High Peak band perform at Reading and Leeds festival

Wuzi performing at Reading Festival after winning a competition to play on the BBC introducing stage

Callum Smith, 27, and Arthur Davies, 26, make up half of psych-rock band Wuzi, alongside bandmates Tom Baker, 27, and Elliot Marsters, 26.

After winning the Futuresound Events Emerging Competition earlier this month, Wuzi were handed the opportunity of performing to hundreds of people on the BBC Music Introducing stage at the two-location festival over the bank holiday weekend.

Callum said: “We’ve performed at festivals before and even headlined at a gig in Toronto last year, but this is by far the biggest and most prestigious festival we have ever played at and it was absolute class. We are all still buzzing.”

The music contest which bagged them their place saw the foursome go up against 39 other bands - with only four making the cut.

Callum said: “We thought we played a good set but we didn’t know what the judges were looking for, so we were over the moon when we found out we had bagged a place.”

The group travelled to Reading on Friday to perform their lunchtime set and then made the journey back to Leeds, where they are now all based, for the second leg.

Guitarist and singer Callum said: “It was amazing. We spent some time back stage and saw bands who had previously performed on the Introducing stage, so it was great to see what can happen if you are in the right place at the right time.

“We were given a 25-minute set and we really just went for it.

“Normally we play sets of about 45 minutes so it was a lot of practising and merging our songs, but we got to play six songs and really put on a show - we didn’t just stand there and play.”

After their gig in Leeds the band had time to soak up the festival atmosphere and managed to catch a secret gig by The Wombats as well as performances from Wolf Alice and Kings of Leon.

In October, Wuzi will be releasing an EP, following on from their single Compromised Host which was released prior to their festival appearance.

Callum added: “Playing at Reading and Leeds has been awesome and I hope it will be the start of something for us, like a cornerstone we can built on.”

“It’s like having a great job on your CV, people will see we have played there and hopefully it will open more doors for us in the future.”