The Manchester indie band The Guest List started from posting on TikTok four years ago and now they are embarking on their biggest United Kingdom tour yet.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Cai Alty, lead guitarist Tom Quigely, rhythm guitarist Leio Hunter, bassist Sid Wallece and drummer Angus Gilchrist formed The Guest List in 2021. They filmed clips of themselves playing covers in a garage, which gained the attention of a manager and an agent. It changed them by being able to share their tunes with others, hence the popularity they got on TikTok.
The band gained eight million likes and more than 300,000 followers on TikTok. They found themselves acquiring a substantial amount of gigs and focusing on their performances and songwriting. The band’s first-ever gig was held in Birmingham, England. Not many people attended, as they were still new to the industry.
“It was our first ever headline in Birmingham and I think the crowd was mostly our friends and family,” Gilchrist said during an interview with Andy Goodwin in Pass it on Magazine.
The band released a new EP on Sept. 5 titled “Weatherman.” The lyrics were written by Alty and the album cover was hand-painted by Lydia Miller, who is a London-based artist and graphic designer. The theme of the song represents an important issue going on all over the world: climate change.
“I wrote the song as a reminder that this is not a so-called woke issue,” Alty said in an interview with Music Is To Blame. “It’s destroying homes and lives now and will only get worse if we do not hold ourselves and our government accountable.”
The band gained more recognition worldwide and increased their monthly listeners on Spotify. Their most famous single is “Loose Tongue,” written by James Skelly, the frontman of The Coral. In November, they embark on one of their biggest UK tours yet. As they prepare to perform in a new set of venues, the band is both excited and anxious.
“Some of the venues are ambitious; we’ve not played maybe half of them and will have to work hard to sell them out,” The band said in an interview with The Rock Revival. “But yeah, we’re looking forward to it.”
