The tiger didn’t always show up. But when Al and Emil Rivers plugged in their gear, fired up the amps and raised a toast to the toaster, it usually didn’t take long before he appeared in the corner of the room. The guitars and harmony soared and the animal watched the brothers play long into the night. The stars and the stripes.

The Rivers boys never minded a man-eater in their studio. Back in Greece, they’d heard plenty about wild animals, listened to nature and created all their melodies from scratch. In their next home, in Lisbon, Portugal, they experienced new wild adventures in music but they never saw a tiger. Maybe it was the ska music and then the progressive rock they were playing. Maybe tigers just didn’t get that stuff.

It took a trip to England before the big cat showed. On the road, touring 15 dates in three weeks, the twins saw some strange things. Mostly, they were days of late smokes, live music and odd dreams. Hundreds of miles from London, a few fights and not much sleep later, life was starting to get interesting.

And that’s when the tiger came around. Al and Emil didn’t move when he first turned up in Newcastle. They just played on and the crowd were too busy dancing to notice. But out of the dark, the brothers saw two bright yellow eyes.

The tiger took them back to their childhood, to days of classical piano and first guitars. Just as old music brings back memories, the animal took them to their beginnings. Their journey from Athens to London, travelling light and never with a real place to call home. And the tiger kept on coming. It showed up in their hotel rooms, in the studio, in their dreams. It’s still coming to this day.

Don’t believe me? That’s all right. After all, everyone has their own concept of fantasy and reality. And that’s what No Machine is all about. It’s a story about being true to yourself. A story about a tiger and the twins.