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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with Jimmy from unsigned band The New Twentys to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the name?
The band is my brother Harry Morris, and myself (Jimmy) and our mate Chris Bourne. We met Chris at a gig in London and then Harry got us all in to Bestival together and we had a blast. Chris is from Southend in Essex and me and Harry are near Staines.

We came up with the name in Cornwall during a random conversation about how we found it strange that no one really refers to the tens, but then once the first 20 years of a century is out the way, every other decade that follows feels more defined (i.e twenties, thirties, forties etc). We thought it’s weird how one day this decade will just be called ‘the twenties’ but to us it feels like ‘the new twenties’ and then as a phrase it kind of stood out to us and we went with it. BUT we didn’t like how the word ‘twenties’ looked written down so we spelt it incorrectly – ‘The New Twentys’.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
Growing up for me and Harry it was massively influenced by our Dad who is a big music lover, he showed us – The Police, Lou Reed and Velvet Underground, The Pretenders, The Cars, The Eagles, Paul Simon.

And then when we were really young our parents friends kids got us into Nirvana, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Good Charlotte, Green Day.

Nowadays we are very open to lots of different music and like to draw inspiration from everywhere, but we often find ourselves listening to older stuff like The Clash, The Talking Heads, U2, The Cure, Chris Rea, Nils Lofgren, Oasis. And then The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Foo Fighters, Wolf Alice.

Chris shares a lot of the same types of influences and it’s something we really bonded over but he also loves Phil Collins, Prince, and Peter Gabriel and then has a much broader knowledge of the American pop punk bands too. We are all turned on by great songs rather than an artist or genre though really.

How would you describe your sound?
Sort of a modern day twist on the New Wave movement, pretty upbeat and creative. We have a load of songs in the pipeline though and we never want to be one of those bands that release basically the same song over and over again. We definitely have some curve balls coming 😛

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
The latest release is called Dancing On A Sunday and it is about a homosexual boy growing up in a religious household and how it, wrongly, complicated his upbringing. Jimmy Carr, the comedian, actually kind of gave us the idea when he said to us at a party ‘all these female artists are doing songs like ‘I kissed a girl and I liked it’ but no boys have done a song that says ‘I can’t think straight when I’m with you’. That got our cogs whirring and we came up with the concept and wrote it pretty quickly together in Cornwall.

What’s your local music scene like?
Being so close to London, we always went into town to see gigs and that was amazing because everything is on offer there with it being the capital, but at the same time it meant that our own small town of Staines, doesn’t really feel like it has a small close-knit community of musicians in the same way as other places. When we go down to Chris’ in Southend we feel like there is slightly more of a community spirit amongst the musicians and people seem to be more aware of who is in what band and stuff which is pretty nice.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
We are releasing songs every 6 weeks and we have lots more shows booked in! We are also constantly working on new music and videos so keep your eyes peeled for those 🙂

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
We would love to collaborate with Benny Blanco. He seems like an absolute legend and all round nice guy who makes HITS!

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
We played Bigfoot Festival a month or so ago, and went with the idea that we would go play the show, hang out for a bit and then drive home. We ended up running into some friends and a couple of the beer sponsors and it soon became clear that we were unable to drive back, so we slept 5 of us in a little transit van with all our gear and no sleeping stuff behind the main stage. Chris was in the back amongst all our gear, Harry was in the driver’s seat with the seat reclined, Mady (our photographer) was asleep across the 2 seats in the front, Jimmy was asleep in the footwell and Kamil (our drummer) had the best bed, sleeping across the middle 3 seats!

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
At the moment we are completely independent, writing, recording and producing everything ourselves, anything you can do to help us spread the word we really really appreciate! Also if you like what we do, or just want to have a chat feel free to reach out, we love connecting with everyone! hey@thenewtwentys.com

You can find out more about The New Twentys via Apple Music, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify. TikTok, Twitter or YouTube, and you can find out where to listen to ‘Dancing On A Sunday’ here.

UPDATE: The New Twentys are no longer performing together, but Jimmy and Harry are now performing as same. You can find out more via on their website or via Instagram, Spotify, TikTok or YouTube.