blackrosefalls_

Blackrosefalls are a six-piece rock band from Manchester, UK. Childhood friendships from primary school spawned what would eventually become blackrosefalls, when, in 2002, under the different name of  ‘Without Permission’, Stefan Harrison, Matt Sayward, Shaun Heaps and Luke Stephens got together (at the tender age of 12), and contemplated what they could do collectively to prevent the boredom, monotony and restrictions imposed from living in a small town. The bands first shows were all around the Macclesfield area, playing covers and writing their own songs. Luke later left the band and the rest of the group continued as a 3 piece for almost a year. During this period, the band wrote and recorded their first EP, which contained 6 tracks that the band allowed for free download on their website. The band soon recruited another student from their high school, Alistair Bower, to fill in on bass duties. In July of 2005, the band were starting to become a bit more mature, and realised that music was what they had passion in their lives for, and that is what they wanted to do with their lives: Matt was quoted as saying:

”The main problem with starting to play in a band is it makes every other career alternative look shit in comparison.”

The band started to step up their live shows a few gears, after having realised that in the live arena is where a band needs to make everything count. “We’re really into the idea of making ourselves noticed at a venue, no matter what size the place is. When we first started out, we were nowhere near as tight a band as we are now, and I guess it’s fair to say we took a bit of shit, but that’s only fuelled us to prove ourselves and do our utmost to change people’s perceptions of what we’re all about. Plus, to any fans you’ve won over, you’ve got to keep, you have to put on a good show for everyone that turns out or why should they bother, you know?” says Shaun. “If a band’s bad live, you’ll tell everyone. A bad review screams louder than any positive”.

It wasn’t just live shows that got an improvement; the band started taking their songwriting a lot more seriously. With this brought the change of name (to blackrosefalls). At this point, the band was finally starting to discover the early roots of their sound; a post-hardcore base tinged with elements of metal, then fused with the pop-punk sounds the band grew up loving. The band recorded an EP entitled ‘Whispers in Explosions’ with Ben Bannister at Hi-Toy Studios and Cormac Donnelly at Restrike Studios, a three-track release that contained ‘In The Headlights’, ‘Safe From You’ and ‘The End Of An Error’. Another song, ‘Burn Into Perfection’, was written and recorded in sessions around 6 months later and included on later versions of the EP.

After starting to play a lot more shows around the Northwest area, landing gigs with established bands such as Kids In Glass Houses, who the band supported just after they got off tour with the Lostprophets, as well as with other big hitters in the Manchester scene such as LAP, The Shuffle, Drive Like I Do, Pinups and Pullouts and The Kirkz, playing venues around the Manchester scene such as the Academy, Jabez Clegg, the Dry Bar, Star & Garter and Bar Amp.

After meeting local bassist and all around top lad Tom Lewis, the band underwent more changes with Alistair, (having purchased a Microkorg and becoming obsessed with it) switching to a synth/keyboard role and Tom joining as a fulltime bassist.

The band spent a week in February of 2007 at Hi-Toy Studios recording a new mini-album titled ‘The Art Of Losing Faith’, of which the following tracks came out: ‘Lights Out In Las Vegas’, ‘What It Feels Like To Be Forgotten’, ‘Romeo (The Summer Song)’, ‘The Art Of Losing Faith’ and a brand new version of ‘Safe From You’. The group also took a video camera along for the ride and filmed hours of footage which is making its way onto the Internet on the band’s Youtube channel, the rest of it will be probably on a release in the near future.

With a new record to promote, and a deal with management group M2M sealed and inked, the band booked a string of new shows before decided on recruiting another fulltime guitarist, Ashley Baker, who the band met and subsequently got to know when they went to a couple of gigs in Manchester with friends of each others. Alistair said during the decision-making time of letting Baker in: “Yeah, I think we should definitely get him. The boy’s got good hair”.

Taking influence from bands old and new; everything from The Smiths, The Cure all the way through bands like Brand New to the Black Dahlia Murder, Klaxons to Killswitch Engage and Deftones to Death Cab For Cutie, band are carving out a niche that is truly their own: “I’m struggling to try and think of anything that sounds exactly like what we do” says Alistair. “We’ve definitely all got our influences, and it’s fair to say that our influences show in what we create, but we throw something into the mix that’s definitely something all of our own”.

The future is certainly bright for blackrosefalls: even now, their oldest member is merely 18, and the youngest only just about to sit GCSE’s. From here, its onwards an upwards as the band embark on writing more and more songs and playing more gigs in and around the UK. They are currently putting together a tour for October 2007.

“We’re in this for the long run, trust us. We’ve got a passion and determination for this you probably wouldn’t believe. We’ll silence any doubts you have about us, and we’ll do it soon”.

Enough said, it seems.

“Expect great things from this young band.” – Alex McCann, Designer Magazine