Front man of Josh Flowers and The Wild talks the Great Escape festival, the band’s conception and the music community in London.

Up and coming south east Londoners Josh Flowers and The Wild are still on a high after their performance at Brighton’s Great Escape festival in May and with a UK tour planned for September and a new album in the works, the band is pushing to build on their fan base.

On Saturday, they play the London leg of the first Magners Original Sessions tour at The Grand Junction Arms in Acton and lead man Josh Flowers spoke of his excitement to play live again.

He said: “It’ll be our first performance in what feels like ages so we can’t wait.

“It should be fun and it’ll also give us an opportunity to preview some songs from the new album that haven’t been played live before, so that should be great.”

The album is slated to be released in summer next year, with a promotional single in the spring.

And there will certainly be a decent number of fans to listen when it drops, after significant support was shown to the lads by the crowds of Brighton’s Great Escape festival.

Josh said: “There were definitely some people that found us there and have started following us since.

“It’s definitely one of my favourite festivals that I’ve been to or played at because it’s not about headline acts, it’s about discovering new stuff.”

Josh also expressed his thoughts with south east London’s music community.

He said: “I have a love/hate relationship with the area to be honest. It’s so exhausting being here but it can be extremely rewarding.

“It was hard to get going to begin with because, in comparison to the huge Grime scene in the area, our music’s community was very small.

“Ultimately though, we’ve found the area perfect for finding the right people to work with.”

As the band’s main songwriter, Josh takes pride in the unique sound the band creates.

He said: “The bluesy, rootsy music is what I’m writing at the moment. I conceive an idea on my own and then I take it to the band and see what they think.

“I guess our unique sound comes from the coming together of our different musical passions.

“For example our song Kings and Queens started out as slow blues, but when I brought it back to the guys and we worked on it, it immediately developed into something quicker and skiffle-like.”

The story of the band’s conception is one of a chain reaction.

Josh explained: “I met Squiff when my sound engineer brought him in to play cello. Through Squiff I met Bernie, our drummer, and through Bernie I met Dave our bass player.

“The band name is a combination of my name and the fact that the live shows were getting pretty wild. So we thought just stick ‘and the Wild’ on the end.”

Finally, Josh expressed his thoughts about the band’s future.

He said: “I’m not a big fan of celebrity culture.

“If we make it big then that’s cool, but if we stay chilled and underground then that’s cool too.

“As long as we can live off making music and we’re happy then that’s all that matters really.”

Josh Flowers and The Wild are playing the first Magners Original Session at the Grand Junction Arms in Acton, London along with BAMBI and a DJ set from Scott Marshall.

The Magners Original Sessions tour will be visiting London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.  Find out more about your local Magners Original Session by visiting facebook.com/MagnersCider.