The Thirst are brothers Mensah (lead guitar) and Kwame (bass), alongside school friends Mark (rhythm guitarist) and Marcus (drummer). They were signed on the spot by Ronnie Wood after he caught their set at the Half Moon in Putney. uk-fusion talks about sarf London and racism, along with discovering what slakes their thirst (sorry)

It does get a bad reputation with the gun crime but that can be said for the whole of south London or the entire country. There is craziness everywhere from London to Manchester, kids rolling with knives and guns but we don’t think the problem can be put on to an area. And we hope that the kids all over the country can see what we are doing and take some inspiration from that.
What was growing up in Acre Lane really like then?
It was Good Old Acre Lane, eventful with ups and downs. Acre Lane is one of the streets in Brixton associated with drugs but it’s not that bad really. It was good growing up for us there, a few altercations but really where we are from gave us the drive to be
doing what we doing now. No way were we going to be another waste man chilling on roads doing nothing. In fact one of the songs in our live set at the moment is called ‘Acre Lane’.
How did playing Serbia come about?
It was a one-off show to support the Stones which for us was a dream comes true –
obviously it was an in-house job but we held our own. For us it was amazing to travel so far from home but still the crowd relating to our music the same way they would down The Jam in Brixton.
At the recent U-21 European Championships, when England played Serbia the black English players received both racist abuse from their opponents and their fans – how hard a decision was it then to visit knowing the problems of racism within Eastern Europe?
Race is not something we think about – we wanted to get out there and play an amazing
live set. We would hope our music would relate to everyone. With football you can get
some hooligans I suppose, but that’s never something that’s going to affect what we are
doing musically.
I’m a 35-year-old father of two, so I probably need some help with my wardrobe. Just how do I get The Thirst look?
We are not the standard skinny-jeans indie band that you might have come to expect.  We’re just four people in a band - we don’t really think about image and stuff, just do what makes you comfortable. Anyway, you’re a grown man so why you asking us?
You’ve penned a song called ‘TelLievision’. Just what have you got against the medium renowned TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith dubbed "the magic rectangle"?
The song was never meant to be a comment on anyone in particular. We write about things we have seen and what has affected us. The song’s about young people getting roped into badness, they then end up going down the wrong path cause they’re sold the fact that particular lifestyle is the only way out. The media just shows the tragic end and not the full story. Listen, we are not here to make some political statement; we’re just talking about what we see and you can take that which way you want.
What’s your poison?
Stella – one of the lines in ‘On the Brink’ which is a track we have just recorded for
our album is “we drink our Stellas on the back of the bus”.
On ‘Fight the Power’, Public Enemy attacked Elvis for stealing from black music. As a black rock band, would you care to share your take on that?

We never got into to this to be a black rock band because we saw some gap in the market – we were all school friends that grew up listen to our mum’s and dad’s records.  Everyone gets there influences from different places. Elvis was a hero to most...
Last, but by no means least, what’s only kinky the first time?
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The Thirst’s self-titled debut EP is out to now on Wooden Records.