The Days
No Ties

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TRACKLISTING: 7" Pic Disc A) No Ties, B) The Days (Acoustic),
CD 1 No Ties,
CD 1 No Ties, 2 Summer Rain, 3 Band Interview 4 Video (plus free poster),

OVERVIEW: Devon based band The Days follow their No1 video clip on You Tube (a cover of Usher's 'Love In This Club' which had over 100,000 hits in a week!) with the release of their debut single "No Ties" on 16th February through Atlantic Records. A shouty power-pop rollicking headbanger, "No Ties" belies its roots as something frontman Luke wrote at home on piano. It sounds like what it's about: "I wanted to get that sense of escapism you have on a Friday - forget your day job, here's the weekend". Brothers Luke (vocals/piano) and Dan Simpkins (bass) and Harry Meads (drums) decamped from their home town of Ivybridge near Plymouth after leaving school to head for the bright lights of London. There they combined university courses (Harry took a film course, and the Simpkins brothers studied music) with songwriting, demoing and gigging. They were joined later by old schoolmate Tim Ayers (guitar). They were spotted by Fierce Panda, the heatseeking label that discovered Coldplay and Keane. A showcase at Camden pub venue Dublin Castle attracted a pack of A&R types, resulting two weeks later in a deal with Atlantic Records. College courses were halted and dingy London flats abandoned as the band returned to Devon to start work on their debut album in a barn on remotest Dartmoor with no phone reception, no disturbances, no pressure. They wrote and rehearsed on and off, occasionally emerging from the barn to test their live mettle on support slots with The Fray, labelmate Paolo Nutini and later Elliot Minor. Eventually, having amassed a brace of songs, they headed for the studio. First off they squirreled themselves away in the Irish countryside, in Grouse Lodge (home to recent albums by REM and Bloc Party), to work with producer John Cornfield (Razorlight, Muse) and more recently uber-producer Youth. Some young bands would be daunted by the prospect of working with the man behind records by everyone from The Verve to Primal Scream via INXS - as The Days cheerfully admit, "Youth is mental, in a good way. He knows how to get the best out of people". But The Days weren't daunted: they don't know how to write songs that are not hits. The Days filmed their first video, for future hit "No Ties", in a London studio last month. Directed by Diamond Dogs (The Enemy, The Hoosiers) the clip sees the band inhabit a world of magical festival madness with hippy flower girls, a giant bunny and a trip to the North Pole!