The final of our articles on the finalists for the Battle of the Bands at The Eagle, we talk to Lionel.
Lionel are 3 piece Inverness band consisting of Sean Phlegming, Ross Haddow and Joshua Mackenzie. We first started hearing about them from positive word of mouth from their appearance at The Eagle’s open mic nights. The band are clearly just starting their journey, with their appearance at the heats being the first real gig. So it’s no surprise that they are currently creating and tweaking, or as they explain “At the moment we are mainly writing songs, chopping and changing to define a decent set”.
They are hoping for a repeat of the crowd reaction they have had previously for “Happy Soca Song”; “it has quite a catchy wee guitar hook in it that seems to grab everyone’s attention”. However they are working hard to develop new material and one of the songs “Over and Over” they can’t wait to see how it goes down, “it’s extremely heavy in comparison to our other stuff… Lots of weird fuzzy synth sounds and stuff”.The band have been sussing out the opposition describing Thousand Stars as having some good tunes and given their time on the scene are “expecting they’ll be a tight live band too”. They are also looking forward to hearing 76 Knots play again (they were on the same bill in the earlier heat)who they described as having and impressive live set and as being “pretty full on punk rock”.
They are keen to build on the recent momentum and haver another couple of gigs lined up, “we are in the process of trying to get as many gigs as possible!… we will record some kind of e.p, just to have something for people to listen to”.
Lionel play the Battle of the Bands on the 10th of October, Oxjam at Hootananny on the 12th of October and Hootananny on the 26th of November.
You can read articles on fellow finalists Thousand Stars and 76 Knots.
Thanks to Adrian Young for allowing us to use his photo.
