Spearmint interview

The optimism, exuberance and brain-rattling vitality of great Pop music: that's Spearmint. A group who make life-affirming "indie-soul" music: sunny anthemic pop with nods to lounge, club beats, electropop and Northern Soul, that can't help but make you feel good.

The above quote, from one of the finest singles of 1999 (or any other year), aptly sums up how Spearmint's fortunes are changing. Single of the week in the NME, "Sweeping The Nation" is a head-spinning, joyful ode to self-belief, thanking "all those bands who you never got to hear, who never got played on the radio" - Shirley's own struggle before finding Spearmint's sound. Formed five years ago in London, Spearmint look set to finally get their reward for their patience, with the single release of "We're Going Out", an anthemic call to forget your troubles and, well, go out - very possibly on a TV near you, by the time you read this.

Spearmint are in the unusual position of being more well-known in Japan than in England. I first heard Spearmint at clubs in Tokyo - I heard "A Trip Into Space", and assumed it was either a Japanese group, or the Wannadies. I always wondered what 'that' song was, and was mightily relieved when, at an all-dayer at the Scala in London last October, I saw the headlining band open with it ! From then on, I was hooked.

Spearmint's first 'proper' album "A Week Away" came out in November, a collection of gloriously hopeful yet somewhat melancholic songs, dedicated to reflecting the everyday reality of life with the soul and spirit of Pop.
I met Shirley just before Xmas, in London.

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