Newcastle's Holy Moly & The Crackers are one of the country's hardest working bands. Lead singers Conrad Bird and Ruth Patterson met when they were teenagers in 2008. Not long after the couple met costume designer and accordion player Rosie Bristow they started to perform Irish, American and Balkan folk songs together at open mics and dive bars. By 2015 the trio had moved to Newcastle and met jazz/funk bass player, Jamie Shields, and Tommy Evans - who would give Keith Moon a run for his money - on drums. The gang began to blend their love of the folk tradition with a contemporary rock sound, influenced by a wide range of artists - from Cold War Kids to Gogol Bordello and Jack White. Now it is 2018. 22-year-old Nick Tyler has joined on guitar. Classically trained but influenced by psychedelic and DIY punk in equal measure, he is the final piece of the multifarious puzzle that is Holy Moly & The Crackers - the final Cracker, as it were. This year HM&TC will release two stand-alone singles, recorded by Matt Terry and mixed by Dan Austin (Pixies), and back the songs up with major international festival appearances, including a main-stage appearance at Beautiful Days and Colours Of Ostrava in the Czech Republic, before embarking on their biggest UK headline tour to date in November. The last two years have been a whirlwind and you might think that it's time to take a breather. But HM&TC are not that kind of band. The road is their home and they've got their foot to the floor.