Meet some of Gloucestershire's bands at Wychwood

By Stephen Morris
Website contributor

The Roving Crows played the BBC Introducing stage at Wychwood

Festivals are always a great place to discover new music.

Just wandering past a stage or into a tent gives you the chance to hear songs that could otherwise pass you by.

This year the Wychwood Festival had a stage devoted to the promotion of new music.

The best of bands and artists featured on BBC Gloucestershire and six other local BBC radio stations were selected by a panel of elite musical judges including Tom Robinson from BBC 6Music.

Just as festivals are a good opportunity for music fans to hear new music, the musicians themselves find them a great way to reach out and find new audiences - which is why bands like The Echoes and The Crowd happily gave their EPs out for free to their new fans.

The Crowd

I grab a chat with The Crowd after their set when they open proceedings at the Big Top on Wychwood's second day.

The Crowd are Tierney Beames, Jo Kaspar, Tomas Kaspar and Max Woollett.

They seem rather excited to be here.

This is their first festival of this size, although they have now played the Gloucester Guildhall six times and have supported acts as diverse as Good Shoes, Dan le Sac and Pendragon.

They also recently won a battle of the bands competition in Swindon and will soon be playing the Sugar Hill Festival there too.

I talk to them about their influences and inspirations.

Although I detect a debt to Echo and the Bunnymen, the band also talk enthusiastically about more contemporary acts like Patrick Wolf and The Maccabees, the latter of which got given the cover treatment earlier in The Crowd's set.

Lyrically, the band use past experiences and people they know to inspire their songs.

I ask if these people are aware of this. "Sometimes," is the reply I receive in chorus.

"You sometimes get people come up and say 'that song's about me'. And we can't really deny it. It might annoy people."

With such a tight sound and a clear vision, The Crowd deserve to go very far. Let's hope that a summer of festivals and gigs helps them along.

The Divine Secret

28 bands were selected to perform on the BBC Introducing stage

The Divine Secret were one of the acts short listed by the panel to play on the BBC Introducing stage.

They could never be described as shy and retiring on the best of days.

Before their blistering set on Wychwood's second day, I grab a quick chat with them.

"We're really enjoying the atmosphere," says Ben Newham, the band's drummer.

"We'd love to get more people to hear us."

They've got an EP launch soon on 1 July at Thirteen Degrees in Cheltenham so opportunities like Wychwood are a good way for them to spread the word.

Talking with the Divine Secret gives me the chance to find out a bit more about the band I recently reviewed for these pages.

Joe (lead singer/guitar) tells me that he and Ben started up under the name of Check Point Charlie doing covers of Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix.

They met up secretly (which explains the new name) and added Barney Barnfield on bass shortly after.

"He's fantastic," Joe enthuses. "Really great. Best bass player I've ever come across."

He stops and thinks, raises a cheeky smile and corrects himself.

"Nah, don't say that. Just say he's the best in Cheltenham."

Candidates

While Divine Secret could never be accused of anything approaching modesty (their showmanship extends far beyond the stage), there are other acts on the Wychwood bill who seem almost bemused by the attention they are getting.

Of course, Gareth Candidate (one half of Candidates) might just appear quieter because (a) I've just crashed his set after the aural assault that was Divine Secret's gig - and anyone would seem quiet by comparison, and (b) he's just recovered from a massive cold.

He too sees festivals as a good way to get people to hear his music, although his main plans at the moment involve getting some recordings done over the next couple of months.

I ask him where he gets his inspiration from. "It's mainly just stuff in life," Gareth says.

"For example, one of the songs I do is about how I was once an idiot to my friend and how she forgave me. So it's a song about how friends can forgive."

Vulnerability and emotions is something common to both Gareth's solo work and the music he makes with bandmate Christian in Candidates.

I ask him what's happening with the band.

"We're taking a bit of time off from the band at the moment as Chris is off at university in Newcastle."

In the meantime, Gareth is keeping his hand in with his solo material.

"I'm experimenting with new timings and things like that at the moment.

"Going solo means that your voice is your only trick. You've got less to hide behind.

"With Candidates I tend to hide behind the mask of everything else that's going on.

"You can't do that so much when you're on your own."

Joe Summers

Someone who may understand this experience is Joe Summers.

Like Gareth Candidate, Joe is both a solo artist and a member of a band: Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun (but more on them later).

Joe's solo stuff is a work of art. He explores seemingly random themes in his set with songs about holidays in Monaco or the stress of Christmas shopping in London.

There are also songs about leaving university and his disdain for new rave to add to the eclectic mix.

After his set I ask him about this seeming random array of subjects.

"I try not to write songs about the usual stuff - you know relationships and love.

"There's one song that I do - Last of its Kind - which talks about mates looking for relationships and how quickly modern love fails compared to that of our grandparents - you know, love that will stick the distance.

"But most of my songs are about different things. It's just a snap shot of something that will give you a good idea.

"I listen to a lot of Ron Sexsmith. There's one song where he sings about kids at his school whose parents were forever moving so they were never settled.

"I like his approach of taking an idea and making it more abstract."

As with Divine Secret, Joe Summers has a self titled EP to promote with a launch party imminent (5 July at The Slack Bar in Cheltenham).

The EP was recorded at Steve Winwood's house. Summers describes the result as "really minimal with some warm performances."

In the long term, the plans are for an album with a supporting band to add to the sound.

On top of this, there is the forthcoming Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun album to promote.

