UK Headline Tour (Shepherds Bush Empire, November 29)

Debut Album, ‘Tales From The Thames Delta’, goes Top 20

“Exceptional…A vision of life on the margins delivered with white knuckle intensity” – Q Magazine ****

“Pure fire and skill…an immersive experience you don’t want to end” – Guardian

 “One of the great debut albums of the century” – Daily Mirror

“The Milk are capable of producing music unlike any other new band in the country…a refreshing, inventive introductory document” – Clash

 “Moving hearts is what this lot do…the hollering energy [is] hard to resist” Uncut

“Irresistibly infectious” – The Sun

The Milk have announced plans for a new single from their acclaimed UK Top 20 charting debut album Tales From The Thames Delta,  The band will release ‘(All I Wanted Was) Danger’ on January 13 through Sign Of The Times / Sony.  This follows with their biggest UK tour to date, which will include a headline show at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on November 29. The news follows an extensive period of activity across the summer, including a sell-out performance at London’s Scala and a host of UK festivals (Isle of Wight, Ibiza Rocks, V Festival, Lounge on The Farm).

The Milk are lead vocalist Rick Nunn, brothers Mitch and Luke Ayling, and Dan Le Gresley. Together, their sound is heavily soul-influenced, but it’s a modern, muscular take on the classics, which has assimilated the passion of rock ‘n’ roll and the fluidity of hip hop.  Having gigged since school, The Milk were raised and presently still live in Wickford: an anonymous small town in Essex, where whole days and nights can be spent on the Southend sea-front, and the neighbouring, wealthier areas still house the cast of TOWIE.

The band formed simply because, as Mitch puts it, “there was just nothing else to do in our town.” Rather than the sound they have since honed, the boys spent two years at school as a somewhat reckless Punk outfit – but as the prospect of university and day-jobs entered the horizon, so The Milk split up, and went to work. The turning point came when their mutual mate (and now manager) opened a soul night in Southend’s Pink Toothbrush. Wigan Casino this was not, but knowing that The Milk members all had record collections bursting with Stax, Chess and Motown, the boys were recruited to DJ. Here, The Milk hit an artistic breakthrough: they had to get the band back together.

‘(All I Wanted Was) Danger’ was conceived during this period, and proved to be the turning point in The Milk’smusical and professional lives. Days were spent working a series of stop-gap jobs (builder, teacher in a special needs school, pharmaceutical salesman). Nights, however, were dedicated to channelling this frustration into new songs and sounds: all of which were – and often still are – written and recorded in their garden shed. The first fruit of this overhaul was ‘(All I Wanted Was) Danger’, which became as much a motto to live by as a killer tune (with two choruses). A thrilling burst of soulful pop, ‘Danger’ feels influenced by a love of The Style Council, the restless energy of ‘Born To Run’, and the call-and-response choruses of The Vandellas or The Ronettes. It is an immediate and immersive mix: classic, contemporary and expertly-crafted. While they’ve found the danger they were after, you sense The Milk are only just getting started.

UK Live Dates: