Every die-hard fan’s anticipation of an imminent new album is almost always matched by the buzz that the artist gets. That’s certainly the case for Twickenham’s-own indie-rock lead singer Jack Mercer.

With the release of ‘Too Much, Never Enough’, the Carnabys’ second full studio album, less than a month away, Jack pointed out that his fans should not expect what they are used to.

He said: “I think that it’s a bit different to the first album.”

“We’ve been gigging a lot in order to develop our live energy and what we wanted to do with this album was to take as much of that charisma and put it in.”

He added: “It’s raw and authentic as it was recorded live in a studio. There is no produced sound as we did not have a producer on the album so it is as raw as you can get. We literally plugged in, played and recorded it.”

“The album gets straight to the point. I think the songs are great but I particularly like ‘Made the Grade’.

“I think for our core fan base, as younger people, it resonates for them. When we started the band, you were told that you had to go to Uni and get a degree and we just knew that wasn’t for us. So that is what the song is about: defying expectation.”

The album release date, August 19, coincides with the climax of the festival season and Jack thinks that debuting some of their new music at places like The Big Feastival in the Cotswolds will really push the band forward.

 “The thing we always need to remind ourselves, when we are saying, ‘why aren’t we playing at places like Reading or Glastonbury,’ is that the album isn’t out yet,” he explained.  “There is no way we can generate more publicity without it coming out.

“It’s easy for us to get impatient. We want to be selling hundreds of thousands of records and playing on the biggest stages but we are young. We have time on our side.”

Home support, however, has always remained strong. Growing up near St Margaret’s and going to Christ’s school in Richmond, the 22-year-old knows the ins and outs of Twickenham’s live music scene.

He said: “Being from Richmond and Twickenham, we knew all the little venues. But for a while, there weren’t many.”

“We had to resort to playing in pubs to get ourselves noticed. In the last eight years, a third of London’s music venues have closed and been replaced. We need far more venues.”

The band’s decision to donate the pre-sale proceeds to the Music Venue Trust - a charity dedicated to preserving grassroots music venues - shows their intent to create a legacy.

“I hope our album’s campaign (after recently becoming patrons of the charity) makes a difference. We are working with the trust so that all of the money with the pre-orders is going to them to help keep UK live music going.”

Nonetheless, he was optimistic about the future of the industry.

He said: “Hopefully, being a relativity new band and unsigned, we can chart and then the awareness that live music really needs support will shine through. It’s great now that there’s Patchworks and potentially more venues on the way in our area. It feels like Twickenham is starting to get its live scene back.”

The Carnabys’ new album ‘Too much, Never Enough’ has its official release on August 19 and a celebratory live show is planned at the Patchworks in Twickenham on August 20. For further ticket information, go to thecarnabys.com/tour.

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