WHEN asking a band in their early 20s how long they’ve been together you don’t expect “11 years” as an answer.

But that’s exactly what Polker bassist Lewis Jones, 24, responds with when I enquire about the St Helens band’s past.

“We started when we were pretty young,” said Lewis. “We played lots of pubs and bars supporting local bands when we were still at school and we’ve just stayed together ever since.

“We started out as a covers band but as we’ve got older we now want to focus on our songs.

“The last two years or so has seen us venturing out further and playing more of our own music as well as recording.”

The fruits of these labours can now be seen and heard with latest single Kiss Me Alone which was released this week and comes complete with a suitably epic looking video shot inside Liverpool’s beautiful Ullet Road Unitarian Church.

“A lot of our influences have stayed the same - proper solid stuff like Hendrix and Zeppelin,” said Lewis. “Recent reviews have compared us to Soundgarden and Audioslave and the reaction to the singles has been immense.

“Every day last week we were getting emails about gigs here, there and everywhere.

“Filming the video was class – the sound you got on that church through the natural reverb was just incredible. You just don’t get to hear that every day and we were very fortunate that they let us play there – it’s a phenomenal place.”

A headline gig at Manchester’s Retro Bar is booked for March next year with the band, also featuring Sam Rughoo (vocals), Lewis Burgess (guitar) and Maddie Hale (drums) playing closer to home at Heebie Jeebies in Liverpool on Saturday.

“We’ve always had the same, familiar faces at gigs but since we’ve started to do our own stuff we’re growing a new crowd,” added Lewis. “The plan now is to play further afield, bigger gigs and supporting bigger bands.

“Playing live is the main thing we want to do – it’s almost like an addiction. We all decided to go to university after college and we didn’t play together for nine months and it was hard. We missed it so much we all ended up dropping out at the same time!”

Kiss Me Alone is available to stream and download now. For more information on Polka visit their Facebook page.