For a band that didn’t even have a full album until late January 2014, Drowners have been doing quite well in the music industry for some time

The four-piece band—made up of lead singer Matt Hitt, guitarist Jack Ridley, bassist Erik Snyder and drummer Lakis Pavlou–has opened for the likes of The Vaccines, Arctic Monkeys, and Foals. The UK music blog Blue Corner Store has described Drowners’ music as “jangly, spirited indie pop with an undeniable British charm…paired with their New York coolness and hip swingy, 80′s guitars.”

So what’s one thing that sets this quartet apart from the dozens of others? Well, for one, their lead singer is quite the multitasker.

Hitt is from small village in the Rhondda Valley in Wales and has been living in New York on and off since he flew to the States at 19 years old to teach guitar at a summer camp. While in New York, Hitt began a modeling career and now, a couple of years down the line, he can say that he’s modeled for the likes of Gucci, Alexander McQueen, and multiple other high-end designers.

According to Clash Music, an independent media group with platforms in print as well as digital media, Hitt always had a passion for literature and even got a degree in it. He told Clash Music that even while modeling, he would find the time to “write and jam on [his] guitar every day.”

In New York, Hitt and the other Drowners—who are American—met in a bar in early 2012. They got together not long after and started jamming together. “Everybody had a lot of common ground,” Snyder told the independent fashion and style website Refinery29.

Before they even had the time to start doing publicity, according to Clash Music, Drowners were requested to open for The Vaccines at Manhattan’s Webster Hall by the lead singer of The Vaccines, Justin Young, a mere six days after their first-ever performance at the Lower East Side’s Pianos.

On working with international music sensation Arctic Monkeys, Hitt told Refinery29, “We got announced after all the gigs had already sold out, so we didn’t know if people would care that we were there. But, when we got to the gigs, I guess we have a crossover fan base, because people were wearing our T-shirts and singing along. I think it was a good pairing in the end, and we had a lot fun.”

Apart from the influence of other artists, Hitt tells Blue Corner Store that New York was a big influence on Drowners’ sound. “After I moved here,” Hitt explains, “I became obsessed with the kind of ‘no time wasting’…attitude a lot of New Yorkers seem to have and I wanted to try and put that into songs. I think that kind of bled into the tempo and arrangement of our record.”