Who?
Jamie – Vocals. Matt – Guitar. Ben – Bass. Sam – Keys. Jonny – Drums.
Where?
We are all from Leeds originally; Wetherby, Headingley, Morley and Yeadon. Jonny is actually originally from London but don’t worry we have made him an honouree Yorkshireman with a simple to do list;
1/ Replace breakfast, lunch and dinner with breakfast, dinner and tea.
2/ Wear a flat cap.
3/ Complain about the price of beer in a pub.
4/ Eradicate the word ‘the’ from your vocabulary.
How?
Well, we all knew each other from rival bands, truth be told we didn’t much like one another! But once we realised our other bands were a bit stale we decided to meet up and have a jam. The chemistry was just there from the off, we wrote three songs in no time at all – we knew had something special. We went on a night out to make sure we all liked each other when drunk as we knew we would spend a lot of time together in that state. We were in a pub called The Junction and Matt was trying to get with some girls as always, they asked the name of the band, due to our love of the Rocky films he said The Apollo Junction. We liked the name, dropped the ‘The’, and we were off!
Why?
We just love great songwriters like Holland-Dozier-Holland, Lennon-McCartney etc. But if we had to pick eras we listen to, we love the sixties; The Beatles, The Beach Boys (harmonies galore), The Kinks and all the motown and soul (keep the faith). We also love the nineties Britpop; we’re massive Oasis fans, and we love Blur, Pulp, Cast, The La’s and The Charlatans. Jamie has been listening to lots of GayDad recently.
Past?
I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows…….
Present?
Pop songs like The Beatles, harmonies like The Beach Boys, crunchy guitars like Oasis, anthemic sounds like U2, electro sounds like Daft Punk. It’s a cauldron of influences and noises and we’d like to think we are doing our own thing with it.
Future?
We have massive ambitions; we want to take the band as far as we can! We want people all over the world to know and love our songs. We don’t aim low, our parents always told us to aim for As at school and if you get a grade below that you’ll be happy with that. Now, even though we all did significantly worse than just a grade below an A, if you take that same analogy into the music world…we’re aiming to be bigger than Jesus.
Did you know?
We were filming a video in an abandoned warehouse which was boarded up the night before but strangely not a single board in site the next day (funny that!). We had a mannequin as a prop, and we had it dismantled in a black bin liner. The police were called due to noise pollution (ha!), and when they walked in they saw Ben carrying a bin liner with arms and legs sticking out of it…We were all put up against the wall and the attack dogs were called in.
What’s next?
Our new single is called ‘This Could Be The Day’ and comes out June 3rd. It has been played by the lovely Janice Long and Graham Norton on Radio 2, and by 6Music’s Chris Hawkins, as well as lots of regional stations. And we give massive thanks to all have played it so far. An album will hopefully be out by the end of the year, it is written and is about to be recorded so we can’t wait to start that project. We are booked in the studio all July.
We’re on tour in June, it just literally never stops, we have festival after festival. Playing Isle of Wight is the big one, but we have some amazing festivals then a lot of hometown gigs. So please find us on Facebook and Twitter and get yourself down to one.
Live4ever:
“This time last year they said we would be anywhere but here/Well here we are, still here”, hollers Apollo Junction’s frontman Jamie Williamson on the enlivening ‘This Could Be The Day’. Wherever here is, it’ll probably be somewhere near a dancefloor chock-full with indie-disco devotees or at a guitar-fuelled festival. The Leeds fivesome have been pulling on the sleeves of the right kind of attention since forming in 2012. Steve Lamacq, the one well-wisher in particular bands like this jones for when dreaming up their indie anthems, being one of them.
You know where you are with this song; soft verse displaced by big chorus and back again thingymajig. Hi-hat drum and keyboard tropes that hit a peak maybe ten years ago, but who wants to be lost and surprised anyway when you’re having such a swell time cracking out your best moves to it, wherever you are.
Links:
Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud
