers' but they are not all pop-in-your-face. But being a 12 tack album there was room to express ourselves. As it's our debut album it should be a documentation of the band's beginning in 2014 to the present date. "
Magic Gang play Bournemouth Old Fire Station on Sunday February 4. They will perform at record stores around the country when the album is released but plan lots of festival dates and a major venue tour in the autumn.
Meanwhile Gus says they are looking forward to the NME Awards night at Brixton Academy on February 13.
They are short-listed for Best New Artist along with: Stefflon Don, Sigrid, SZA, Shame and J Hus.
To vote for The Magic Gang visit: awards.nme.com
