The Instants

The Instants are a 4-piece retro-pop group from Bermondsey, South East London. They're based near where the actor Michael Caine was born. They've been playing around London since 2006, and have had a number of line-up changes but the current, stable one consists of Steve Daines (vocals) Dave 'O' Leak (guitars) Wolfgang Wolfgang (Bass)and The Great Barnetto (drums) - at the moment 'Morgana D'Abay' is listed, though they've had an array of female backing vocalists over the years as featured on their band pics page..

They've been playing around London since 2006, and have had a number of line-up changes but the current, stable one consists of Steve Daines (vocals) Dave 'O' Leak (guitars) Wolfgang Wolfgang (Bass)and The Great Barnetto (drums) - at the moment 'Morgana D'Abay' is listed, though they've had an array of female backing vocalists over the years as featured on their band pics page..

They list as their influences The Kinks, Love, the B52's, Jefferson Airplane, XTC and the Smiths. Uniquely they seem to have classical music influences, deriving riffs from composers liked by 'Les Miserable', who writes most of their material, though this is not readily discernible from their recordings. Les says he got the idea for 'Sandra no disrespect' from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and subsequently went and laid flowers on BB's grave in Aldeburgh by way of thanks. He claims the words were relayed to him by Morrissey in a dream. It's also claimed that 'Dance Comrade' was inspired by seeing a performance of John Adam's opera 'Nixon in China' in which Chairman Mao dances a foxtrot).

They have a reputation as a charismatic and upbeat live band, though many of their recordings are more considered and often feature sound effects - notably 'London Bridges/Berlin Walls (Berlin Mix') which has several German archival sound files from the cold war, and 'Dance, Comrade' which features recordings of Chairman Mao addressing the Chinese Communist Party Congress Other songs feature aliens, robotic sex units on Mars and 'gobby bints from South London Estates'.

New to Last FM is a collection of live recordings. These were originally recorded at a gig in London but the master disc was corrupted and they lost everything, so had to go back a couple of days later and re-record the same concert again, in the middle of the afternoon with just the engineer watching. The album is currently available for free download in two parts.