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Photo: Chris Walters

15 years ago, Tewkesbury ska punk legends [spunge] hit the Gloucestershire music scene.

They went onto release four albums, which received national underground acclaim, and toured alongside high profile bands, such as, Green Day.

I caught up with [spunge] to talk about the music industry and their eagerly anticipated fifth album, when they returned to the Cheltenham Town Hall on Saturday 25 April 2009 for a charity show in aid of Help For Heroes.

Your show was in aid of Help For Heroes, how did you get involved with the charity?

Des: We get asked to do quite a few charity shows per year, and, you know, we'd love to do them all, but we can't, so we are very selective. It's a very good cause and it's local to us so it means a lot to us, so we'd like to do anything we can to help.

Despite touring relentlessly, being in the top 40, and being tipped by former BBC Radio 1's Alex Donnelly, you seem to have been overlooked by the mainstream, why do you think that is?

Des: Being in a band is a privilege, it's hard work, but there is no justice in the industry, same as any industry. It's a question of who knows who, and flavour of the month. It's a social club, there is no question of ability.

Alex: We've actually met some of the best bands we have ever heard on the road that have never been heard anywhere else and the only reason is because they have never had any backing from anyone, that's all it is. They would be infinitely better that a lot of bands, but without the backing they are never going to get heard.

Jem: It's a business. If they are willing to sign their ethics, morals, standards and lives away, to what they think will sell lots and lots of records and be commercially viable, then that's what they will do. It's a safe bet, they get their 15 minutes of fame. We were never owned by a corporation and that's why we never made it.

Alex: Our first and foremost when we started as a band was that there was enough depressing stuff in the world and we didn't want to add to it, so we just threw a bit of fun in there. We had a little bit of lime light and then we got to the point where we were asked to do certain things that we didn't want to do, and we said, "no", and they said, "ok then, that's it."

What sort of things?

Jarvis: We were asked by a rock magazine that shall renamed nameless, "we are going to do an interview with you, but here's the slant, you will go into Glasgow in the middle of December and you will busk and we will do the interview like that."

Alex: The week before Bon Jovi had done the same thing, which would work, because you would walk past Bon Jovi and go, "It's Bon Jovi in the middle of Glasgow!" right, but we've never been quite that famous.

Jem: We were offered a tour with Bon Jovi, and Avril Lavigne.

Alex: The thing is six or seven years before that we'd built up this fan base, and all we would have to do is step out for 20 minutes for one show supporting Avril Lavigne and none of our fans would like us. We would have a whole Smash Hits generation loving us for three months, you know, but then it would just be gone. It is actually 15 years ago we played our first gig this year, we can do this now because we didn't do that sort of thing.

Do you prefer being in a band with a DIY ethos?

Alex: Seriously, if you had asked the same question back in the day, we might well have said, "yeah we want the riches", but having seen it, I can honestly say I would rather be where I am now, and have fun with it, rather than being dictated to, by someone, to do what they want.

Has the band or your record label, Dent'All, been affected by the "credit crunch"?

Des: Yes, we have a distribution deal, and even they are going down, people just aren't buying hard copy CD's.

Jarvis: People have less disposable income so people aren't buying stuff they normally would, instead [turning to] piracy.

Des: It also affects new bands starting out, record companies are no longer signing contracts they don't need to.

How do you view the Gloucestershire music scene currently, do you feel there is enough support for new bands?

Jem: Chip at the 2 Pigs in Cheltenham gives local bands a chance, but there are no venues slightly bigger than that to get touring bands in.

Des: It needs more support, facilities, real funding. There are some great bands here. When we do on a national tour, we try and take a new band every time out with us, and show them what is available to them.

Alex: And to show them what really happens.

Did you get any support like that when you where starting out?

Des: No, not at all, that's why we feel in a position to do that now.

Alex: What we did, literally, we'd do gig after gig after gig, to four people, then it would be eight people, then ten people. Then eventually, what we would do, we would go somewhere in the middle of those places we had gone, and get all ten people from all ten places, and it turned into 100 people a night. That's the only way to do it. It shouldn't be foremost in their mind to make it, because that is not the point. Every band should only do it because they love doing it and that's all we did. You know those candles when you blow them out and they keep sparking up? That's us! Seriously never do it to make it, if that happens then great, but never do it for that reason, that's our only advice.

Are you planning on releasing any new material to follow on from your self-titled album in 2007?

Des: Oh yes, we have started writing! We are talking about stuff we never even thought we would talk about.

Alex: We've got no pressure whatsoever, so it’s quite refreshing. We are doing what we want, when we want.

Jarvis: Starting to get the bug back again.

Des: I thought we had run out of run out of steam, but no, there is a new lease of life here, and we are looking to write new material, and perhaps go back out to Europe.

[spunge] will be holding their fifth Extraction Festival on Saturday 5 December 2009 in their hometown, Tewkesbury.

This article is an external contribution and expresses a personal opinion, not the views of the BBC.