Getting to know Tors – 12 questions answered by Jack, Matt and Theo

Welcome back to Munich, lads! I’ve seen you support James Blunt and Welshly Arms. Now, this is your first headliner tour. How does it feel? 

Theo: Do you know what? Overwhelming. We played back here last year. It was a support tour with Lime Cordiale. I said to Matt backstage today: ‘It’s so weird. It still doesn’t feel like this is our show now. Or that these people are here for us.’ It’s so surreal to have sold-out shows through sort of every country we’re doing. I don’t think it’s registered with us quite yet. 

Your latest single is called Never Give Up. What inspired you to write it?

Matt: It’s kind of inspired by our Dad. It’s our parents who have been this backbone of encouraging us to chase the dream of being musicians. I think Never Give Up captures the feeling that we’ve had as a band for the last years: Chasing this dream of releasing music, touring and just basically never giving up on it. It’s a song for everyone. It’s a song to encourage people: If there’s something you want to do, just never give up. Just keep on that path because the more you do it, the more you stick at it, usually the more good stuff happens. 

I like the lyrics and the message behind it. So, what comes next for Tors? Is there anything you can reveal?

Theo: There’s new music in October.

Jack: That’s an exclusive. 

Theo: And we’re going to America. 

Matt: It’s lots of recording, getting songs finished. And there’s something around Christmas. 

Jack: It’s a nice end to the year, because this will be our last sort of touring – and then we’re just finishing some stuff and releasing the music. 

Exciting! You’ve come so far. Let’s take a look back. How did it all begin?

Theo: Matt and I are brothers – so we’ve known each other a fair while, since I was born at least (laughing). We’d grown up loving music. It was a big thing in our family. Our granddad was a famous guitarist called Bert Weedon. Every mealtime with our parents we’d play different records – weather it was Paul Simon, the Gipsy Kings or the Beatles. We played music separately in different kind of bands or projects, or recreationally. Then eventually we were living in London together and a friend who worked at a clothing company was looking for music for an ad campaign. So we wrote a song together for the first time in our lives, and it just went really well. We got the ad campaign and haven’t stopped writing music together since then. Then we met Jack in a pub in Guildford. That’s maybe ten years ago now, right?

Jack: Exactly. 

Theo: Matt and I put out a little ad online looking for a drummer. We had two responses. One was from a man in his 60s with a ponytail. The other one was from Jack, who was just about to start university.

Matt: He also had a ponytail (laughing). 

Theo: We hadn’t even heard him drum yet, but we got on so well. It seemed like it was meant to be. 

What did you want to study, Jack?

Jack: Music. I came from a very musical family. So very similar to the boys. 

What has been your dream back then?

Jack: This has been the dream. We feel like we’re living it right now. 

Theo: Yeah, I think we are. To be a touring band, releasing music with a record label and earning a living doing it is absolutely mind-blowing. It’s what we strived for together for so many years. We struggled through working jobs, trying to make any kind of money we could. Now music our full-time job. It’s crazy.

Did you believe that it would happen like that when you started?

Theo: I believed it would happen a bit quicker than it did. I think we all have.

Jack: I always believed we’d succeed. Because every time when we were together, I was like: ‘Ah, this is great. I will follow this to the end.’ 

Was it hard for you during the corona pandemic? I’ve spoken to some musicians, who’d say: ‘Basically my career was over.’

Theo: Weirdly, it was almost the opposite for us during the pandemic. In the UK, they eventually gave money to self-employed people who’ve been working before to live off because you couldn’t work. It meant that we could really focus our time and energy on songwriting. So we built a studio in a shed in our dad’s garden. We met and wrote songs. We also wrote over Zoom with different artists. We were doing 1–3 sessions a day. Likewise, we met Benedict Cork through a Zoom session – he supports us on this tour. We kept going and kept going for a whole year. And because we built up this catalogue of songs and music and made these connections, it built us up as songwriters, but it also led us to signing a publishing deal. So for the first time ever, we could just go for music full-time. For us, the pandemic was a strangely positive time, and it actually catapulted us into where we are now. 

If you have written so many songs back then, how many are there now?

Jack: There’s a folder, we gave to our publisher, who signed us. There were about 600 songs on it.

Wow. 

Theo: And it’s grown since then. 

Jack:  Yeah, it’s just getting bigger. 

Matt: It doesn’t mean they’re good. Some of them are terrible. 

I don’t believe that (all are laughing).
So, who is your musical inspiration?

Matt: We love the Eagles. Coldplay. 

Jack: The Vengaboys. 

Theo: Lyrically right now: Noah Kahan is amazing. 

Who is responsible for your lyrics? All three of you?

Matt: It’s mainly Theo. Jack and me sometimes come in with concepts or feelings. Often when I just sing melodies or say words, Theo takes that away and turns it into something amazing. 

And who is the boss of the band?

Theo: Matt. 

Clear answer. 

Jack: It’s not all pros though, a lot of cons come with that. He has to deal with a lot of s*** that we don’t. 

Interview: Michelle Brey
Foto: Sebastian Miller