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The Wombats

The Wombats are a three-piece Anglo-Norwegian band from Liverpool.

They are made up of:
Matthew Murphy, 23 - vocals, guitar and keyboards
Dan Haggis, 24 - drummer and backing vocalist
Tord Overland Knudsen, 25 - bass and additional vocalist
www.myspace.com/thewombatsuk

The Wombats never took themselves too seriously. “For our first gig we wore jesters’ hats with sunglasses,” admits the kerazee Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy talking about The Wombats' first gig in 2003.

Liverpudlians Murph and Dan met at Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) where they both studied music.

The mischievous duo began playing gigs at the legendary Cavern Club, before nabbing fellow student Tord Overland Knudsen - who came all the way from Norway (which is in the EU, like Spain where these footballers come from) to chip in on bass duties.

Officially a band, the trio then had to think of a name.

“We managed to secure ourselves a gig in a place called Hannah’s Bar in Liverpool and we didn’t really have a name and me and Dan went through a period of calling each other Wombo,” says Murph.

Dan: “Basically Wombo the Wombat was a fictional kind of character in our daily talk.”

Murph: “We used to call each other ‘stupid wombats’ as well, and then we needed a name for this first gig so Dan was like ‘just call us The Wombats’.”

It wasn’t soon after they decided on a name that they ditched the dress up to concentrate on charming Liverpool and beyond with their infectious punk pop. By ‘beyond’ they even went to China to play to 20,000 people at Beijing’s Midi festival!

Back home they launched their own club night, ‘Little Miss Pipedream’, at the Liverpool Carling Academy where Murph’s songwriting could evolve.

The band released seven self financed EPs, which included the soon-to-be-known ‘Moving To New York’. Like their other songs it charted Murph’s questionable romantic encounters. He was unlucky in love like this Spanish ballad singer. Speaking about the track’s dramatic inspiration he says it’s “about a girl me and Tord had relations with from Norway. I was out with her the day before then the next day I was in a bar and she was there kissing another girl. So I threw a bit of a wobbler.”

News of their wibbly pop spread far and wide - no sooner were they played by Rob Da Bank on Radio 1 than they were supporting Kaiser Chiefs, Babyshambles and bands who sound like this German Indie type band and not like this French Rap/ Hip Hop act Disiz la Peste.

By the time of the band’s third single, ‘Backfire At The Disco’ (sounds like something these French street dancer would groove to), in April 2007 they became the first unsigned act to sell out Liverpool’s Carling Academy.

They finally signed with 14th Floor Records and debut ‘The Wombats proudly present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation’ peaked at Number 11.

The band’s triumphant appearance at this year’s Glastonbury showed that their popularity is only set to get bigger and bigger. So who’s laughing now?