KOOPA have rebelled against the traditional set-up, rejecting generous record deals to stamp their own mark on music history.

In 2007, they became the first unsigned band to make it into the top 40. Without any record label, they sold about 7,000 copies of first single Beg Steal and Borrow to get to number 31, and followed this by selling 20,000 copies of the Crash to get to number 16.

Their self-made success saw them touring the world, working with Blink 182 punk hero Mark Hoppus, who produced their album, and more recently using their talents to pen songs for other artists and TV shows.

But vocalist and bassist Joe Murphy says the band’s success would never have happened without good, old-fashioned hard work.

“It is great. Being the first means it can’t ever be beaten.

“There’ll never be another first band to do it, so I’m very proud. But it was a lot of hard work.

“When we turned down record deals people said to us, ‘you’ll have to play every toilet in England’.

“We said ‘that’s how we want to do it’.” Koopa, who are all from Colchester, turned their hand to writing songs for other artists and selling their songs to feature on TV shows – including sports programmes and Sky’s Amazing Adventures of a Nobody – after touring and working on their album.

The band always chose to work with small publishers to make sure they had a large input.

Joe said: “It was important we had someone who was doing things the way we liked it.

“We turned down a few because they weren’t really saying things the way we liked it.

“The reason we went the DIY route is we’ve got the passion to see it all the way through.”