Lanarkshire group KontroBand in regional final of Live and Unisgned

Feb 18 2010 by Chris Clements, Hamilton Advertiser

LANARKSHIRE rockers KontroBand have reached the regional final of this year’s Live and Unsigned competition.

As reported in last week’s ML3 Entertainment, the contest will take place at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on March 13, and contains a range of acts from all over Scotland.

The winners will be put through to the national final in Newcastle later in the year.

The judges include former manager of the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren, broadcaster Mark Goodier, ex-Atomic Kitten Liz McLarnon, Another Level singer Dane Bowers and Annie Nightingale, Radio 1’s longest-serving DJ.

KontroBand singer and guitarist Guy Hamilton (17) is looking forward to the contest.

The former Hamilton Grammar pupil said: “When we heard about the Live and Unsigned competition over the internet, we thought we’d give it a bash. We really had nothing to lose, and didn’t give too much thought to it.”

Guy and lead guitarist Bruce Mendes (20), of East Kilbride, met through the latter’s girlfriend and their music performance and production course at Motherwell College.

Both discovered their similar interests in music and decided to put a band together with drummer Lewis Orr (17), of Hamilton, and Lee Turnbull (21), a bassist from Glasgow.

Guy explained: “I’d been messing around in bands with Lewis for years at Hamilton Grammar, so I asked him to come on board, and Bruce knew the bassist Lee. Eventually we had a jam and it all gelled nicely.

“That was about six or seven months ago. We’ve worked hard since then, and have played about 30 gigs.

“We decided to jump right into the deep end. This way, it has helped us get a tight sound together really quickly.

“Bruce had written a few other songs with another group, and he brought them to us and we played them. Then we began to write our own material.

“In a couple of months, we had written about six or seven songs and we started to use them live as well.

“Basically we’ve been doing as much as we can to build the band, and we need as much experience as possible.”

KontroBand are currently putting together a self-funded tour, trying to build up the money to get it going. The venture is planned for June this year.

Guy said: “I’d say we started off as a really rock ‘n’ roll sound. We stripped everything back to basics – two guitars, one bass and drums. We don’t use any effects or anything like that.

“We’re really influenced by heavy blues and 70s music. I’d say that was our sound – bluesy rock ‘n’ roll.

“We’ve just also finished our debut EP, which has seven songs, and we hope to have it out on iTunes and available through Myspace and Spotify very shortly.”

KontroBand have two gigs lined up before the Live and Unsigned competition.

They will play the Barrowlands on February 27 and Rockers on March 4.

For more information visit www.myspace.com/kontroband