Interview The Phoenix Fall
We speak to one of the successful products of 360 Club's mentoring scheme
Interview: The Phoenix Fall
Other Recent Interview Articles
If you’re ever at a lose end on a Wednesday evening, then you might consider meandering down to the HiFi for the 360 Club.
Leeds can be a tough scene to break for new bands, as 360 Club are well aware. To help, they’ve set up an initiative to support new artists in a, well, 360 capacity. As well as straight down the line gig promoting, they film bands’ live shows, point out where they need to pick up their game, and advise them on how to reach new audiences. 360 also run industry seminars and have enlisted around 80 bands heeding their advice.
So, when we heard that one of their bands, The Phoenix Fall, had sold over 1,000 copies of their debut single, despite being in the middle of the university finals, we thought we’d better take a closer look.
“Phoenix Fall started when Ben [Ellis, guitar vocals] and I used to meet at his house playing songs from our favourite artists, such as The Libertines, Oasis and the Beatles,” says lead vocalist and guitarist Ollie Mellotte.
“We eventually both started playing each other our own songs. From that we sought out a basis in Lewis [Jenkins] to develop these songs, and then Charlie [Dale] arrived a year later after our original drummer left.”
On closer inspection The Pheonix Fall wear their influences on their sleeve - heavy hints of Oasis and The Jam come through in their writing, along with elements of more contemporary artists like Snow Patrol. They are, they admit, trying to write songs that would class as “pure pop”. “We aim to write good melodies and catchy riffs,” says Mellotte, “which slides us into the pop music category.” Their pop sound helps explain the fact that fans hovered up of 1,000 copies of their last single ‘What Really Matters To Me’.
“We are very lucky that the fans that we have are very loyal and can’t thank 360 enough,” says Mellotte. The premise and advice has been simple, but very vital. “The most important thing we’ve learnt is to keep plugging away,” says Mellotte. “360 will do all the best they can for you, but you’ve got to want it that much as well and put in the hard graft.”
The Phoenix Fall’s second single ‘Tearing Me Apart’ is out now. Find out more at www.myspace.com/thephoenixfall. You can see the video here: www.youtube.com/thephoenixfall
Posted on Wednesday 25th November 2009
CA
Sending you to Twitter, hold on... 
