Noah And The Whale, Queen's Hall, Clerk Street

Published on Friday 6 March 2009 13:39

WITH their beautiful harmonies and elements of folk and bluegrass, Noah And The Whale arrived last summer like a breath of fresh air next to the scores of identikit indie bands.

The Twickenham four-piece's debut single, Five Years Time, was a massive hit for them, and saw them labelled as the 'next big thing'.

It's a tag they've since lived up to after debut album Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down debuted in the UK charts at No5 late last year.

"I think none of us were expecting this," admits singer Charlie Fink, who previously produced the Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut album of former beau Laura Marling.

All in their early 20s, the band consist of frontman Fink, his brother Doug on drums, Tom Fiddle on (what else?) fiddle, and Urby Whale, a former child actor, on bass.

Their sometimes fifth member is Mercury Prize nominee Marling, who sings on the band's album, and was officially part of the group until solo commitments became too great.

"It was always very much that she was in Noah And The Whale but also had her own stuff as well," says Fink, whose band play the Queen's Hall on Wednesday. "She's doing very well, and rightly so, because she's very talented. I feel a big part of what she's done and she's been a part of what we've done," he adds.

So is girl-of-the-moment Marling likely to feature on the next Noah And The Whale record? "She isn't," says Fink. "We wanted to do something different with the next record and the story of the album wouldn't make sense to have a female voice in it with the narration.

"It's just the four of us," he continues. "We've got horns and also some other weird instrumentation going on there too." Though known for their unusual clobber and quirky stage antics, Fink says it's ridiculous that some people assume his lot aren't as passionate and committed as other bands.

"It's a performance, definitely," he says, "because the person you are on stage, you're not that person. And the lyrics you sing, you wouldn't talk like that.

"But it's intensely personal. When I'm on stage I see it as . . . I wish I was who I am when I write lyrics, I wish that was what my conversation was like. But that's why you write songs."

Having had a hugely successful hit single and album, Noah and the Whale have become darlings of the indie scene – but Fink says he could take or leave all the adulation.

"It's the easiest thing to say, and the hardest thing to prove," he says, "but when I started writing songs, I had no ambitions beyond creating something.

"It seems bizarre that we've been given access to this bigger audience. It's completely unintended. I'm not rejecting it, but I kind of don't mind if I lose it."

Noah And The Whale, Queen's Hall, Clerk Street, Wednesday, 7.30pm, 12.50, 0131-668 2019