Reading band Attention Thieves release Look A Little Closer in major music stores
Reading punk rockers Attention Thieves have the pleasure of seeing their new EP being sold in major record stores - despite being an unsigned band.
Look A Little Closer was produced by John Mitchell, who has worked with You Me At Six and Enter Shikari, and is distributed by Warner Brothers.
The four school friends have also appeared on network music radio stations including XFM to promote the four track release.
All of which begs the question: who needs to be signed to a major label when an unsigned band can achieve all of this?
Frontman Alex Green said it was a lot of "hard work" to reach this level of success.
"We've worked hard writing songs that we really, truly believe in," he said, "and taken the time to get them tight and work on our performance.
"But on top of that we put everything into the band.
"We all put the lion's share of our earnings to basically fund what a label would normally do, and we also manage ourselves so that means all the admin work."
The deal with Warner is through a mysterious and anonymous contact who is a fan of the band and who was able to pass on their demo.
Green said it was "a great feeling" to see their EP, which was released on 26 March, among the racks of CDs from major artists.
But the band feel they have paid their dues with their hard grafting, in this band as well as previous ones - Green used to front Reading tech-metallers The Arusha Accord.
Attention Thieves have also toured the country many times to garner more fans.
"Being able to play a load of shows back to back is always great," said Green, "and you spend every day looking forward to playing - but it can get real boring up until the show."
And what advice has he got for other unsigned bands who want to achieve the same level of success?
"We've learned that the people who will care about the band the most are the people in the band," he said.
"You need to be prepared to work for it and not expect anyone else to be doing the things you could be doing.
"You need to make it happen."
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