An interview with Third Lung, who play at West Street Live tonight

Forming in 2014, Reading based quartet Third Lung have built up a fan base of thousands over the years with an intense schedule of touring and releases.

Their current run of shows takes them to West Street Live of all places tonight, so ahead of all the schit bombs and white Russians they spoke to The Sheffield Tab about what they have to offer the good people of WSL.

What do you all do in the band?

Tom: I’m Tom, I’m the lead singer and I play guitar

Cam: I’m Cam, I’m the lead guitarist and backing singer.

Rob: I’m Rob, I play bass. Indeed.

Tom: The drummer is AWOL at the moment he’s in another vehicle, and that’s Sam and he plays the drums. So there’s four of us altogether.

So how are you feeling about playing West Street Live tonight?

Tom: Yeah really excited actually. The label we’re signed to at the moment, These Bloody Thieves records, is run by Rob Hirst and it’s his local stomping ground so we’re going to see a few friendly faces there and the venue looks brilliant actually, so we’ve never played there. Can’t wait, really looking forward to it.

For people who’ve not listened to your music before, what's your sound like and how would you convince them?

Tom: How would I convince them? I dunno…bribe them? Just old fashioned bribe them. I’ve never been the best. Just come see us live and you’ll know we’re fucking awesome. We’ve been compared to The Killers a couple of times, U2, Stereophonics, Queens of the Stone Age.

Cam: Any of the bigger ones really.

Tom: Yeah any of the bigger bands you’ve ever heard of that’s who we’ve been compared to, over the last 20 years or something.

Rob: It’s quite an alternative rock sound.

Tom: We’re all about the song really. We don’t adhere to one genre in particular, we’re all about doing what serves the song.

Have you played in Sheffield much before?

Tom: No I’ve never been Sheffield, this is the first time actually.

Cam: Rob’s never been this far up north.

Tom: He’s looking quite pale in the back of the car at the moment. He’s your typical softie. But yeah we’re really looking forward to it, can’t wait, gonna be great crack.

Which other bands are you excited about
in the next year or so?

Tom: I really liked FabianJack, we played with them at the Finsbury a week ago. I really liked them, they were really quirky but I wasn’t quite sure immediately how or where to place them and I really liked that. They didn’t fit for me into one particular genre. But I felt their songs were really strong, and what defines a strong song I’m not sure, but that really piques my interest.

Cam: Handstand Parade, who we played our launch show with. They’re awesome, quite a different sound to us but they’re really, really cool.

Tom: If you like stuff like The 1975, Handstand Parade are definitely a band you should listen out for. They’ve just done a couple of BBC Introducing shows in Reading, people are really digging them at the moment.

What’s next for you guys as a band?

Tom: Basically we’re releasing the Sooner Or Later EP on the 1st March, a week Friday, and then our EP launch is on the 2nd at the Oakford Social Club in Reading and we’re being supported by Handstand Parde at that one.

So we’ll release the EP, and then we’ve got a couple of gigs booked in for the summer, so we’re playing Camden Rocks Festival in June, and then we’ve got a warm up show in April, then there’s a few other bits we can’t announce yet. So that’s kind of what we’ve got coming up so far. There’s a few really exciting bits just around the corner but we’re not allowed to say too much just yet. They’ll take us for everything we have, which is fuck all anyway.

Photo taken from Third Lung's Facebook page.