I can't help feeling that for the most part a lot of people that hear our music (and let's face it in reality that is not a lot of people) are somewhat disappointed - on hearing our name and knowing its origins - that we don't sound more like the Afghan Whigs. Sure they're probably my favourite band, but they're up there with maybe a hundred others…and it's the same with the other guys, Gav's favourite band for instance is probably Therapy?

The truth is we never set out to be Dulli clones, in fact when we first started hanging with Gav (and we really did get hanging!) the first thing he did was reintroduce me to the Afghan Whigs. At the time I owned 'Gentlemen' and 'Black Love' on CD as well as a handful of CD singles and I also had an ageing copy of 'Up In It' that a friend had taped for me onto cassette at university. Within a week or so I'd filled myself in with with the rest of Dulli's output from a 'retarded' single right up to 'Blackberry Belle' and fell back in love. Although the Whigs had been an ever-present on my Walkman, CD Walkman then Ipod up to that point, having suddenly found around 4 albums that I'd pretty much never heard was like finding a Monet in Grandma's attic.

We were lucky enough to struggle in to Islington in the snow one winter's night (London's transport system ginds to a complete halt if snow even threatens to fall) and see the Twilight Singers deliver an awesome gig at the Academy, my first exposure to Dulli live and one of my top five ever gigs. Subsequently Greg and I have flown out to the States twice to watch them only to subsequently fall for Jeff Klein (and then we accidentally bumped into Eddie Vedder while watching Bill Janovitz play solo in a tiny bar in Cambridge MA but that's another story) - obsessive uber fans maybe - but copycat clones? Not our style, although my belly's getting there. Our sound is more akin to the 'Up In It' days than Greg's more recent material. Due in no small part to our modest, working-class recording budgets, but also due a common love of Husker Du and the Replacements…and The Supremes of course.

At Easter 2005 The Nothing (as WTP were previously called) were at something of a crossroads. At least one other band were touring the UK under the moniker of The Nothing and The Nothing from Leeds (containing members of thrash-pop band Send More Paramedics) was understandably getting more press than us. We'd written a bunch of new material and played some storming gigs that winter, and were booked in for two more gigs in close succession: one at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town and one at the legendary Metro on London's Oxford Street. To cut a long story slightly less long (that's told anyway over on the bio page) we felt we needed a change of some kind. We were desperate to keep either Jay (Ramji) or Martin (Gibbins) on bass but for their own reasons we weren't able to, and members of the band were coming out of relationships…it felt like we were at the end of The Nothing before we'd even got started…we were certainly at the end of something. We announced on the XFM message board and various DIY communities that The Nothing were to play their last gig at the The Bull and Gate. A handful of people cared.

In reality we were planning to become a three-piece and change our name. At the time we weren't sure if we would carry on playing the songs from our debut or not but we did have another gig lined up at the Metro a month later at which we planned to play only new material. While each at our individual day jobs, we took a poll of the remaining 3 members by e-mail, deciding to name ourselves after a Dulli track and got it down to a handful of possibilities. We decided to vote on the new name, and each member had the power of one veto on any name. And so it was that Greg vetoed the most popular name 'HerAgainstMe'. Amongst Big Top Halloween; Crime Scene; The Neglekted and The Number Nines, WhiteTrashParty was actually the fourth favourite and became our name by default when we'd each used up a veto on the top three. That boring story is the story behind the name.

A few days later we played as a three-piece at the Bull & Gate and after an intro of 'Little Red Corvette' we let The Nothing die (fittingly) to the song 'I just wanna give up'. Only about 40 people were there. 2 weeks later we played a packed Friday night at the Metro Club as WhiteTrashParty with 'Faded' being the only old song we played. We all had a brilliant night, Charlie Reay-Smith (as he often does) filling in on the bass.

So anyway - at some point somewhere around 2007 Summer's Kiss records approached us (and probably hundreds of other bands/artists) to record a track for an Afghan Whigs tribute album. From the presumably hundreds of entries SK would whittle it down to around 12 songs. Although our chances of being included were slim, the thought of the recordings excited the three of us. We immediately booked into Ruff Rockers Studios to see what songs we could learn and do justice to. The obvious choice would have been 'Uptown Again'; the song had been an intermittent inclusion on our live set for 18 months or so, but we really wanted to be able to play as many as we could and make an informed choice on the song we'd record.

We booked in on a sunny, spring Saturday afternoon (the rates were cheaper) and to my knowledge attempted 'Debonair'; 'Retarded'; 'My Enemy'; 'Crime Scene part one'; 'Gentlemen'; 'Uptown Again'; '66'; 'When we two parted', 'Amphetamines and Coffee' and maybe a couple of others that I have since forgotten. After a subsequent rehearsal session and at least one night in the pub we had it down to four songs: 'My Enemy'; 'Crime Scene part one'; '66' and 'When we two parted'. While rehearsing these songs over the next two to three weeks (and many more pints in the pub) we'd started to think "fuck it, lets record all four…".

And that's what we did…we didn't want to change the arrangements too much from either the record or in '66's' case from the way Greg Dulli plays it live with the Twilights. We recorded the tracks at Oilville with Tom Aitkenhed over two days that summer, and needed a third day to iron out some bumps. 'When we two parted' fell by the wayside (I have an rough instrumental version knocking about somewhere). Tom gave the other 3 the same visceral, rough around the edges feel of much of our debut album. We fired them off to Lee at SK what seems like an eternity ago. We got down to what was described to us as the "sweet sixteen" but subsequently were one of the 3 of the sixteen that didn't make it. Lee was kind enough to make 'My Enemy' a bonus track on their website. You can stream it/download it here. The six sixty-six EP containing all three covers is available from the band. E-mail us for details.