My friend Abi and I met up with The Tangents in Nottingham at The Bodega before their gig, we were met outside the venue by Tom and Jack from the band and after a quick fag they showed us upstairs to the room where the gig was taking place. Up there we met Angus who is also in the band, we had a quick chat and then we all sat in the balcony area at the back of the room and started the interview.
So before I start do you want to quickly introduce yourselves?
Angus – “Can do”
Go ahead then.
Angus –“my name is Angus and I’m the drummer”
Tom – I’m Tom I’m front man and guitarist”
Jack – “I’m Jack I play the Bass guitar”
Tom – “He’s the melt”
What have you been up to since we last spoke?
Tom – “We’ve been in the studio working with a geezer whose done work with like The Twang and we have been recording the next single. We’ve been booking a tour for June and then we’ve been faffing about for ages trying to sort this gig out but yeah it’s been going pretty decent”
You supported The Cast back in November how was that?
Angus – “Yeah that was pretty amazing it was nice as at the time – we had a stand in bassist, Ian”
Tom – “Ian! Legend!”
Angus – “He’s one of our closes mate”
Tom – “Ian’s playing tonight man, he’s a geezer”
Angus – “Yeah he’s playing guitar for us in an unknown song”
Tom – “Legend, It’s always special when Ian turns up”
Angus – “Yeah it was amazing and it was even more amazing to do that with Ian because it was one of his childhood bands really, which just made it even more special for us”
Tom – “Yeah it was a mint gig”
You’ve supported The Sherlocks as well haven’t you?
Tom – “Yeah we’ve done supported The Sherlocks a couple of times, they are a good band”
Angus – “Yeah they are good lads”
Tom – “We use the same producer as they do, Their manager, Mick, kind of looks out for us a little bit, he puts us onto his contacts and stuff like that he’s a good bloke. But yeah The Sherlocks were amazing, people were going absolutely mental”
Angus – “Yeah people are going mad for them at the moment”
Tom – “It was wicked”
You’re playing The Bodgea tonight, what should we expect from tonight’s gig?
Jack – “Expect a wild night full of good tunes, a good line up with a good atmosphere there should be a lot of people here”
Tom – “Good support bands”
Jack – “Yeah good support bands”
Tom – “Quality support bands!”
Jack – “Yeah it should be a really good night, lots of people just a good night”
Is there any funny/interesting gig stories you can tell us about?
Angus – “You want to go to Tom for that one haha! Interesting gig stories”
Tom and Angus both laugh
Tom – “So a couple of years ago, when we kind of started out as a band in one of our many different line up’s, we played a pub in Long Eaton and it was hacking it down with rain. People were about thirty feet away from us and there were about three Long Eaton pub going locals”
Angus –“We were just in the back of a lorry, just a trailer”
Tom – “They told us all we needed was like guitar amps and guitars, so we turned up with that and when we got there he was like ‘oh we haven’t got any microphone stands for you’. We were like ‘well what do you expect us to do then mate?’ and he says ‘oh I tell you what I’ve got these umbrella stands’. So we ended up gather taping microphones to umbrella stands and singing into them. Our old bassist, Kieran, used to do backing vocals and he nearly sent me flying out of the lorry when he knocked into me. I got my guitar wet so I weren’t very happy”
You didn’t break your guitar this time did you?
Tom – “No I’d never break my guitar, of course”
Angus – “Two of his guitar stings broke”
Tom – “Yeah I broke my stings this time though yeah, you know it’s not a gig if something don’t go wrong”
Angus – “It was one of those gigs that we just got it all out of the way so I can’t imagine us ever having a like that again”
Jack – “Weren’t they all shouting at you to play Artic Monkeys?”
Tom – “Yeah”, he begins to laugh.
Angus – “There was no appreciation from the few people that were there, there was no applauses it was just “can you play Artic Monkeys? I want to hear Mardy Bum!”
Tom – “It were funny though, now then mardy bum!”
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
Angus – “We’ve been organising a tour which will take place in June, it starts on the 1st and our last tour date is on the 30th. That’s set in stone at the moment but we haven’t announced it yet, that’ll be done at the end of the month. Hopefully after that we will have a couple more recordings as well, and get back into the studio with this producer.”
Tom – “We are going keep like a pattern of touring and recording, and start to branch out of Nottingham and the East Midlands and start getting up North a bit more, they do like us up north”
What would you say the music scene is like in Nottingham?
Jack – “I’ll do this one”
Jack clears his throat
Jack –“The music scene in Nottingham”
Angus – “Right learn from your mistakes Jack”
Tom – “I don’t think you should do this one mate”
Jack – “Shut up man, the Nottingham music scene is good – there are quite a few bands in Nottingham that stand out, including Short Weekend and For The Girl. There have been some really talented bands to come out of Nottingham and there are more to come”
Who inspired you to want to be in a band or learn to play the instruments you play?
