The Heavy

The Heavy formed in the mid-00s. Taylor and Swaby clicked straight away when they met working in the Bath branch of Gap. Swaby, an old-school crate-digger, noticed Taylor had a copy of The Face magazine and the two started talking about music. They found they had some common influences and began introducing one another to the stuff neither had heard. Taylor was from a classic rock’n’roll background and was enthralled by being introduced to the world of hip-hop and sampling. A guitarist who had been in bands growing up, all Taylor ever wanted was to work with someone who had a brilliant voice. When he heard Swaby sing for the first time – possibly whilst both were slightly inebriated in a club – he knew he’d found his man. “I was like, ‘he can sing!’ It sounded real and authentic.” As soon as the pair heard what happened when they combined Taylor’s dirty riffs with Swaby’s soulful voice, they sensed they were onto something. “We knew that was our sound and something we could develop,” says Swaby. After attracting frenzied crowds to their Open Mic sessions – they would put up posters around Bath advertising themselves as The World’s Fattest Twins and The World’s Heaviest Bastards - they realised they needed a proper band (and a proper name) and Ellul and Page were recruited. “As soon as you put the four of us in a room, it made so much sense it was gonna work,” says Swaby.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist