Credit: Found On Internet

Okay, has everybody calmed down now? Have we all finished reading those nauseating and embarrassing “new music for 2008!” columns that ever rag, website and TV show has been hoofing at us since mid-December. Good, because Music Towers wants to get back to the business of telling you about new music that is exciting us, here, not the new music that the big fetid beast that is the lazy journalistic zeitgeist has decided to over-hype this time around.

We first featured What Would Jesus Drive back in May 2006. We’d kept half an eye on them for some time before that, having first caught them when they performed as a four-piece as The Barbs. The on and only time we caught The Barbs live was supporting the sadly-ceased Mika Bomb at the soon-to-re-open Highbury Garage, where they were making razor-tongued evil surf-rock, with enough hooks so catchy they could snag Jaws like an Ebola harpoon.

Despite putting out a great little album on Mother Tongue, The Barbs eventually split, but for vocalist/guitarists Tim Box and Amy Box it wasn’t over: the pair went on to form What Would Jesus Drive. So what prompted the end of The Barbs?

“I think it had run its course,” Amy reflects. “We were all really proud of what we achieved as The Barbs but it was time to move on.”

“Amy and I met when she joined The Barbs so when we became a couple it made sense to start something of our own,” Tim adds.

When WWJD started out they played as a three-piece, and very much sounded like a progression from The Barbs – all jerky guitars and sharp-tongued lyrics. Then one day we were idly checking out their MySpace page and they were down to just the two of them.

“ It wasn’t initially our decision.” Tim remarks of the slimming down of the band “Our drummer quit 4 days before a gig, and we stubbornly refused to be put out by it. It’s much more fun live, less fucking about. Press go and start playing.”

“It was just luck that we actually preferred being a 2-piece,” Amy adds