The New Twentys is an England based band made up of two brothers, Harry and Jimmy Morris, and friend Chris Bourne. Their rock’n sound is further accentuated in their recent single, ‘Heart’s In The Right Place.’ The band hopes that listeners of the song will take away a feeling of encouragement to pursue their own passions and interests. The New Twentys are a completely independent band — writing, recording, and producing everything themselves. In their interview with Jejune they said the best part about the production process is the experimentation. For instance, in their newest single ‘Rush’ which was just released on March 18th, you might be able to hear a mouth trumpet, an elephant blowing it’s trunk, or a screaming baby. Despite all the fun they have recording, the band also gives back through their work with The Amber Foundation, which is an independent charity that helps homeless and unemployed young people turn their lives around. Read on in our interview with The New Twentys to learn more about their newest single, upcoming tour, and charity work.

Where are you based?
Harry and Jimmy are from Staines, and Chris is from Essex. But we did a lot of our writing and recordings in Cornwall initially, so that, feels like a significant place for the band.

For our readers, The New Twenty’s is made up of two brothers, Harry and Jimmy Morris, and friend Chris Bourne. How did the idea for the band originate?
Reluctantly… we had all been in bands before several times over and we knew what we would be getting ourselves in for. Initially, Chris reached out to us to see if we wanted to write together for the band we were in, but that band ended and we kept writing together, not knowing what it was for exactly. After a couple months, or so, we all realised that we were emotionally invested and couldn’t imagine not playing the songs together live.

You guys have a really cool sound! What are some of your musical inspirations?
Cheers! We are open to inspiration from anywhere to be honest but we love a lot of the greats. Chris is the youngest of four; so, his older siblings definitely showed him lots of cool music. One of his brothers is in a band too. We all grew up on bands like Greenday, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers. When I was 17 I worked at a warehouse with a guy from Liverpool and we used to listen to all The Beatles songs whilst we were packing boxes, and he showed me loads more music too. Our Dad is also musical and introduced us to The Velvet Underground, Bowie, The Cars and The Eagles. As we got older we loved Talking Heads, The Police, The Clash, Oasis. To be honest, there are so many bands and artists we like that it is hard to list our influences, but music, in general, has just always been at the forefront of all of our lives.

Your new single called ‘Heart’s in the Right Place’ was recently released. Can you tell us a bit about this song?
We did two versions of this song actually. It was started in Cornwall and initially it was a little bit softer production wise. We carried on working on it at our home studio where we got our drummer to record live drums (instead of the programmed drums the first demo version had), and we made the guitar tones a bit crunchier just to give it some more energy. We also sent the lead vocals through a small gritty guitar amp which gave it quite a cool effect. I had the lyric “They say my hearts in the right place, but where the hell’s the rest of me, they say my hearts in the right place, as though the rest of me ain’t” come to me whilst I was driving to do some bullsh*t market research thing. It was a bit of a low moment where I needed to keep in mind that these rubbish odd jobs serve the purpose of being able to keep the music dream alive. It’s a feeling we all relate to for sure!

What do you hope fans take away from this single?
I guess, as cheesy as it sounds, a feeling of encouragement to pursue their passions and interests so they don’t live a life full of regrets. The song is basically saying if your heart is in the right place, and you are getting into flow states and feeling good about something, then that is what you are meant to be doing. It’s just a reminder not to worry about what anyone might say who doubts you, keep doing you, and don’t lose sight of the path you want to be on.

