The Tab Meets… The Wurzels

The Wurzels sing songs of our glorious university homeland and celebrate our native beverage cider. It was only last Tuesday that The Tab were doing the ho-down to the band’s world wide hit ‘Combine Harvester’ at Arena’s cheesy Tuesday. So we were pretty damn excited to chat with Wurzel Tommy Banner about the band’s upcoming gig at The Lemmy, among other things . . .

The Tab: Umm, is that a Scottish accent I hear?

Tommy: Yes, I’m the only Scottish one in captivity.

What made you join a Scrumpy and Western band then?

I’ve been in the music business all my life but I had never even been down this far until ‘67.  I came down for three months then to work and never left. It’s a nice place down here.

Tommy Banner (Left) and Paul Budd doing what they do best

Yes it’s lovely. I’m from Poole in Dorset.

Ooo you’re a Dorset Dumpling then! A posh one!

What’s you favourite song The Wurzels have ever done and why?

I think it’s got to be Combine Harvester, it put us on the market nationally and internationally. One of my other favourites has to be “Good Old Somerset” which I co-wrote, it’s very different to all the other songs.

Do you only drink cider?

Of course! I do prefer cider, my favourite type is Thatchers because it’s from Somerset. The lead singer doesn’t actually like it though. He says it dries his throat up so it’s strictly bitters when he’s working but when he’s off duty he’ll have a cider.

On the WurzelWorld website it says you enjoy ‘hedgehog racing’. What is it and why do you like it so much?

It’s very competitive. Round where I live, I come home and they’re scurrying around, so it’s quite funny watching them cross the roads.  You get loads of them racing; you get mice – but the best one is tortoise racing, they’re the best!

How often do you purchase a ‘brand new combine harvester’?

Whenever we can afford one. It’s a once in a lifetime thing really – they’re very expensive.

What exactly, does ‘Ooo Arr’ mean?

Nothing.  It’s just something that we clawed out of the air – we put it in lots of songs to fill space.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had on stage with you?

A chicken. It was not happy, someone did that as a bit of a prank though. We once played at the opening of a new village hall which had a highly polished wooden floor for ballroom dancing or something, when one of the locals decided to open the fire exit. Next thing you know a couple of cows strolled in. Fortunately they didn’t slip but they did drop their litter everywhere! The landlord has never forgiven us, he thought it was a stunt.

We’ve got your Christmas presented sorted

Can you explain how you ‘wurzelise’ a track?

When we did our previous album Never Mind the Bullocks we were looking for an idea and we didn’t want to do more parodies where we would change the words and hopefully make them funny. We decided to do pop songs instead. The lead singer’s voice is so distinctive it could only be The Wurzels and we include the accordion and the banjo too.

What do you think of music in the charts?

Some of it’s good, there’s no such thing as bad music really – just music played badly. But it wouldn’t do if everyone liked the same thing. One Direction are excellent, I bet you like them. McFly too – they’re an old hat now though, at least they can actually play. They’re what we would class as a band. Hopefully we’ll find something this year that we’ll be able to ‘wurzelise’, maybe Adele.

When you come to Exeter what can we expect, any surprises?

If there are any surprises, I’m not going to tell you! We’ll play things from the Load more Bullocks album and everything else we’re known for. We’ll make sure it’s appropriate for our audience. We love Devon – Pete lived here for a long time.

GET TICKETS FOR THE GIG (FRIDAY 30TH NOVEMBER) HERE