I think it takes a little bit of time to find our identity – the London newcomers TEMPESST discuss touring, their recent single, police trouble and plans for the future.

I’m meeting up with a sweaty lead singer, Toma Banjanin, at the backstage of the glittering Moth Club. Still skyhigh after their set at the East London venue, Toma receives countless congrats on the clearly very successful gig.

The show went great. You know, great night, good fun, had a lot of fun with the boys.

Tempesst just got back from Paris where they supported Mystery Jets on a few of their Europe dates, and the experience definitely gave the boys a taste for the touring life.

We were just with them (Mystery Jets) on the weekend. Really lovely guys. Absolutely loved going to Paris because the crowds are just really great. We also did a show in Belgium, which was fantastic as well. Beautiful venue called La Rotonde. It’s nice to get out to a few different places.

Though it’s been only a year since Tempesst released their first single, Too Slow, they’ve already gotten quite a few gigs under their belt, including both Liverpool’s Sound City and The Great Escape. However, there isn’t a huge difference between their own shows and their warm-up according to Toma.

We’ve only released three tracks so even if we play our own shows it doesn’t really differ much to play a support show, since no one really knows our songs, except for those three singles.

However, that doesn’t mean it is less exciting putting on your own gig.

Obviously when you get to play your own show in London you get to come home. You have all good people coming down, and those people are there to see you. It’s fucking great you know. It’s a real pleasure.

And he is right, many came down to see Tempesst this night, and judging by the amount of people reaching out to Toma and the others as we speak, they did a very good job.

Getting into the topic of touring, Toma is seemingly still very excited, in spite of the hassle being crammed into a van, the absence of a car radio and multiple road games as attempts of tour entertainment.

The best thing is just being able to play so much. We love going out and playing shows. You read these stories about different bands complaining about being on tour or not liking it, but I fucking love it.

Lucky then that Tempesst still have a few booked dates on their calendar.

We’ve got a few bits and pieces in the next couple of weeks. We just love getting out and playing as many shows as possible, and I think that maybe it’s still so new for us that I still enjoy it.

It has been just over a year since Tempesst released their first single, so it is great that they are still “just enjoying every aspect of it.”

“And maybe it changes.” (We hope not)

The London bunch have also released their third single, Broke Down Blues, recently. An incredibly well produced track that marvellously reflects the harshness that can be living in London.

“Broke Down Blues” is a track that I wrote like a year and a half ago. It was actually of a whole different battery of songs that were sort of written with a different project in mind. But it is one that I felt really could cross over to what we’re doing with Tempesst.

The song is just about being in London, living, trying to survive. But also not really caring too much about all of that.

Judging by the amount of people that tries to get hold of Toma during this interview, it is safe to say that Tempesst seemingly are doing pretty alright at the moment.

Broke Down Blues is accompanied by a video filmed and directed by the drummer himself, Andy Banjanin (Toma’s twin brother). Very DIY. Featuring both a storyline of reckless abandon, and Tempesst dressed in clockwork orange inspired outfits whilst playing in the middle of nowhere, it can surely be said that it is a video worth watching.

It’s trying to capture the essence of what the song is about and just trying to focus on the reckless sort of nature of being broke.

The best thing about being broke or hitting rock bottom in a way is that you don’t have anywhere else to go, so you can just be free and enjoy it. And I think it was that feeling of – if you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose, and you can just have fun and party and enjoy it – he laughs.

People are searching for so much stuff now and they can’t be content. I feel like sometimes finding contentment is just losing everything and being content with that.

Though the finished video is incredibly smoothly done, the process of making it did not go that way at all. There was definitely some drama whilst filming, and the guys even had the police called on them.

Toma explains the story:

If you’re gonna film a video you gotta have proper permits and shit like that. So we didn’t have any of that because we were just doing it on the go, and I think somebody saw Sam (Toma’s friend and lead roll in the video) in a petrol station with a pretend gun that looked pretty real, and then thought that there was a real gun in the petrol station. So they called the police.

Quite dramatic, luckily it all ended well.

The funny thing is that they saw this guy with a gun, but they didn’t see my brother with this massive camera on his shoulder so that was pretty hilarious. When they came down they saw that we were shooting a video and then they were really cool about it. I think we were lucky to not get into bigger trouble.

They certainly were, and it ended up being a great story.

Singer Toma and Drummer Andy aren’t only in the same band, they are also twin brothers. Though most of us could probably never imagine working with our siblings, it seems that in music it is not that unusual. Still, how is it really to be fronting a band alongside your own twin brother?

I’m lucky. Some people have really tumultuous relationships with their brothers and sisters, so yeah, we’re pretty lucky. We just get on. I don’t know if it’s like a twin thing, or… When you are twins you’re so weaved into each other’s lives so you really don’t have a choice but to get along.

Tempesst are only just starting to make a name for themselves and they are a band that we’re definitely gonna keep as one to watch. The band only has three singles out at the moment, but talking about their future plans, we can hopefully expect more new material from the group before the end of the year.

We’ve recorded a bunch of new tracks, so we’re thinking we might be releasing an EP by the end of the year. Then work our way towards an album probably next year sometime I hope.

Though it is hard to tell exactly as albums are tricky things.

We’re taking it as it comes and waiting to have songs that we are really proud of to put together as a body of work. Up until now, I think it takes a little bit of time to find our identity and to write together.

Tempesst seem to have exciting plans ahead, and they have already reached a few milestones to tick off from their checklist. Toma takes a moment to reflect on whats to come and dreams for the future, before turning back to the crowded party that is now filling the backstage.

I think as an artist there’s so many different checkpoints and it’s almost like you’re never really satisfied. Even though we’ve only had a tiny bit of success so far, when you have that, when you experience that one thing, it’s never quite what you thought it was gonna be. You always look at the next thing.

So I don’t know if it’s just human nature to never be satisfied. It’s so many different things you’d love to do as an artist. I think the biggest thing would be just to have a body of work that we’re really proud of. For me, that is the biggest thing, to get a couple of good albums out that we’re really proud of and that we put our all into. So the big milestone now is to get an album out.