North Essex: Fame going right over Koopa’s head

11:12am Tuesday 16th January 2007

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A year-and-a-half ago, the Evening Gazette sat in a dark corner of the Twist music venue chatting to three musicians trying to make a name for themselves.

At the time, Colchester's Joe Murphy and Sible Hedingham brothers Ollie and Stu Cooper had just returned from playing a series of gigs "up North".

They were preparing for the launch of their debut single, No Trend.

Fast forward to Sunday and the three, better known as Koopa to pretty much everyone now, are sitting in Joe's house listening to the singles chart on the radio.

Anyone who has picked up a newspaper, watched the news or listened to the radio in the last couple of days will know the rest.

This week we are back talking with Koopa, except we are not the only ones.

There's BBC News 24 and Reuters news agency also clamouring to speak to them, as well as a number of record companies who, now they have made history by becoming the first unsigned band to make the top 40, want to change all that and sign them up as quickly as possible.

Joe said: "At the moment it's going straight over our heads.

"We just cannot believe the kind of media attention we are getting.

"We were up until 4am doing the James Whale Show on TalkRadio and today has just been manic."