Last November, an unknown band from Birmingham played their first gig in London. The Barfly in Camden was wall-to-wall with A&R men, and the feeding frenzy began. For the next month, the Twang were in expense-account heaven, ordering £1,000 bottles of wine, caviar and anything else that took their fancy. “We knew we were going to get a deal,” recalls singer Phil Etheridge. “There were four record companies following us around wherever we played. We rinsed everyone’s cards and had fun.” The Twang’s signatures eventually went to B-Unique, which had graciously picked up a very large hotel bill after drummer Matty Clinton passed out naked in front of a honeymoon couple’s door. The label, already home to Kaiser Chiefs, believes that the Twang could be the next great lads’ band. With their debut single, Wide Awake, hitting the Top 20, an NME cover and a sold-out club tour, the band are on course to follow in the footsteps of Madness, Happy Mondays and Arctic Monkeys. Their album, Love Is When I Feel Like This (out on Monday), and summer festival slots could cement the deal.

In full flow, the Twang’s energetic fusion of beer-fuelled rap and roll, devil-take-the-hindmost hollering and jangling guitar is exhilarating, yet in person they can appear uncertain of their place, as if they were fearful of slipping back down the cracks to oblivion. “I always thought I could do something,” admits Etheridge, 27, a self-confessed dreamer. He and bassist Jon Watkin were the original nucleus, though all of the band grew up in Quinton and Bearwood, on the outskirts of Birmingham, and variously worked in the building trade, sold lawnmowers and laboured at the HP sauce factory.

“When Britpop came around, we thought, we can do that as well. Jon started writing songs straight-away before he could play, so I started writing lyrics,” says Etheridge. Initially, the band was a shared dream open to all their mates. They had another singer, but he did not demonstrate enough commitment. “He wasn’t as serious as I was,” says Etheridge. “I lost friends because we had to move on. We are mates again now, but it must be hard for him: we’re doing this and he’s tarmacking.” Martin Saunders split up with his girlfriend, moved back across town and came down to a rehearsal. “He sang Aimless with an Aim just like Morrissey,” jokes Etheridge. “He’s a better singer than I am.” And has been a member ever since.

Drummer Clinton started when he was still at school. The final part of the Twang jigsaw came with guitarist Stu Hartland. He shared a house with Watkin, where he’d play guitar obsessively in his bedroom. It took six months of bonding before he made it to a rehearsal. Two weeks later, he was in the band. “Stu’s just a mad, talented robot,” says Etheridge.

However good the Twang thought they might be, this was not necessarily shared by Birmingham venues. Wherever they played, they were accompanied by a large, pumped-up group of mates, while their own performances were fuelled by copious quantities of alcohol. At one show, frustrated by a solitary barmaid, the crowd simply helped themselves. Watkin was arrested after a brawl ended with him running down the street brandishing a samurai sword.

Then, after a show at the Flapper & Firkin, they sat down with Rob Whittaker and Jackie Wade, the venue’s bookers, who also manage Editors.

“Rob had been watching us for a while. I knew he liked it, but Jackie hated us. We were banned from the Flapper about four times – they thought we was too much trouble. We probably were. You put six Stella in yourself and you’re a tad different,” says Etheridge.

Whittaker and Wade laid down the law and told the band to sort themselves out. For six months they wrote new material and stopped getting drunk at gigs. “We want to reach everyman like the Monkeys, like the [Stone] Roses, like Kasabian,” says Etheridge.

Can they do it? They certainly have the bad-boy, loudmouth credentials. “We’re normal lads,” Etheridge protests. “We’re not thieves, we don’t do smack and we didn’t go to jail. We’re just mischievous. Once our album is out, we live for ever, even if it ends up in the bargain bin in Tesco. We’ve achieved something. Nobody can take that away from us.”

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010