| 1. What are you currently up
to? |
Being unsigned; all the band members have other commitments - work
etc so spare time is at a minimum. We are however continuing to play
and book further club & festival gigs. We're also organising a date
to go back into the studio to record a follow up to "A New Dawn".
We're supporting EUROPE's Kee Marcello on Thursday May 27th at the
Camden Underworld amongst other upcoming dates.
|
| 2. Brief history of the band and the style of music you play |
We started out in 1995, again due to university commitments and lack
of funds we did nothing more than rehearse when we could and record a
few demos - all well received but we didn't follow up on the initial
interest we got. We broke up in 1999 but stayed good friends. I went
off to America for a year and when I came back I was living outside
of the area. Mark and I started jamming again in 2003 and decided to
get the band up n running.
As a DJ and general music fan I'm into many genre's but when it comes to being in a band, and this has never
changed - I've only wanted to write and perform melodic hard rock
songs and power ballads. My songwriting is Influenced by the likes of
Def Leppard, Dio, Dokken, Europe, Skid Row, TNT, Warrant & Whitesnake
etc but we don't sound like any of them.
|
| 3. Who was/is are the biggest influences on your career?
|
Probably EUROPE's Joey Tempest. Very underrated - the dude can sing
and pen a catchy tune!
|
| 4. What has been the highlight(s) and lowpoint(s) of your career to date?
|
The highpoints - all the fantastic reviews & extremely positive
feedback from people, media & industry. Supporting The Quireboys,
Saxon & Kee Marcello. The lowpoints - splitting up when we did, we
were gaining interest. Also, not being able to build upon the initial
success of "A New Dawn" quicker than we have by recording a follow up
sooner, really need to keep the momentum going.
|
| 5. What would Sacred Heart like to achieve ideally by the end of 2004?
|
A record deal would be nice! Realistically though, more gigs with
named artists and bands and the same level of success and positive
feedback of our new CD that "A New Dawn" received.
|
| 6. How have the reviews to your demo CD been so far? Have the band
any more recording plans for this year?
|
Fingers crossed, we'll be going into the studio within the next two
months. And all the reviews have been positive, some criticism along
the way, but we're big boys and we can take it. Plus, it's all been
constructive - and we're very open to that.
|
| 7. You played the Celtic Warriors festival along with the Quireboys,
Skyclad, etc What was that gig like and have you any plans for summer
festival appearances? |
Fantastic! Very well organised and a lot of fun. We played to around
1500 people in the Arena itself, a further 1000 people outside.
Considering we got up and played 12 songs that 97% of the crowd had
never heard before the response was incredible. We certainly hope to
play a few more festivals but although we recorded our CD last year,
we didn't make it available until Jan/Feb 2004 so we'd missed out on
a lot of opportunities.
|
| 8. What has been the live highlight(s) for the band? How easy/hard is it
to get gigs and promotion for gigs? |
Excellent question. The highlights, no matter the size of the crowd
is getting the desired response. People you don't know taking the
time after the show to come up to you and say how much they enjoyed
it. I've had 11 years of being a professional club DJ so we have a
bit of an advantage promotion wise.
Gigs though are different, we live in an area where there are not many places to play but we've
done 4 shows so far and we've played to almost 4000 people and with
more on the way we're looking to carry on increasing our profile.
Keep plugging away, don't lose faith and be patient - cuz the gigs do
come!
|
| 9. Do you see the interest in rock & metal music growing in the UK at
the moment? |
Every genre has a fan base. Rock & metal went decidedly pearshaped
from around 1993 until a couple of years back. The reason rock was so
big in the late 80's was because there were alot of bands releasing
quality material. A catchy song is a catchy song no matter what genre
its from and it'll appeal to more people because of it.
At the moment there are a lot of tours and there is an interest from the rock fan
base but there isn't much interest from anyone else. What we need is
some good hard rock bands to get signed to record labels that will
release singles that are good enough to make an impact in the charts -
so decent commercial rock can be heard by the masses, then we'll
have super groups again, like Def Lappard, GnR & Whitesnake etc. No
modern day rock band is influencing us but many thanks to The
Darkness for opening a few doors for the rest of us!
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| 10. What's the most rock 'n' roll moment the band has had so far?
|
We're not really into excess of anything, but I think just the fun
we're having doing what we wanna do with some of the people we never
thought we'd get to do it with is rock n roll!
|
| 11. What CD's do you currently have available and where can they be
purchased from?
|
We have "A New Dawn" - a 7 track CD, the new batch has "promise"
live. And we have a DVD of the Celtic Warriors festival (12 tracks).
You can contact us through our website or of course purchase them at
gigs.
|
|
12. Message to your fans? |
Many thanks to everyone who has taken an interest is SACRED HEART.
It's been an incredible 4 months and the best is yet to come! Thank
you to all those who make the effort to travel to gigs - it really is
appreciated. We look forward to seeing you at the next one.
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