The folk rockers –– made up of members from Mansfield and Ollerton –– have set up a hectic touring schedule for 2008, seen online hits go through the roof and are now gearing up to release their debut track.

Says lead singer Gary Armstrong: "The band has gone from strength to strength recently, over the weekend the MySpace crashed with an average of 3,000 independent plays to the player per day.

"We have also put together a very impressive tour for the release of our first single on iTunes and other sites on the 17th June.

"We have some brilliant dates lined up playing alongside the likes of Dreadzone, Levellers, Alabama 3, Three Daft Monkeys, Squeeze, Supergrass to name a few."

The Beetroot Kings were formed last year and consists of Gary on lead vocals, classically trained violinist Dan Booth, Graham Scott on guitar, drummer Ben Haynes and Gary's cousin, Ian Thompson, as bassist.

They are holding a special party at Mansfield's Intake Club on 14th June to mark the release of their debut single and representatives from NME and Q magazines are going to be in attendance.

Added Gary: "We're attracting loads of attention from independent people to the point where Shockwaves NME did a story on us saying big things are going to happen."

The band have also attracted various other attention, including recently being featured on MySpace's Next Big Things and have top tracks on website Bandman.

"With regards to the single we have already had 2,500 people contact us saying they will download it when it's released," Gary told Chad.

"If we can get loads of attention locally and maybe pull 1,000 more downloads this would mean the single would chart well inside the national top 20 –– which would be a first for a Mansfield band."

For more information on The Beetroot Kings visit myspace.com/garyarmstrongmusic or www.thebeetrootkings.com where tickets can be booked for the Intake single launch party.