Friend Called Fred
FemaleFirst are holding the only Band competition worth entering this summer, and through the sackfuls of entries we’ve had over the past few months, we finally have our five finalists who are poised and ready to compete on July 12 in Manchester.
But before they draw their drum sticks and battle it out in front of our industry judges for the chance to win some incredible musical prizes, including a weekend at 3 Sixty Studios in London, a makeover by The General Store and a year’s Public Relations from momentum PR, we thought it was only fair we introduced our musical warriors.
First up are Friend Called Fred;
Who are you?
Friend Called Fred
Who does what?
Alex Holsgrove - Lead Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Kirk Taylor - Drums and Percussion
James Richards - Bass
Edd Collier - Rhythm Guitar
Where do you come from?
Crewe, Cheshire
Describe the sound of your band?
We'd describe ourselves as Blues and Ska inspired Indie Rock, but each song is different.
Who do you look up to within the music industry?
As individual members we all have favourite bands. Some of these are The Rifles, The Wombats, The Clash, The Police, The Metros, Bombay Bicycle Club, Arctic Monkeys and Jamie T. Towards the end of last year we were lucky enough to meet the Wombats and spend a day with them around Liverpool as part of a festival.
This was an awesome experience for us, really inspired us and we began to write music more like our current sound. We also had the opportunity to work with Shaun Lowe at Prism Studios in Stoke. This was again a good experience for us as Shaun has worked with bands such as Imperial Vipers and Friends of Ken as well as The Mask of Zorro soundtrack.
What makes your band different from all of the others?
At the end of the day we are an Indie Rock 4-peice like so many other bands. But we're not really in it for money (although it would be nice!). We just like to create catchy tunes that make you want to get up, dance and sing along. We have a unique blend of influences and genres and they can all be heard in each aspect of music.
These can range from Jazz, Blues, cutting edge Indie and Math Rock, Electro and Hip-Hop. We try to write songs that are very contrasting, so that no two songs sounds similar. All that in consideration we just want to create music that we and other people will enjoy.
What have you achieved as a band so far?
As a band we've been together about 2 years, but we've all been friends for much longer. In this time we've achieved quite a lot. Our first achievement came after we'd only been together for about 2 months. We managed to quickly write 3 songs and beat of competition from 8 other talented bands.
The prizes we won were 2 days recording with Shaun Lowe at Prism Studios in Stoke-On-Trent. We recorded our first EP - 'Easy Does It' and about a month later we played our first gig at the MClub in Crewe. Since then we've gone from strength to strength, playing gigs all over the Northwest including Winsford, Crewe, Manchester, Liverpool and Stoke.
We've built up an awesome and loyal fan base in and around our hometown and have shared stages with many bands, including - NME backed The Perils, The Story So Far, Swedish band -Sad Day For Puppets, The Foxes and local boys SGT Wolfbanger.
Where would you like to be in 10 years from now?
Ideally like to be still together and good friends, anything other than that would be a bonus. We'd love to be a successful band, touring the country and maybe other countries, have some quality material recorded and have it circulating in the mainstream. But we'd also like to successful in other areas of the music industry such as producing and recording.
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison