"I fucking hate rock music. Anything with delusions of grandeur really. Anything that's supposedly credible. Prog rock is the worst. Pink Floyd is bloody terrible. But I hate rock music. Be it Limp Bizkit and all that sort of shit today or Deep Purple in the 70s, I detest rock, it's earnest and it's terrible."
Glen Bartup (below) has plenty to be chuffed about. He's not in a rock band, for a start. And at just 21 years young, the 22-20s have pretty much cornered the market for trendy blues music. In a world of flaccid pulpy indie and repro-rock, the music buying public can't get enough of their refreshing blues sound. 
Hailing from rural Lincolnshire, famous more for its sausages than the humming of harmonicas and guitars, afforded the young blues aspirants a certain freedom. "Me and Martin [the lead singer], we just listened so stuff in our bedrooms, simple as that. We had no one telling us what bands to listen to, which had it's good points and its bad points. We didn't go out on Friday nights, we were a bit sad like that, we just sat around and listened to records."
The band was born young, ("I think it was one Christmas, me and Martin both got little guitars and a little amp and then started at about 15"), and quickly found themselves a public. Unfortunately, they weren't always appreciative of the young talent. "We started playing the working men's clubs up North. We got into blues and we were playing old Muddy Waters and Buddy Guys songs, stuff like that. It was alright at first, because we were getting paid money to do gigs and we were quite excited, but it was a bit `cabaret'. We had people telling Martin to put his guitar behind his head and pick a pretty girl from the crown and get her on stage.
"Everyone who came to our gigs was a 50-year-old man with a moustache so I'm not sure where he'd have found that pretty girl. I think they were quite intrigued about us because they'd never seen people our age playing that sort of music. I think they hoped that as we got older we'd clean up our act and turn down the amps and get all the banter going with the crowd. But I think in their eyes we got worst and worst as we went on."
Luckily a record deal rescued them from the world of bad blues and pork pie hatted men and packed them off on tour. "When we first got a publishing deal a couple of years ago when we somehow got sent out on tour with Supergrass round Scandinavia and Paris. On the second night in Paris we played at a place called the Trabendo. I just remember it, because we'd been signed and two weeks later we were in Paris and we were doing this gig and it went down great and we were going out afterwards. I think that was probably my moment, if I look back on any moment and think, "Fucking hell, this has actually happened". I was jaded immediately after that actually."
To sing the blues properly, misery flowing from every orifice, you need to have suffered a bit. And despite being really very nice boys, the 22-20s do a pretty good line in modern misanthropy. Leftlion caught up with bassist Glen Bartup for a chat about Bob Dylan and cheesy pasties.
Not only jaded, but also pushed too far too soon. Early successes meant the band had trouble keeping up with expectations. "We had some pretty shoddy nights. We would do a 17 minute set and we were headlining. I think that was the period when the hype and the pressure to deliver got to us a little bit and we weren't really in control of what we were doing any more. We only had three songs when we got that demo and I think we lost control of it for six months, culminating in that tour.
"There was a gig in Liverpool that was absolutely ruined, it was dreadful. I was pissed off my face and Martin was singing and I was stood in between Martin and the audience in front of the microphone with my back to Martin for two or three songs. There were some great nights on that tour as well. But that's what happens when you all get really hammered: some nights are great and some nights it just all goes wrong."
And now? "We went back to Paris and did some interviews a couple of weeks ago and we just realised how much fun we had on that tour and how miserable we are these days but never mind. Nashville was a really great gig. We did a good gig in Lyon last year and just everything we did this year was brilliant." Miserable indeed. Any more good fortune and the 22-20s' next album will be a Disney soundtrack. Still, there are the old chestnuts of loneliness and absent love to get them by. "I get really bored at home. Time off is just a nightmare for us really, we tend to fall apart a little bit. We just like being in the studio or on a tour bus.
"I don't have any friends to speak of. Actually I was trying to work out last night whether I had any friends and I realised that everyone I would consider to be a friend either works for the band or is in the band. And then I even found myself trying to reason that my sister could be counted as a friend. It would be great to see my girlfriend more because I don't see her enough."
Of course, no one can be miserable all the time, no matter how productive, lucrative and damned entertaining the lyrical byproducts. Luckily, the band love touring. And Glen's life is a better place for seeing Bob Dylan at Fleadh this summer. Post-gig, he likes to indulge in a cheese and onion pasty ("about as un rock and roll as you can get really"). But do us a favour lads. Try not to enjoy it too much.
The 22-20's are playing at the Rescue Rooms on Thursday 21st October
22-20's Album Review
www.22-20s.com
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