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Nowadays, a band giving away their album for free doesn't seem like so much of a big deal anymore, since you know, Radiohead did it. But in a hugely pioneering move, Canterbury set the standard for UK independent acts everywhere by releasing their debut album 'Thank You' as a completely free download for any and all who saw fit to listen. Hailing from Surrey, a place filled to the brim with young bands, the fivesome set themselves apart, not only with this admired business plan, but with an album full of songs more creatively original than many bands have even dared to divulge in. Pushing the boundaries for UK pop-punk bands everywhere, this is Canterbury.

OS: You're currently on tour with Twin Atlantic. How has it been so far?
Luke Prebble [vocals, keyboards]: It's so much fun.
Mike Sparks [vocals. Guitar]: Really, really fun. I don't think we've ever met such nice and humble people as Twin Atlantic. We get on really well with them.
Luke: They're the perfect touring buddies really. You just know when you meet a band on the first day that it's gonna be a good tour, and we're gonna get on. But, it's been amazing, apart from our voices being very tired.

OS: That's true; there's been quite a bit of illness on the tour so far.
Luke: Yeah, Mike was not well on the first day. Sam [McTrusty, of Twin Atlantic] has been a little bit throaty.
Mike: I think everyone's been a little. It's just when it's cold.
Luke: Touring this time of year is hard. And, also, whoever Twin Atlantic's agent is decided not to put in any days off.
Mike: No, there was a day off! We just played a show! [laughs]
Luke: So… there you go, haha.
OS: You didn't even play a sensible show! You played at 1am.
Luke: Exactly!
Mike: We played two shows in two countries in one day.
Luke: Followed by a three hour drive that took us to five o'clock in the morning, then a five hour drive the next day… But no! It's great fun.
Mike: To be honest though, this was yesterday, and it ended up being up one of the best shows we've ever played.
Luke: That's true.
Mike: It was all worth it! So, was London actually. London was incredible as well, come to think of it. Our own show at Face Down was amazing. But, yesterday was just unbelievable; the vibe of the show.
Luke: Unbelievable almost in the true sense of the word. For us, anyway. Twin Atlantic had built it up and up and up, but to play in Newcastle in front of however many people there were, and then pretty much overnight, we're witnessing them playing this sold-out 1,200 people venue. It's incredible, just, really incredible.

OS: So, you're still considered as a reasonably new band, so how did you guys get together?
Luke: Relatively new in the sense of... nationally.
OS: That is true; you just released an album, but it's been recorded for two years.
Luke: Yeah. The band as it is, the line-up we are, is pretty much three years old. Four of us went to the same school; Mike was at a different college, but we were both in different bands. Then, his band split up and we borrowed him to do some backing vocals on our demo and then the next day, we said, "Mike, will you please be in our band?" Because it worked really well, his voice on there. Then, a few months later we got Scott Peters, our drummer, and we started taking it really seriously about two years ago.
Mike: We started writing songs, and we really liked them, and so we wanted to do this for real. I mean, we were around for three or four years, playing little shows in little bands and no one ever... You could just exist in that little local scene.
Luke: Yeah, it wasn't really about getting out and touring the world.
Mike: There was just loads and loads of little, new bands there.
OS: And you guys are from Surrey, which seems to have such a dense scene right now.
Mike: Yeah, exactly.
Luke: In regards to the album, we literally just ended up writing an albums-worth of material and then recorded it two or three years ago.
Mike: We never really planned to wait [on releasing it], but we never really thought about it. Then, two years just kind of went by without us really knowing; the whole time, us planning at 'some point' to release our album. Then we got to the point where we could release it, but didn't know if anyone would buy it, so we just thought, "let's just give it away for free." And then, as many people as possible can get into it, because you don't have to pay any money. And it's kind of worked!

OS: With the album being a free download, do you feel more as though you can put it out there and step back from it?
Mike: I don't really know.
OS: Or do you prefer to be aware of how many people are getting it etc?
Mike: Definitely.
Luke: We've gotten an enormous amount of feedback about it since October. Late October was when it first became available.
Mike: Even within the first two days!
Luke: I mean, the amount of people that will see a show - even these Twin Atlantic shows , we were only announced a week or so before the shows, but people still come along and know us, and know the words. Otherwise, we don't have an up-to-date download count, but last we knew, about 13,000 people had downloaded it. So, wherever we seem to go now, there are people who know us, rather than someone going to a show to see the local support band, and seeing of us then. It really is amazing.

OS: The remarkable thing about the album seems to be that, despite it being two years since it was recorded, it still sounds incredibly up-to-date with current music.
Mike: That's the thing. We were really quite worried about it. I remember being quite worried about it, because we wrote it two years ago, in the view of it being released quite shortly after we recorded it, with all the bands that were big around then. But, it's still ...it's kinda worked.
Luke: I guess there is a spot of luck involved in the fact that it does seem to suit now still. We definitely didn't write it thinking, "oh, this music's really now." We wrote it because we thought it was the music that we want to hear and we thought it sounded good. So, I guess for that reason, it doesn't really matter when it comes out, but to have released it after two years, the sense of achievement and pride is quite massive.

OS: It's also not as though it was an album that got a limited amount of attention, in the way some debuts do. It really created a stir within the music scene.
Luke: Yeah, it got called "critically acclaimed" as well, because we got some amazing reviews in national press. We really couldn't have asked for much more, and I think if we'd done it any sooner than we had, it wouldn't have had quite the same effect.
OS: Yeah.
Luke: Not that a lot of people have been dwelling on the fact that it is two years old, but the fact that we have this fanbase now, and a almost a real band's profile, rather just a local band, who people can take a bit more seriously. It's definitely for the best.

OS: So, where do you think you want to go next with it?
Mike: We're kind of in the place where we want to start writing a new album, but we need to let this album have it's time. It has renewed our love for the album, even though we didn't really lose any, but we started moving on from it without meaning to. But yeah, I guess, just tour more and give people more music.
Luke: We're putting out a single come March, which isn't on the album, so that's a new track. We won't really be dwelling too much on what has gone by, because we have new songs and we want to be able to get out as much music to people as possible, so, wherever it'll take us really. We're doing a headline stint in March; not major cities and towns, but place that don't get visited often.

OS: In regards to the live show, the album also seems to translate really well into a live environment.
Luke: It's kind of interesting for us because we wrote the album before we had played many live shows. So, we had this recorded sound, and were like, "wow, it doesn't quite sound right when we play it live." Because obviously, it all sounds really nice and perfect on CD, so we had to pretty much go away and relearn our songs. We don't play them exactly the same as they are on the record, because we've had time to develop them further.
Mike: As well, we didn't want to be one of those bands who play their songs live in exactly the same way that they're recorded.
OS: Exactly, you might as well not go to the show and just play the CD.
Luke: I think for a while, we did struggle to make ourselves sound like the record. But now, rather than trying to sound like it, it has its own live sound: two different things. And I think there should be two different things

OS: So, finally, what are your plans for the rest of the year?
Luke: Well, we're hoping for the single in March along with some touring to back that up.
Mike: Hopefully, just some more new music.
OS: Do you think you'll continue with giving it away for free?
Luke: I don't think there's any way of going back on that! We'll always have the option of a free download I think, or maybe a donation - donations have been hugely successful as well. But then, we always want there to be some sort of hard copy of it. There are music fans who want to download stuff, but there are still so many who want something physical; a CD.
OS: I always love having both the CD and a download.
Luke: Yes! Which is what we're trying to cater for.
Mike: And it'll be nice to have some money! [laughs] I mean, it's really cool that so many people get it, but we still have to have jobs and stuff for the band to go on tour, and to have money to go on tour. I'd love to not have a job.
OS: One day!
Luke: Oh, and hopefully we'll do some festivals and stuff this year.
OS: A lot of people have been saying they'd like to see you at Slam Dunk Festival.
Luke: We'd love to see us at Slam Dunk! We talked to the promoter of Slam Dunk just the other day...
OS: We cornered him at the Leeds Twin Atlantic show.
Luke: And we tried to sweet talk him.
OS: ...We left with a maybe.
Luke: A maybe! I dunno if that's a cryptic yes, or a, "no, you guys had too many technical troubles last year."

Download Canterbury's album 'Thank You' from here for free now.

Photos by Sinead Grainger.