Credit: Doesn't he look good.

The Cribs; I just think they’re a bit jumped up for their own good, you know. I think they’re a bunch of sickos

Like the hysterical fans that initiated Beatle-mania, or the drug-addled groupies that trailed the Stones, Britain’s punk revivalists Towers Of London are followed by more than their fair share of publicity. From the haze of hairspray, retaliative YouTube rucks and spells in prison, the Towers have emerged defiantly with their debut album, Blood, Sweat and Towers.

Intent on being heard for their music and not the fuss the media kicks up, the band are here to play hard and live by their motto “Drink, Fight, Fuck”. Labelled as anti-social, annihilistic hair-rockers, the Asbo-punk five-piece gained a notorious reputation even before the release of debut single, Air Guitar, which peaked at a respectable number 32 in national charts.

With drunken brawls, cancelled tours and a charge for criminal damage hanging over them, will they be able to make the British press focus on the music instead of the events surrounding their day-to-day lives? Speaking to Music Towers en route to the German leg of their European tour, lead guitarist, The Rev, took some time to explain why other bands won’t play with them and why personal hygiene is still essential.

Most public outings see the Brothers Tourette; Donny and Dirk, together with The Rev, bassist Tommy Brunette and drummer Snell embody the spirit, bravado and onstage ferocity of the seventies punk scene. Despite run-ins with other bands and the law, the gang are out for themselves and invite anyone to join them, reducing the age of their shows to cater for all fans. “Our fanbase is anything from 14 to 40. All the old punk dads stand at the back and all their kids are down the front giving it some welly.”

The brothers, known originally as Brannon, and their determination to become a rock band, spent the balmy summer of ’97 outside Noel Gallagher’s house, Supernova Heights, performing impromptu busking sessions whenever possible. Realising they needed to tread their own distinctive path, they looked to their heroes, Motley Crue, Guns ’n’ Roses and inevitably the Sex Pistols, and formed recording alliances in London with top producer and Killing Joke bassist Youth and in Los Angeles with Stacy Jones, frontman of American Hi-Fi and right hand man of legendary producer Bob Rock.