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Dartz!

Since we introduced them to you not long ago, we felt it only fair that they return the favour. Here's guitarist Henry spilling all...

North-East popsters Dartz! are off on tour with DIY favourites The Research right NOW! So since we introduced them to you not long ago, we felt it only fair that they return the favour. Here's guitarist Henry spilling all...

Where did you get your name from? Can you play darts?
Well, the band originally started when both mine and Phil's old bands split up... Phil used to play guitar and I used to play drums. We wanted to start a daft band with us on the "wrong" instruments, just for a bit of a joke really; we needed a name that reflected that and we plumped for DARTS! (but then quickly changed it to DARTZ! to avoid any confusion with the 70s band Darts). Just over a year on, we're a lot less of a joke than we originally intended to be but still have this name! None of us can play darts... I can't even remember the last time I attempted to.

We hear you have a masked saxophonist, what's that about?
We very occasionally (maybe one in every fifteen gigs or something) have a friend of ours pop along to play a bit of saxophone on one or two songs... he wears a mask to conceal his identity. He rarely plays with us though, so if you're lucky enough to have seen us with him - you've done well!

What's the Middlesbrough scene like at the moment?
This is a tricky question... there's lots of bands around, some of which are making a bit of a name for themselves but there doesn't really feel like much of a 'scene' as such. There still seems to be a lot of apathy around here and bands such as ourselves and The Oxfam Glamour Models who are getting a pretty good National reputation still don't really get taken very seriously in Boro, which is a shame. We quite often feel more at home playing up in Sunderland and Newcastle and feel more a part of the scene up there even though we're from an hour down the road. It's been getting better recently though so hopefully it'll continue to improve and there's ace new bands like Move Girl Move and Japan For Sega popping up which bodes well for the future.

How's your tour with The Research going?
It's been going well, cheers. Some people seemed to think it was a strange tour for us to be on as we're very different musically to them - but I think it's nice to have a mixed bill and the crowds have been very nice to us so far, so it's all good. It's been interesting for us to play in lots of places we've never played before (Brighton, Bristol, Oxford etc) as it's meant playing to lots of people who haven't got a clue who we are! It's been a while since we've been in that situation so it's been nice to get such warm receptions. Plus, we get the see The Research every night which is an absolute pleasure! Lovely people and a fantastic band.

Are there any album plans in the pipeline?
Yeah... we've got an album fully written and if all goes to plan, we'll be recording it in July, fingers crossed. It'll pretty much document the music we've written in our first year as a band - we're quite proud of the songs we've written especially considering me and Phil only started playing these instruments when the band formed - it's lucky Will's a genius really.

Are you planning on doing any festivals this year?
Sadly not - we played The Great Escape down in Brighton last weekend which was a great experience for us and we're playing Middlesbrough Music Live but that's about it. We've been asked to play a couple of others but unfortunately the logistics of it all weren't in our favour. There's always 2007...