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From left: Tom, Daniel, Dan & Josh

The best bands you've never heard of: Close to Nothing

Playing for over two years, Close to Nothing are an 18-year old screamo/alternative band of four members - Josh Knapman as the guitar and vocalist, Dan and Tom Szenasi-Holland as drummer and bassist respectively and most recent member Daniel Saunders as the second guitarist. Their enthusiasm for playing live is evident from the outset when asked what they like about it, Josh responds with "Everything." He then reverses it to "What don't we like about playing live is the question; sweating and how our hair looks afterwards. Luckily, today he's brought some ghd's skinny variety." He gestures to Daniel who has indeed come equipped with guys hair straighteners for post-performance issues later on. "This band is all about the skinny," Daniel reasons and Tom adds "Yeh average weight is like 7 stone."

So apart from being skinny with intricate hair difficulties, Close to Nothing are also a focused cross-genre band that take a professional stance to their tasks. They've put on tonight’s gig at the Victoria Inn and are having to reflect on what kind of music it is that they make. "Its not amazingly mainstream." Tom ventures, as the connotations of mainstream can often kill a band's reputation before even being given a chance. Josh suggests "It's rather alternative and its rather underground and we're not really that 'happy'. There's no songs we have that are like 'lalalalala' - like that," before Tom is quick to point out that "There's no 'lets kill ourselves' tunes" either.

Close to Nothing live

The band faces a dilemma when two of the members leave Derby from September to start at university. They joke about how they're going to make the leavers fail their courses - Daniel's A Levels and Dan's music course; though Dan is quick to point out they're too late for that as he passed with distinction.  The Daniels believe however that they'll make it back for gigs "I'll be here to play." Daniel says, and Dan hopes them to get signed sometime in the near future. Tom expects that the band will keep going if they can make it work and the very idea of the band not working out proves to be too much for Josh as he says "Oh god. I haven't thought that far. My life is this band."

Derby receives many compliments from the band as a location for live music, Daniel commenting "We've got a few good venues and quite a lot of local close-knit bands." Dan also says "And a really wide music scene." "We love it." Josh agrees. They're all skeptical on calling themselves better than any other bands, but Josh concedes "We're different," before revealing about Tom; "He taught me guitar, and he's the bassist." Tom believes it is their influences that make them good. Josh says "You've gotta have a bit of mainstream about you, not really bad-mainstream, its gotta be the mainstream that tries to push the boundaries."

As a band, Close to Nothing are getting to where any band wants to be - two upcoming gigs for the rest of the summer will put them at the Black Horse Inn, Somercotes and back at First Floor in Derby. They openly describe their music as a mix between post-rock, alternative, screamo and even 'scene-core' - which may or may not have been a joke. As far as they go, Close to Nothing are an efficient, talented group who hopefully will continue to surprise, delight and impress audiences for a long time to come.