Meet Tors, the UK indie-folk band with anthemic choruses and family ties to one of the most influential guitarists of all time
Indie-folk trio Tors has been making waves with a harmony-drenched pop sound that has propelled them to major support slots on arena tours with the likes of James Blunt. Hailing from Devon in the UK, their music is spreading far and wide, with headline shows selling out internationally and some dates even being upgraded to larger venues to satisfy demand.
The band was founded in 2016 by guitar-playing brothers Matt and Theo Weedon (lead and backing vocals, respectively), who are accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Jack Bowden on drums, piano, banjo, and backing vocals. If the brothers’ surname sounds familiar, it’s because their grandfather was the hugely influential guitarist and educator Bert Weedon.
The first British guitarist to have a hit record on the UK singles chart, Bert Weedon is best known for his best-selling book “Play in a Day,” the guitar tuition course that provided the springboard for the careers of such legendary players as Paul McCartney, Brian May, Eric Clapton, and many more. It’s no surprise, then, that Matt and Theo Weedon grew up with music all around them, some of which was recorded by the very musicians their grandfather inspired in the first place.
“For us, as brothers, music has played such an integral part of our lives, even before we knew we wanted to be musicians or realized it was a career,” says Matt. “My mum is a big believer in eating dinner at the table, which is a really nice thing; every night, dad would put on different records. It was so varied, we’d have The Beatles, Nick Drake, 10cc, Simon & Garfunkel… just this amazing collection of different records, and it really stuck with us. It became such a passion. And to experience such a variety of music has had a big effect on us.
Image: Both Matt (right) and Theo Weedon are fans of Gibson ES models (© Getty/Lorne Thomson/Redferns)
“And then, obviously, our grandad was Bert Weedon. It’s always funny talking about him because to us he was just grandad, and he’s one of our heroes. He could be very silly and naughty; he was really good fun. But growing up, he introduced us to the guitar—both Theo and I started learning with our grandad. The older we got, the more aware we became of what he’d done. We were sitting in his guitar room and there were photos of him with Brian May, The Beatles… anyone, you name it.
“He had such a profound effect on music, and it’s all because he fell in love with the guitar. And it was like, ‘This is really cool, maybe we could do this.’ I wouldn’t say Theo and I are the best guitarists in the world, but what we love doing is just being around music and creating music. He always really encouraged us to do that, and not just to learn the instrument, but to sing with it and write our own stuff.”
In addition to the song-focused guidance offered by their grandfather, the music Matt and Theo were exposed to by their parents was steeped in classic pop songcraft rather than instrumental virtuosity. And there was no shortage of vocal harmonies in the mix, either.
“Some of our favorite bands are people like The Eagles and Crosby, Stills & Nash, even the Everly Brothers,” says Theo. “We’ve always loved harmonies. When we started writing and singing together, we were trying to learn how to do them. I think I sang on top of Matt’s voice and it blended nicely. Naturally, I guess, like the blood harmony.”
Matt agrees. “It has this weird magic to it,” he says. “I had to sing lead because I’m the older brother! But I wouldn’t be doing music if it wasn’t for Theo. I had a band prior to this and went through the process of being signed, living in a hotel in London, and doing a lot of very crazy stuff at a young age, and it sort of chewed me up and spat me out the other side.
“Theo had been studying scriptwriting and he came to live with me in London for a bit. I was always writing still and just showed Theo a couple of melody ideas I had, and he sent me these lyrics—we were in these two rooms and he would never come in and show me, he would just text them or email them, which was weird! Maybe he was a bit shy at that point! But it was really nice, it really encouraged me. And he just started singing; I didn’t know Theo could sing, but when we started playing together we were like, ‘We should try and do some harmonies.’”
This soon blossomed into a songwriting partnership. Things really took flight when one of the first songs the brothers wrote together was used in an advertising campaign by clothing brand Jack Wills. Meanwhile, vocal harmonies became more and more of a feature. “Since then, I’ve always sung lead and Theo’s been the third on top,” says Matt. “Jack, our drummer, he does the fifth. Usually below, sometimes above. It just gels really nicely.”
Another thread emerges when the brothers talk further about their formative guitar influences. Artists such as Oasis, Doves, and B.B. King may be musically diverse, but so much of their music was made with Gibson ES™ guitars—something which proved inspirational for Matt and Theo.
“I remember being so obsessed with the Gibson hollowbody,” says Matt. “It was my dream guitar. It took a long time to get one! But there’s something about that sound; it’s just so iconic. On a lot of those records, it’s a little bit dirty, it’s a little bit edgy, but it’s also singing through clean. It’s such a versatile guitar. It’s so nice for young guitarists to be able to pick up something like that, that looks so deadly, but it’s not that hard to play. It’s not off-putting. And when you are onstage for an hour and a half, it makes a big difference. It’s a dream guitar.”
It’s not only the guitar-shaped dreams that are coming true. As the band heads off on a European headline tour, celebrates the release of their latest single, Never Give Up, and looks forward to 2025 headline tours in Australia and North America, it seems like Tors are on the cusp of a major breakthrough. “We’re really lucky right now,” says Matt. “We’re doing some really exciting things and getting to work with some of our favorite brands and heroes. It’s so surreal for us; it’s such a cool and special moment.”
Visit the official Tors website to buy concert tickets and read the latest news on the band.
