Although we only formed The Surgens in 2004 the metamorphosis to the current band has been a much longer process. Hanky Dog and Black Dixon started off as “Plastic Hip” recording odd songs using doowop, jazz, blues and rock’n’roll samples mixed with twisted vocals, guitars and bass, and were later joined by Scat and Pinky to give a much rawer sound to the band.

Although there was always some interest in Plastic Hip shown by the likes of John Peel and Joe Cushley, plus singles of the month in Record Collector magazine we felt that we really weren’t achieving the raw roots sound we were after and were too restrained by the use of samples. So we decided to dump the samples, expand the band, change our name and start again!

Enter brothers The Uncle and Craig Murphy, a completely new set and a new musical philosophy and The Surgens were born. We decided to throw in and mix up everyone’s musical loves and influences and what would be produced would be The Surgens’ sound.

Fortunately for the Surgens, we all have a love of roots music in general and within the band we have been heavily influenced by artists as diverse as Leadbelly, Little Walter, Hank Williams, Chet Atkins, Woodie Guthrie, Gene Vincent, Link Wray, Dick Dale, Kenny Burrell to Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, The Pixies, The White Stripes, Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey etc.

If you take into consideration these influences then you’ll probably understand why our sound is being described as “twisted country surf blues” or “the stuff you would expect to turn up in a Tarantino movie”.

The authenticity and rawness of our sound is achieved through the use of various genuine instruments and valve amplifiers from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and also through recording live, in an attempt to achieve the real performance and feel of the songs.

Whatever our sound is described as, people who hear us and see us perform seem to be enjoying it, which is what it’s all about, and we’re now being asked to play at various venues around the country as well as doing a recent live session on Joe Cushley’s nublues show “Balling the Jack” on Resonance FM.

Although there has been a lot of interest in nublues recently we still tend to feel that The Surgens are probably more of a fringe nublues band at the moment as this genre seems to be currently dominated by garage blues bands. You never know this might work in our favour as we’ve never run with the pack: we prefer to do our own thing! Pa Pa Ooh Mow Mow? You Betcha!