Music

The opportunity to play Glastonbury came about after The Beat's Dean Jackson put the band forward for inclusion on the BBC Introducing stage.

The competition was intense as all the national and local BBC stations nominated bands. Dean Jackson tells us why he chose them:

"They're extremely talented singer-songwriters, the music they make is terrific. Live, they're astounding and [finally] they're all lovely people - they'll be great ambassadors for Nottinghamshire."

James Finlay from the band says:

"We consider ourselves to be a small band... so it's quite a shock to be taken seriously and considered professional enough to play such a big festival."

"We're quite nervous, pretty terrified but obviously really excited."

Fists on new single

Fists have been going for a few years now and lead singer James Finlay admits it's "about time [and] a dream come true."

The track is called Cockatoo and was written by fellow vocalist Angi Fletcher. She says: "It's a bit of an imagining, a metaphorical story, involving a bird and a blowtorch."

Fists - Cockatoo sleeve art

James adds: "It's our version of Pirate Jenny from the play the Three Penny Opera... without the revenge element and about birds."

The band recorded the single at Sneinton's Random Recordings with John Sampson and Andrew Wright of Nottingham band, Swimming. Angi says:

"We did four tunes over a couple of days. It was really good fun."

Fists are becoming big news in the region but do they hope the single will propel them nationally, or even internationally? James says:

"We're not especially bothered about that. We just want to be recognised as artists and we want to travel and have a body of work that we can look at and be pleased with."

You can catch bands and artists like Fists on The Beat. The Beat is BBC Radio Nottingham's official Introducing show. You can listen to The Beat every Saturday night from 18.00 until 22.00 (103.8, 95.5fm, 1584am and DAB digital radio). If you miss it you can listen again on the BBC's iPlayer.