“The album is called Generation Silenced because nobody is speaking up for our generation. Nobody has represented our voice for too long. Not even Oasis at their height – great tunes, but did they speak out for anything? Not really. We do.” – Steve Rolls

At a time when even the most rabid right-wing commentators are expressing their fears over the cuts made by the coalition government, it’s staggering that so few bands are willing to speak out about the state of the nation.

Not Essex firebrands Missing Andy. In person, they’re the most cheerful, up for a laugh gang in town, but they’re one of the rare modern breed who realise that music matters – that it can carry a message without sounding too preachy.

As their usually laidback singer Alex Greaves puts it: “I get sick and tired of musicians talking about things that no-one can relate to. People can see themselves in us as a band and in our music.”
Adds bassist Rob Jones: “With the amount of shit that’s gone on in this country, it’s astonishing that no-one else is channelling that in their music. To judge from most new music, you’d think no-one cares anymore, but everyone I know cares. We care and we’re typical of our generation.”
They may be unusually skilled in turning their anger into absurdly catchy tunes, whether it’s the Jam-tinged fiery rants of Alive and Scum or anthemic escapist epic Kings Of The Weekend, but their background is certainly typical.

Getting together in Braintree – the same anonymous Essex suburb as The Prodigy – all five members have served time in tedious McJobs, whether collecting trolleys in Tesco (quiet man keyboardist Jon Sharpe) or a one-off £100 stint as a strippergram (Rob).
Naturally wanting to improve their lot, it led to guitarist Steve Rolls and drummer Elliott Richardson forming Missing Andy, the others soon coming on board because, as Steve notes: “In a town as small as Braintree, you inevitably meet all the other musicians and know who the best ones are to nick for your own band.”

Although keen to get on and conquer the world, their desire to speak out is matched by a determination not to take the easy approach on anything. Every aspect of the band is infused with a DIY approach, from their website to making their own videos – Kings Of The Weekend’s club-themed video features fans dressed as Mods, recruited via the band’s thriving Facebook page.
“Everything we do has to have a message,” says Elliott. “We’ve tried farming things out to others, but nobody knows our minds as well as us five.”

No surprise, then, that even debut album Generation Silenced is self-produced rather than, as Steve puts it: “Just giving it all to Stephen Street to make.” It’s a remarkably assured debut, confident and punchy as it roams around punk, ska, widescreen balladry and singalong melodic rock and roll. It’s already impressed shared band heroes The Specials and Madness into giving them support slots.

The band’s biggest outside help so far came from Sky 1’s talent show Must Be The Music last year, when they were runners-up in the final to singer-songwriter Emma’s Imagination. “We debated a long time about whether to take part,” admits Rob. “But the show worked for us, because we got to just be ourselves and play our music with no gimmicks.” Alex adds: “It’s frustrating that some people now think we’re just some manufactured reality pop band, but that’s only people who haven’t heard our songs or seen us live. Then you’ll see we’re real. The rules have changed, and you have to be realistic – it’s so much harder for bands to get any attention when pop and R&B totally dominate TV and radio.”

Indeed, in an era when even huge bands like The Killers and Kaiser Chiefs struggle to hit the singles chart, Missing Andy have reached the Top 40 twice, with Sing For The Deaf and The Way We’re Made. Generation Silenced’s sleeve features an old school photograph of Alex, with his classmates replaced by mannequins. It’s typical of the band’s mixture of intense polemics and ready wit that, just as Alex starts discussing how his classmates have become politically silenced like so many people in their early twenties, Elliott interrupts him to point out: “Every photo of Alex as a kid has the same expression – he’s always looking away from the camera, lost in his own little world. He’s still like that now, aren’t you... Alex? Alex? Wake up!”

It’s a humour typical in the best bands consisting of proper friends – while they’re a talkative bunch, eager to explain their views to anyone, they’re also full of their own in-jokes and secret codes, best demonstrated at attempting to find out the meaning of the Missing Andy name. It soon devolves into a Call My Bluff-style round of nonsense, Jon’s claim that “It’s from the Latin, Missingius Andrewcious” being one of the more reasonable-sounding theories.

The name is one of the few aspects of Missing Andy not to make immediate and perfect sense. Gargantuan songs with smart lyrics add up to a sense that a band of the people not seen in an age is here. A generation may finally be stirring.