WHEN Southend band Smother decided to call it a day, rock fans in the town were morose.

But frontman Luke Branch has been working away on a new project for the past couple of years, and July will see Hoodlums release their first single Landmarks.

Recording under the name Lou Vainglorious, which he describes as “a bit of a joke”, and designed to make a split from his previous music projects, Luke and the rest of the band have been busy raising their profile, and garnering impressive reviews for their on-stage antics and sweeping sound.

“All the other guys in the band play jazz and classical music,” says Luke, as he describes the band’s sound. “It’s quite theatrical. It’s not macho rock’n’roll or anything like that. It’s mostly widescreen, atmospheric pop. A lot of the bands we like are oneslike the Cocteau Twins and Echo and the Bunnymen, just ethereal pop.”

It’s been a successful ascent so far for the band who scored a coup last year when they were picked to support Britpop royalty Suede for their comeback shows.

“I was really, into that band when I was younger,” says Luke, who is also a part-time music lecturer at South Essex College.

“It was one of those things where I thought they might look really old, but Brett Anderson, is probably the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen. He’s got cheekbones poking out of his head.”

The band haven’t just focused on their own music. Hoodlums were originally picked up by Nude Records, who also had label success with Suede.

But Landmarks will be released on Blow the Whistle Records, the band’s own label set up with Nude founder Ben James.

Luke says: “Because of the way the music industry is instead of spending years searching around for a label – there’s a few of them left but it is a real struggle trying to get money out of anyone at the moment – we just decided to set up our own with the guys from Nude.

“It’s been a big learning curve for us, sorting out European and UK distribution.”

Luke funded the label after teaming up with pop act CocknBullKid to pen songs for her debut album. He says he loved songwriting for the London artist.

“Writing like that was something I’d always wanted to do but I never really knew how I’d get into it,” he says. “I played drums and guitar and I wrote with her.”

Hoodlums were keen to release a good old-fashioned single rather than a download after all their hard work and effort spent building up the band’s reputation.

Luke says: “We thought if we were going to do a label then waiting three years to put a bit of digital information online just felt like a bit of an anticlimax. I think our fans like them.

“We’d have loved to have brought it out on vinyl, but it seems like a lot of people don’t even have a record player, so it’s coming out on CD.”

Despite Hoodlums’ success and his new pseudonym, Luke says he’s still best pals with his Smother bandmates, but there are no plans for a reunion.

“I tried to cover my tracks a little bit,” he explains. “The other guys are still my best friends now, but I wanted Hoodlums to be judged on its own merits.”

For more information on Hoodlums, visit www.hoodlums band.com Blow the Whistle Records will be looking to sign up a couple more bands from the area in 2012, for information visit www.blowthewhistlerecordings.

com Landmarks will be released on July 4.