When Oasis’ manager stated that the band, ‘Does not exist anymore’, after an altercation between the Gallagher brothers in the bowels of a Parisian music festival in the summer of 2009, some feared the final nail in the coffin for a brand of contemporary rock & roll music which harks back to its original roots of carefree swagger, attitude and intrigue.
Talent scouts and the collective music media alike continue to search in desperation for the next guitar band that will supposedly ‘save rock & roll’, but arguably not since The Libertines, or more recently the Arctic Monkeys, have we witnessed a band able to command the attention of a nation in the manner of the Nineties Britpop-dominated music scene, when rock music transcended a basic style with anthems capable of uniting an entire generation.
In steps Cold Committee, a four-piece guitar band jointly hailing from the North Wales coastal towns of Prestatyn and Rhyl, with influences sourced from decades of past rock luminaries such as The Who and The Beatles, all the way up to the present day with the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis. The intrinsic link with Oasis in particular goes beyond merely a strong musical inspiration however, with the band having recently played a string of private in-store gigs in aid of Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green clothing line.
“It all started at college really, James knew our drummer Sam and he came to watch me and James play an acoustic set one night,” singer/songwriter Jordan Samuel tells Live4ever in an exclusive interview. “My mate Adam watched us as well who’s our bass player and from there we just got together to form Cold Committee. We’d meet up at Sam’s house and start playing and jamming and it just felt really good straight away, that was June-July time last year and the band just took off from there. We all sort of meet around The Beatles, Oasis, The Kinks, The Who, we’ve got quite a mature taste in music but we work on our own sound as well. We’re still quite a young group; James and Sam are both 19 and me and Adam are 20 years old. The last eight months have been great with lots of things happening.”
A set of full-sounding tracks as a base for an eventual full debut release begins with ‘Anthemic’. That’s a song title which shouldn’t be used lightly, and the band deliver with a vibrant, stuttered chord guitar intro, before leading into Jordon’s charismatic vocal delivery, echoing at once Kasabian’s Tom Meighan in heavily Northern accented earnest swagger, and Liam’s distinctly lengthy intonation of lyrical word endings. A melodic chorus nestles mid-way through with affable simplicity, before a total change of pace as drums and guitar work in unison to provide a cantering breakdown which builds to a climatic lead solo, adding the final piece to the jigsaw of what you’d hope to expect from a classic Sixties inspired pop-rock tune.
“We love the look and style of that classic Mod scene, though musically I feel we’re carving out our own sound rather than trying to emulate that Who or Kinks sound, which you see a lot of new bands trying to do these days,” Jordan says on those 60s influences. “When we play live and step on stage I suppose many people think, ‘Well they dress like Mods’, and so expect us to sound something like that, but you’ve got to move on.”
New single ‘Iceman‘ begins with a pulsating, early-Kasabian echoing bassline run, moving into a song reminiscent of Beatles-era throwback Miles Kane’s recent solo work, with additional vocal input from guitarist James Cairns allowing for the incorporation of joint harmonies into the mix, segueing into powerful, stridently biting chorus pleas of, “Call me the iceman, I know you do”.
Iceman (Demo) by ColdCommitteeMusic
“At first I was thinking of ‘Bane’ as the single; it’s a longer song and has more of a structure to it, but I got a call from our manger Frankie saying, ‘We’re going to do Iceman’, you know, he’s the manager, and he just said, ‘Trust me on this’, which I do so we went with that for the single,” Jordan continues on the track. “It’s a song that’s had a great response online and live, we’ve had plenty people telling us it’s a good choice. I think it’s a good record to debut with and I’m looking forward to releasing it.”
‘Love Can Be Easy’, meanwhile, finds the band in a more mellow frame of mind, with a glance at Alex Turner’s songbook in the many reflectively gushing romantic metaphors of a kind the man himself would be proud of. Arpeggiated guitar parts are interspersed with light chord strumming for a stripped back homage to the idea that ‘sometimes, love can be easy’, acting as a refreshing tale that sees someone simply happy to be in a state of affection.
Love Can Be Easy (Demo) by ColdCommitteeMusic
“For me, the Arctic Monkeys were the last great rock and roll group,” Jordan says of Turner’s Sheffield band. “Groups come by but aren’t around that long – one album and that’s it, they’re gone. We’ve already got a few songs together for a second album which is looking pretty far ahead, but I’m the group’s songwriter so if I have an idea I’ll get it down. You can hear a change in the new tunes compared to the songs we have out there online. You can hear a progression between our early songs and what we’re playing and practising now.”
Back to those songs that are online right now, and an intricate lead guitar intro on ‘Fallacy‘ breaks into animated guitar strumming, before dialling back to allow the vocals to take centre stage as Samuel depicts a tale of a protagonist on the run from their problems. The instrumental rumbles along before awakening for a chorus which highlights the band’s adeptness at providing uncomplicated pop hooks which cunningly reel the listener in with their immediacy.
“At the moment we’re looking to get an album deal together, we’ve already had a few people talking to us, interested in signing us and we’re confident it will happen,” Jordan continues on the band’s future. “We’ve got the songs, enough material for an album, it just needs recording. Gigs coming up, we’ve got a show at the Compass in Chester next which for us is like a local gig, Chester’s near where we come from and then it’s back down to London for a few gigs, a couple of shows around Camden and that so we’re keeping busy and just really loving the live shows right now.”
Despite honing their sound playing small seaside town venues, there is an undeniable feeling while listening to the early demos, comprising soaring sing-along choruses and watertight instrumentals, that they wouldn’t sound out of place in an arena or festival setting.
Cold Committee certainly have the potential to revive the concept of rock and roll as a bold, charismatic and carefree pastime – arguably at a time when the genre requires it most.
(Words: Jamie Boyd & Carl Stanley)
