The North, a refreshingly, thrilling and hard hitting 3 Piece Indie Rock band with a sprinkle of punkiness from Leeds. ‘The North’ represents what goes on in the brains of our youth today with contemporary lyrics and melodic fast past beats. ‘The North’ wants to make the crowd move like nothing in the world matters apart from rattling yourself about and being soaked in their songs! “We believe in being sound.”
For someone that is yet to discover ‘THE NORTH’, in 5 words how would you describe the band: Unique, relatable , Fast , inducing and inspiring.
How did you first meet? After I moved to Leeds as a 16 year old to make a band about 10 months later I finally found the other two both called ‘Ben’ conveniently through bands I had played for and friends that I had made since I moved and funnily enough before I even met the two in person or even rehearsed I booked us two gigs that we would have 4 weeks to learn the songs and rehearse them! But my master plan fortunately went to plan and we played our first gig and it was mental. Bobs ya uncle.
Where does the name come from? It was the first name I cane up with because I always used to see it on road signs in motorways all the time and so I thought that sound cool , easy to remember and free advertisement! But i finally stuck with the name after rattling a few ideas about after seeing a poster of the full road sign with ‘THE NORTH’ at the top and the names if iconic bands and venues, I bought it and it’s been stuck up in my room ever since
Where do you feel you fit into the music landscape? Id say Indie Punk. Like as if The jam, Nirvana and Arctic monkeys had an orgy and popped us out.
Who would you say that is the bands biggest influence is ? Me and ‘Ben the bassist’ thats what me and my girlfriend call him have similar tastes especially with realism in lyrics, we like Nirvana and The Jam and Billy Bragg. I love fast paced sort of songs that make me wanna move, but I do also love tender meaningful songs written from the soul. And ‘Ben the drummer’ lives for ‘Jazz Fusion’ especially a band called Dirty Loops which brings a completely unique sound to his drumming but that seems to work for us! I’d say the Band that has inspired us the most is ‘The Jam’. Because of the message, sound and attitude.
What’s currently in the pipeline for you? Recording our first three singles, releasing them and hopefully building up a bugger community with the band thats what we really want a strong vibrant community. We’ve got some gigs coming up in October and November at The Lending Room in Leeds. That we are gassed to play!
If you had to boil down what you each bring to to the band, what would you say? I’d say Ben the bassist brings, a positive lively energy to the band and stage and a funkiness in his bass lines. Ben the drummer brings a punching beat and a calmness to it all despite his drumming being mental. Id say that I ( Billy Memphis) bring an electrical aggressive yet swaggerish stage presence, but I am like chill don’t worry it only seems to come out of me when we get up there and belt out the tunes although saying that i think my mums convinced i’m slightly mad even when I’m at home just watching tv with her.
What’s one new thing you want to see from the music scene in 2024? Us on a world tour;).
Because of your age, are you worried that you’ll get put in the cute Indie band genre along with the likes of Busted? Nah I like that we are young I think it brings more realism to the world and the youth like. I don’t like the fact that the average age of everyone that seems to be headlining at glasto is 739 years of age. So people can put us in whatever bracket they want to as long as they’re talking about us. We know what we stand for peace, understanding and giving the rest of our mates a voice because a lot of them if not all feel the same way we do about the tory government and education and so people can call that and put it into whatever bracket they want.
