Bands

What type of music do you play?

"You could call it indie guitar music, but it's indie guitar music from people that have absorbed influences from a lot of different styles of music, film and popular culture and regurgitated them in a way that interests them – and there is always a slant towards pop music and the dynamics of modern pop/dance music.

"The music is a melting pot of different influences that everyone brings to the band from hard rock, funk, 80's and 90's punk/new wave, hip hop, house and 00's Australian and French electro. The only band that everyone in the band likes is Queens of the Stone Age but, obviously, we're nothing like them."

What’s the Suzuki Method story?

"We are from different areas of Salford. The band got together about four years ago from parties in Eccles when Glen used to have a flat there. We used to have a house full every weekend and be up all night getting leathered and listening to music.

"Then someone had a guitar and, a week later, there were two guitars and that was when Elliott and Ads started writing songs together.

"Soon after, the band was formed with no name and just Ads and El from the current line up. After about a year there was a change of personnel and we found Jake Ryder and Martin Cunliffe who were friends.

"The band started to practice at Blueprint Studios and get a lot of support from Tim Thomas and all the lads there. Around this time, Glen was brought in to add the synths and he suggested the name Suzuki Method.

"In late December 2007, after successful shows at In The City, Martin failed to show up for a video shoot and the band later found out that he had died over Christmas from a diabetes related illness. This was devastating.

"After a few weeks, it was agreed that it was only right that we carry on and a couple of months later, friend and fan of the band Mike Matthews joined to play bass.

"Since then, with the help of our part-time manager - and landlady of The Kings Arms - Jo Byrne, the band has been recording and playing all over Manchester and the North."

How are things going?

"At the moment, we are really loving what we are doing. The last few years have been a weird mix of ups and downs and people coming and going, but this year everyone has been focused and the band’s style of playing is really starting to emerge.

"Earlier in the year when Mike joined the band we started playing all the usual places around Manchester and were introduced to Tom Knott of Airtight Studios in Chorlton. We recorded a demo with him, which we then sent to everyone we could think of.

"On the back of the demo, a promoter in Scotland offered us a gig on the Main Stage at the Wickerman Festival. That was great; the week before we played to about 10 people at Dry Bar, then drove up to the festival and played to 15,000 people before The Fall and Max Romeo - KT Tunstall and Gary Numan headlined.

"Gary Numan also threatened to kill us with his robot henchmen if we went near his tour bus and Bez out of the Happy Mondays threatened to break Mike's arms if he played Purple Aki again.

"Since then, we went back into the studio and recorded some more tunes with Tom Knott that have been getting played all over the country and got us a bit of major label attention.

"In October, we got asked to play at the unveiling of the Salford Music Map at Salford Art Gallery, which was a big thing for us and it was great mingling with all the other art!

"At the moment, we are concentrating on making a record which we are maybe put out ourselves. There's been some talk about pressing vinyl, which we would love to do but we may have to do a few more gigs to get the money together."