Tom – “We’ve all got an answer for this”
You’ve all got to answer this one
Tom – “So for me, I mean as a kid I was one of those who use to walk around with his hood up, I wore like a weed chain all that sort of stuf”
Jack – “Did you?”
Tom – “Yeah I did”
Jack – “Oh man”
Tom – “I was a little a roadman, Anyway, I was dragged to see Oasis…”
Dragged!?
Tom – “Dragged! Liturgy dragged”
If I got to see Oasis, I wouldn’t have to have been dragged there, I’d be running there.
Tom – “No, I was dragged – there was no one to look after me at home. I was about 13/14 so me mam says ‘you’re coming Oasis with us in Manchester’. Anyway I went to see Oasis and it was like a fucking revelation, LG looking cool Noel was doing a dance in the corner playing his guitar, and the sound, man the sound was mental. My dad’s a big mod he was always into stuff like Quadrophenia. I started to play guitar after that gig when I was about 14, and then I never looked back. Angus here he is the talented one”
Angus – “No not at all! But I was sort of taken down the road of Led Zeppelin, and as you know anybody who listens to Led Zeppelin appreciates the drumming. John Henry Bonham was my inspiration and still is – he’s absolutely amazing and I idolise him”
Tom –“He’s better then Bonham though”
Jack – “Mines a bit of a strange route. I started to listen to a band called Avenged Sevenfold when I was in school, and because of that I started playing bass when I was about 11 or 12. When I turned 13/14 I started to listen to bands like Oasis, Stone Roses, The Beatles”
Tom – “He put a Parka on and he’s never been seen out of it”
Jack – “Yeah haha. The Beatles, Stone Roses, Oasis and even like some metal bands that I use to listen to in my youth got me into music. I’d never loose respect for the bands I use to listen to”
Tom – “Then he found me and his life changed”
Jack – “For the worse”
Aww that’s a bit harsh. What has been your favourite gig?
Tom – “It’s got to be The Sherlocks. There were 700 people there when we played, none of which we knew, and in one of the best venues in the entire country – the Leadmill. One of the dates on our June tour is the Leadmill, it’s an amazing venue. So you’ve got these 700 people, you don’t know any of them by name, and they’re mosh pitting, throwing their drinks in the air and chanting ‘Tangents’. I’ve never seen anything like it, it was amazing”
Jack – “Hang on a second; tell them where I was when I saw The Sherlocks and you for the first time, how many people were there”
Tom – “Yeah, well first time Jack saw us was at The Maze when The Sherlocks and there weren’t many people there”
Jack – “I saw Tom & Angus at Riverside Festival too, which is when I liked the Facebook page. That’s how they discovered me”
Tom – “Yeah we were looking for a bass player after our old bassist left. We’d given up posting adverts and were prepared to just be a 2-piece like Royal Blood, but I decided to look through the Facebook likes. I clicked on Jack by chance, turned out I already had him as a friend on Facebook. Anyway, I think my opening message was literally ‘do you play bass?’ and here we are”
If The Tangents had to be remember for one thing what would you want it to be?
Angus – “Oh god! This is something I’ve never even thought about! It would be nice to be the first major band to come out of Nottingham – obviously there’s Jake Bugg but there’s not been an actual band that has achieved a similar level”
Jack – “I want to be remembered for playing to the biggest crowd ever, bigger than Knebworth. I want to play Wembley”
Tom – “Bigger than Queen, mate, bigger than The Beatles. We want to be the biggest band ever”
Any words on the support bands that are here tonight?
Tom – “Both of the support bands tonight are great. We’ve had For The Girl on with us before, and they’re a good band. For The Girl will actually be playing a couple of dates on our tour and we like to link up with them. Jack has known the lads in Short Weekends for a long time, and they’re a good band too”
Any information you want to give out?
Tom – “Big up The Tangents!”
Jack – “Yeah, big up The Tangents!”
Have you got a website?
Jack – “We’re currently designing a website. We’re on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so keep a look out and follow us on social media. We’ve also got a new single coming out which we hope people will like, and then this tour in June”
Tom –“Buy the t-shirt! More general information about our band is that in a 2 hour rehearsal, we spend about have half an hour of that practicing. The rest is an hour and a half of petty arguing”
Angus –“Yeah it’s petty arguing”
Jack –“Petty arguing and then Tom shows off”
See I would have said Jack was the show-off?
Tom – “Oh you’re going see tonight”
Jack – “Tom’s the show-off; he likes everyone to know he’s the frontman, even off stage”
Angus –“Just in case they didn’t realise already”
Tom –“No, I’m not like that! Jack, you’re like that when someone asks you if you’re in a band ‘oh yeah, I’m the bassist’”.
Jack – “And Angus…. Angus is the nicest guy you will ever meet. He is the happiest guy ever. Angus is beautiful! The jaw! it will poke your eye out, just look at him”
Angus – “Will you stop?”
Tom – “So Jack is in love with Angus… and I’m in love with Jack”
Jack – “And that’s the story of The Tangents”
By Siân Parker
That Blogger Music 
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