Gardenback are on a roll

A new single due out soon and a mini-tour of the UK means Saddleworth indie prospects Gardenback are gearing up for an exciting summer.

The uber-talented band – front-man and bassist Ellis, guitarist Neil and drummer Jacob – continue to make waves on the local city scene, and they are hoping new track ‘Health and Well Being’ will further enhance their steadily growing reputation when it is released later this month.

Ellis said: “We’re really excited about it because when we started playing it at gigs towards the tail end of last year, we’ve always enjoyed playing it.

“It’s probably our most creatively ambitious song to date, so it’ll be quite fun to put it out there and see how it goes.

“It’s almost two songs stitched together, and that’s not something we’ve done before.

“When we were writing ‘Health and Well Being’ we tried out a few things on the vocals, and there’s a lot more emphasis on the dual vocals between Neil and I.

“It’s stuff we’ve played around with before, but we’ve never committed to recording it.

“Some of the guitar sounds on there are amazing too.

“It’s idiosyncratic, it’s unique, because some of the sounds Neil gets with his pedals are incredible.

“This new track is full of them.

“It almost sounds alien, but we did it first live and there’s no studio trickery involved so that makes it great.

“It’s very honest. We had a lot of fun recording it, there are some very weird sounds on it.”

The track sounds cool, and the lads are hoping the appeal soon spreads, in much the same way as ‘Bulldogs’ did earlier this year.

Even rock mag Kerrang! gave it the ‘Single of the Week’ treatment.

Ellis added: “We were a little surprised because we don’t have any metal heads among our fan base.

“I think one of their DJs must have picked up on it and liked it.

“A guy called Jack Wood started playing it for us.

“We don’t know exactly how well it went down with Kerrang’s listeners, but I suppose any coverage or publicity is good publicity!”

Armed with their new single, Gardenback have now begun their ‘Health and Well Being’ mini-tour, which began in Manchester at the Dot-to-Dot Festival.

They played Liverpool on June 1, Sheffield on June 12, London’s Aces and Eights on June 16, they headline Manchester’s Soup Kitchen on June 30, play Leeds on July 12 and round off at the prestigious Kendal Calling Festival (on the House Party stage), which takes place between July 26-28.

Neil said: “We organised it all with our management – Elephant Management – and they’ve been fantastic with us.

“They really helped us out sorting the dates and stuff.

“We’ve dotted in a few gigs so far this year, but we wanted to create a little run this time.

“Every time we’ve done gigs a bit further afield they’ve helped us pick up new fans, and it’s just nice to meet lots of new people.

“We love playing live too, of course, that’s the main thing more than anything.

“When you get out there you learn things about performances of other bands as well.

“Everyone’s always been really friendly when we play out of town, and it’s all about continuing to learn from each other as well.

“I think generally we’ve been getting more comfortable with our audiences, and just letting our personalities show.

“All three of us are miked up and that helps show our close relationship too.

“We kind of play for each other, and that helps us get into it more, which is always fun.

“It’ll be a bit of a trial by fire for some of the new songs, but we’re all so excited.”

The London show last weekend proved a roaring success.

A good-sized crowd greeted the Oldham lads, while they nailed numerous admiring glances on the way to and from the capital as they travelled in an old Oldham Chronicle delivery van (see picture above).

“It was crucial to play there,” added Neil.

“We have got a lot of friends in London and we had been wanting to play there for quite a while.

“It was great to take a little bit of Oldham to the capital I guess.”