In sum, Joe Summers has two festivals and ten gigs to keep him going over the short term.

It's a busy time for someone who admits that he occasionally has issues with his confidence.

"I didn't even apply to be on at the festival," he explained. "Andrew Lansley from the University of Gloucestershire put me forward for it which was really good."

We part on the kind of anecdote that could feature in one of Summers' songs.

He tells me that he once went on a camping holiday to Chesil Beach, Dorset, where he got talking to a man who was out walking his dog.

They talked about music and the man told him that he shouldn't worry about things and just enjoy it.

"I suppose it's a bit of a hippy-ish attitude. All about building your own confidence," Summers explained.

Turns out that this man was Billy Bragg.

Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun

Joe Summers' alter ego is that of backing vocalist with Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun.

The band are a punk-folk outfit from Cheltenham. I get to chat with Jim after an energetic performance in the unusual surroundings of the Hawthorn tent at the festival.

By day, the tent offers children's activities and the products of an afternoon's painting and colouring-in are much in evidence while we talk.

"This isn't really the right venue for us," Jim explains. "There's usually a lot more swearing. We really held back tonight."

I ask Lockey what drives him as a songwriter, pointing to the political comments he made earlier in his set.

"Yeah, there's a lot of political stuff, but it's generally just stuff that makes us fed up," he tells me.

"The only song that isn't like that really is Morning Wake Up which is a love song for the wife."

I ask about the name of the band. Why Solemn Suns? "It was one of the band," says Lockey.

"They thought of solemn because it reflects that we're all fed up and the outlook is pretty grim."

The outlook for Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun may defy Lockey's pessimism. The band have created a bit of a stir and their forthcoming album should help solidify support for a very talented act.

The Roving Crows

To balance with the bleakness and misery of Jim Lockey and friends, Wychwood's provided a plethora of sunnier sounding acts to get everyone smiling - and maybe even dancing.

One such act is The Roving Crows, an Irish folk band who mix traditional tunes with more contemporary songs.

The band perform twice at Wychwood. They were one of the bands chosen to appear on the BBC Introducing stage and are delighted.

"To be nominated and chosen by the judges was great," said Paul O'Neill, lead singer and guitarist.

Their second outing is in the cinema tent which is where I catch them for a chat.

Momentum seems to be building for the Roving Crows at the moment. Like many other bands performing over the weekend, they have an album to sell.

Their songs have been played on local radio and the album's been put on iTunes too. The aim now is to keep writing more material and appear at some of the bigger festivals.

I ask the band how they got together. "It started with Caitlin [fiddle] and me as a duo after I moved to Cheltenham from County Kildare four years ago," Paul told me.

"We then progressed to being a full band when we performed for two race weeks in Cheltenham."

Paul tells me that the aim of the band's song are to say something about life in a way people can relate to and comment on.

I ask about some of the songs that didn't appear on the festival set lists. Songs like Lies for example which appears on the band's MySpace page.

"That song was written after seeing all the soldiers' coffins coming back to Wotton Bassett," Paul explained. "People tend to prefer those sort of songs at folk clubs. It's not really the right sort of place for it here."

That doesn't mean to say they have avoided social comment entirely for their trip to Wychwood.

"We did Paddy's Coming Home which is all about the changes in the Irish economy - with the country going from poverty to experiencing wealth, only to be hit be the economic crash."

The set-list also sees the band perform Hard Rain which has a particular local resonance in Gloucestershire: "It's all about the floods that hit us a couple of years back in Tewkesbury."

The thing that really gets the crowd going though is the band's renditions of traditional tunes like Mother's Delight and A Stab in the Dark.

"They're traditional tunes but we try to liven things up a bit more - make them a bit more funky," said Caitlin, the band's fiddle player.

Thrill Collins

Another band that follows this philosophy, albeit through an entirely different style of music is Thrill Collins. Yes, that's right, you read correctly: Thrill Collins.

The band are somewhat unique in that the play 80s and 90s pop hits in a skiffle/ska style. It shouldn't work, but it does.

Andrew Lansley, who plays double bass with the band explained more: "We seem to go down really well. We'll get up and say we're going to do Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre and everyone groans. Then, once we've started playing, the very same people are up there dancing."

The band work to a very strict rule of only playing music from the 80s and 90s.

"We don't know where the rule came from," said Robbie Pert (vocal and guitar). "But it's just something we stick to. If there's a song from 2000, then we just won't play it.

"The problem is that I've actually begun to like some of the songs that we cover. Lady in Red, for example - it's begun to grow on me." Oh dear.

The band are doing gorilla gigs all around the festival and have also been drafted in at short notice to replace Aspen Sails on the BBC Introducing stage after they got food poisoning.

But this is just the beginning of their performing. Soon they will be off to visit France, Italy, the Czech Republic and Holland with their own brand of cheesy pop covers.

They will also be doing a couple more festivals, 2000 Trees and the Y-Not festival in Derbyshire before heading over to America in the Autumn.

"The plan is to go to Boston, then New York and end up in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania," Robbie explained.

"We've been described over here as 'Cheltenham's best band' so we're hoping to put that on the posters when we get over to the other Cheltenham."

Thrill Collins close the festival in the small Hawthorn tent to a packed out crowd. It's the perfect chilled out end to a perfectly chilled out festival.

With Cheltenham's best band's family-friendly ska version of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name still ringing in our ears, it's time to head back to the tent one last time and think about heading for home.