The 3 Yorkshireteers: ‘I started ‘Yorkshire’s finest boyband’ over a pint in our working men’s club, and now we’re selling out gigs’

Yorkshire Post

Catching up over a pint of John Smith’s, three lads from Castleford came up with the idea to start a band.  Together they created The 3 Yorkshireteers - a comical boyband who parody popular tracks and cheesy Eurovision tunes into their own Yorkshire slang.  The 3 Yorkshireteers, whose stage names are Tom Yorkshire, Pat Testin and Quiet Man, have been going for more than a decade as a band performing live but it's only in the past year their online content has soared with their own ‘Yorkshire Style Podcast.

Transcript

00:00I live in Wakefield now because I managed to escape.

00:03And where did the Yorkshire Tears come from for those who don't know you?

00:06So we had, every place seems to have its own comedy band, right?

00:13Wurzels is a big example, down there in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, somewhere down that way.

00:17There's Chas and Dave who did all the Cockney stuff.

00:20And what we realised is that even though Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys are very Yorkshire styled,

00:26they've not got their kind of comedy element to it.

00:29Matt lost their roots somewhat.

00:31Well, you know, everybody goes America way, don't they?

00:34And then they come back with accent.

00:36But we thought we'd do a Yorkshire-based thing.

00:38We're proud of where we're from.

00:40We like funny songs.

00:41So we thought we'd have a go and just knock it together.

00:43And it seems to have been all right so far.

00:45And were you genuinely three mates before or did you start the band?

00:48What came first?

00:49Yeah, so we were doing this anyway.

00:51We were going to pubs most weekends and singing and having a laugh.

00:54So we thought, why not turn it into a live show that people can enjoy and book?

00:58So we did that and it's gone from there, really.

01:01And we had a bit of time off because there's only so many jokes you can tell about Yorkshire puddings, you know.

01:05But we had a bit of time off and people missed it and they wanted us to come back and do a bit more.

01:09So we had a bit of a research.

01:11We're having another go at it now.

01:12So did it genuinely just start from you singing in a pub together?

01:16Just drunk?

01:17Pretty much, yeah.

01:19I'm sorry to say so.

01:21Yeah, that was pretty much it.

01:24I mean, we'd all done little bits and pieces of live stuff on stages before.

01:29And then we kind of brought it together and brought us ideas together and just had a go at it.

01:34And it's done all right.

01:35You know, the hardest thing was getting people to book it before we've done anything online.

01:39Once they've seen what it is online, they go, oh, yeah, we like that.

01:43But you go into a venue and say, oh, we wear flat caps and we sing songs about Yorkshire and nobody wants it.

01:48But once you've seen it, once you get it, they're all for it.

01:51And what was your kind of first song for those who haven't seen you on TikTok?

01:55What were your first song that went big?

01:57So what we try and do is we either take cheesy Eurovision numbers or we take number ones a day that have been number one at charts for weeks.

02:05And number one, when we first started, number one at charts for weeks was Gangnam Style.

02:11And obviously our lyrics to that are Korean, so people can't sing along to it.

02:15Is it Korean?

02:16Might well be Korean.

02:17Something like that.

02:18So we changed lyrics to that, to Yorkshire words, phrases, things about Yorkshire, things about gravy, things about things that we all know.

02:29Turned it to that and did a bit of singing and dancing around it, did a video and that was the first one out.

02:35Do you remember any of the lyrics?

02:37I should do.

02:39So I went to my nan's because she does nice cheap butter.

02:42You don't go every day just on a Sunday after rugby.

02:44Love it out, buttered up, bread is all this running.

02:46Now all of these things, it's all just daft, simple things.

02:50But there's no other words that any English speaker can say other than them English lyrics that they hear.

02:57Because they can't, I mean, with all the best weather in the world, we're not going to be able to sing it word for word in its original format.

03:03But give it some English lyrics, give it some Yorkshire lyrics and we'll make it happen.

03:07And then since then, what other songs have you done?

03:10Oh, well we've done two about this place.

03:11We're in Upton today, so we've done Upton Funk, we've done Upton Girl.

03:14We've got, we took Black Lace's Aga Do and Medit Aga Dewsbury.

03:19We took, we've done several songs about, just people and places about really.

03:26We do a take on, if you do manage to come to a live show, we do a take on Tom Jones's You Can Leave Your Cap On.

03:32Which we can leave lyric for lyric because it still applies.

03:36But there's obviously surprises that come in live show as well that relate to things like that.

03:41So it's all a bit, you know, up and down.

03:45We take Pulp's Common People and we make it about Yorkshire people, we specify it.

03:52If you remember his lyrics are about somebody from Greece who went to some fancy school somewhere else.

03:57So we turn it into somebody who did hairdressing at Barnsley College and it still works the same way.

04:03But people seem to like it, so we carry on.

04:05And what are you doing when you're not entertaining people?

04:09Well, I've got a milk float.

04:11It doesn't necessarily mean I'm a milk man, but I do things with that milk float to make it happen.

04:17Now you're intriguing.

04:19Fat Testings.

04:19You can't leave me on a milk float.

04:21I have to say, I've got a milk float.

04:25Fat Testings, he does electrical appliances.

04:29And Jet Leddy does various bits of casual work.

04:34He's sort of an handy man, but he's not that handy.

04:37But we all do his own thing.

04:39And then we come together and make this magic.

04:41So needless to say, it's not an advert for your business.

04:44Not at all, no, no.

04:45If we were making any money, we wouldn't be sat here in up to arms, I don't imagine.

04:48But we are.

04:50So we just have a laugh.

04:54And it's good fun.

04:55And people enjoy it.

04:56People join in fun.

04:57So that's all we intend to do.

04:59And if it works, great.

05:01And what's next for you guys?

05:03We're going to do another series of his podcast, Yorkshire Style podcast, available on Spotify.

05:06See, we will do advertising.

05:08Spotify, Apple, and all that.

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