With Only The Poets, Great Britain has a new exciting band between handmade indie sound and big pop designs. The musicians from Reading have earned all their successes to date themselves. This includes almost 350,000 monthly listeners on Spotify as well as around three million plays of their first single "Ceasefire," released in 2017. Their first EP "Speak Out" with five songs was followed by "demos." at the end of 2021, a collection of all 14 songs available from them so far. Around their first headline tour through Europe, the EP "Our Time" was released in late 2022, and the single "Every Song I Ever Wrote" became the next smasher on indie radios and streaming services. Due to the international demand for live concerts, the band has not yet found the time to record a complete album - but with "Over & Over" and "Looking At You" two more EPs with further instant hits followed this year. Live they are still strongest anyway, as could be seen on their European tour with singer/songwriter genius Lewis Capaldi as well as on their own headline shows. Between February 12 and April 9, 2024, Only The Poets will come to Germany again for seven shows in Stuttgart, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig and Cologne.
Anyone who grows up in Reading as a teenager is probably inevitably influenced by the annual Reading Festival mega-event held there, the twin open-air of the Leeds Festival. Such was the case for singer-guitarist Tommy Longhurst: "Ever since my parents let me go to festivals on my own, I've been to Reading every year," he says. "There I saw all the great bands and artists, from The Cure to Blur to Oasis to those in the current indie rock scene in England. That had a big influence on me - and on the desire to become a musician myself." At the same time, the young man discovered the great soul and pop giants like Prince, Michael Jackson, but also contemporary artists like Frank Ocean or the grime artists Stormzy and Skepta. This exciting mixture then gave rise to his first own songs, after Tommy had his first guitar given to him for his 16th birthday.
At first he worked as a solo artist, but soon realized that his compositions basically needed a band. Coincidentally, two local bands Tommy knew broke up right around that time; from one he recruited bassist Andy Burge, followed a few months later by drummer Marcus Yates and guitarist Clem Cherry. Since all four musicians are good singers to boot, the following compositions turned into songs with anthemic, polyphonic choruses and excitingly multifaceted arrangements for such a young band.
2017 saw the release of "Ceasefire", the first Only The Poets song on Spotify, which, like all previous tracks, was recorded and produced by the band themselves. This title already made it clear what is still true for the band today: their roots are clearly in the indie and Britpop of the 90s, but you can feel their youthfulness and freshness, which is more reminiscent of artists like Sam Fender or Twenty One Pilots. With the help of their first manager, Only The Poets have not only been able to organize three widely discussed tours of the UK so far, but have also secured many a significant support slot. For example, they toured in support of Coasts, went on a major UK tour with Louis Tomlinson - and played to sold-out arenas across Europe in support of Lewis Capaldi in February and March of this year.