Your music video for ‘I Can’t Afford Her’ is adorable. Can you tell us a bit about what inspired this song and the video? What made you decide to have the band play all the roles? Does she say yes?
Ahh thanks a lot glad you like it! It’s a track about a monumental misunderstanding between a couple that blows up into a gigantic issue in a relationship, and is made a thousand times worse by a lousy apology. We explained to the director, Duncan, that it’s about a group of friends and one of the boys, who has a girlfriend, ends up innocently talking to a prostitute on a street corner after, a night out, and he doesn't even realise that she is a prostitute. He was just asking directions, but the rest of the boys think it is funny and film it. It then gets back to the girlfriend who immediately kicks off. Instead of just saying sorry he says “what does it matter anyway, you know I can’t afford her.” So, the video is based on the narrative of the track, but then Duncan, then came up with the idea for the twist. We decided to be the characters as we all love it in Foo Fighter videos when the band would also be the ones acting, so we took the influence from them, and we thought we would give it a go! I guess we will never know if she said yes…

You guys are a completely independent band- writing, recording, and producing everything yourselves. Have you received any pushback from the industry? How do you overcome rejection?
We have short memories. But also we know that music is a subjective thing and there’s a lot of behind the scenes, politics and all that stuff, so our aim is to try and be happy and fulfilled with the music we are making first and foremost. Criticism only really stings when you also kinda know that they are right. If people don’t like the music we make, they are welcome to go away and make their own... we’d probably have one or two things to say about it too…

What is your favorite part of the production process while making music?
The best bit is getting creative with all the crazy ideas we have and seeing what works. We’ve recorded us sliding a wooden drawer, and managed to put it in a track. On our latest single Rush (which comes out 18.03.22) we put the kitchen sink in there (not literally, almost) but we did put an elephant blowing it’s trunk, a screaming baby, Jimmy doing the mouth trumpet and we recorded our dad saying “It’s all about the rush.” Experimenting is always fun, then the real icing on the cake is having a finished product that you can listen to now or when we’re 70, and we will remember all these funny little things we managed to put into the tracks.

Do you have any future projects coming up in 2022 that you can share?
We are probably going to go slightly darker, and we want to do more live recordings.

You guys also work with the charity called the Amber Foundation. What is the mission of the foundation? What made you get involved with them?
A good friend of ours works for them actually and he organised us to come in and do a musical workshop with them. We wrote songs with them from scratch, and enjoyed it loads. We saw some of them really come out of themselves and perform live in front of each other, which was a huge deal for some of them. It was cool to see creativity create fresh bonds between some of them there who previously didn’t get on or have anything in common.

Can you tell us a bit about the musical workshops, jam sessions and songwriting advice you have done through the Amber Foundation?
There was two of us doing workshops with them in separate rooms. Harry was with a bigger group doing an epic jam session and everyone had percussive instruments and guitars. Some people there could already play a bit, they all sung together, and it was good fun. Jimmy went off in another room with three people who were more serious about wanting to write an original song. We wrote a banger about their personal experiences and had this extended metaphor going on between Amber foundation and the amber on a traffic light. The character in the song was on his way to hurt someone on behalf of the gang he was in, but he missed the green light, luckily used that extra moment to really think about what he was about to do, and ultimately decide to do the right thing and seek help from Amber to leave the gang safely.

Do you have any plans to work with them in 2022?
Yeah if they want us back we would definitely work it in, because we got a really cool song out of it last time! Annoyingly none of the same faces will be there now because of their turn over. I’m sure the people there now are great, but ideally, I’d like to see some of the old lot again. Ahaha!

How are you staying positive during the current wave of the pandemic?
Doom scrolling… I think things are finally looking up, or they were until this war broke out. I mean there’s not much to do other than throw yourself into your passions, and try and stay informed.

What does your new normal look like? It looks like you have a tour in April. Are you excited? Is this your first tour post covid?
Yeah we are beyond pumped! It’s actually our first tour as a band together full stop. We formed just before covid hit, and then literally as we were about to go and play our first shows, the whole world came to a standstill. We can’t wait to play to rooms full of people in different spots all round the UK, it’s gonna be mental!

What is your band’s motto?
Build a pyramid. We are obsessed with talking about the secrets of the past and stuff.

If you love The New Twentys as much as we do, please follow them at the links below:
Instagram - @newtwentys
Spotify - The New Twentys
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/thenewtwentys

Learning the Art of Sound Experimentation with The New Twentys