THEY have been lauded as one of the hottest acts of the year and their momentum is building hand over fist.

“No pressure,” Joe Stevenson, bassist of The Wholls, simply says.

But what other answer would you expect from a brash, blatant and unashamed alternative rock band who kickstarted their career by sneaking into the grounds of their would-be manager’s country home for an impromptu gig?

“We had been looking after ourselves but we got to a point where we did not know what to do or where to go,” says Stevenson. “We heard about this dude we wanted to be our manager and he owned a big house in the country.

“We sent our drummer down posing as a landscape gardener, so he figured out where all the plug sockets were. Then one morning at about 6am we turned up in the van all covert, set everything up, turned it up as loud as we could and started playing.

“The doors flew open, the dude went mental but his daughter calmed him down. Two weeks later he came down to our gig at the Barfly in London and signed us up.”

The band – who started out as schoolfriends playing in drummer Daniel De Feo’s garden shed – have since gone to fast garner a reputation for producing hard-hitting but hip indie rock.

Coming off the back of new single X21, the Bedford based four piece are now embarking on a headline UK tour with a stop-off at the Hope and Ruin tomorrow night.

The most popular phrase associated with the band is ‘the sound of 2016’.
While the band have got themselves airtime on Radio 1 and a song drop on

The Only Way Is Essex, one of their most unusual steps was being whisked off to China to play at international beauty contest Miss World in November.

“We got ourselves a suntan for Christmas,” says Stevenson. “It really brought home the power of music, just how far it can go.

“We were chucked on a plane, flew over, given a day to acclimatise and then on the day of the performance we spent the day on this beautiful beach on this little island with completely clear water.

“It was such a big event, you had the Chinese National Guard there, all the film crews and the crowd, and everything had been practised down to a tee.

“It was pretty clinical, I do not really remember being on stage because we were so focused to get it right.

“Luckily none of us fell over and before I knew it we were flying back and I was in the Pennines with my Dad for Christmas.”

But while it may not be quite as big as Miss World, The Wholls will be filling out venues up and down the country before gearing up for festival season and returning to Brighton for the Great Escape.

Their Brighton gig tomorrow is part of the touring This Feeling rock and roll club night.

“As the songs have come together it has just been about us finding our feet,” says Stevenson. “The Wholls: "Sometimes it feels like us against the world but we come out fighting every time trying to prove ourselves."

“A lot of it is just about putting it out there and this tour feels like the culmination of that.

“It is a real privilege to get these little notches and if someone else has made the decision and given us their approval it makes it easier for the next person and the next person, it does feel pretty good.

“We are absolutely psyched for the tour, the worse bits are the days where we are not playing. We are hitting new towns and performing to people who have never seen us before who end up singing the songs back at us.”

Stevenson added: “It is nice to be able to get down to Brighton, we have been waiting for the opportunity to head down and play."

“It is just such an open minded part of the country and there is this real spirit to it no matter how deep you go, the shops, the culture and the crowd.

“A lot of towns can feel very similar but Brighton has a very different vibe which makes you want to come back.”

He is confident when the band returns for the Great Escape festival they will have an even bigger crowd as their juggernaut of a year keeps steaming ahead.

“Right now our goal is to play to as many as people as possible,” Stevenson says. “Not many people get this opportunity to say what they want to say like we are.

“It is early doors, but at the same time this is our time to really make some noise.”

THE WHOLLS - Hope and Ruin, Queen’s Road, Brighton, Saturday, April 2
Doors 9pm, tickets £5, call 01273 325793