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The Embrace front man-turned-DJ is just back from Ibiza, which he describes as ‘mental,’ one of 50 gigs he has been booked for in the last 6 months, not to mention running a club night in London. It’s a wonder how he has time for anything, let alone opening what he hopes will be an important stop for unsigned bands, club night The Aftershow.

"London’s such a rat race; you’ll go in a bar and it’ll be reserved for someone cool. I hate all that stuff. That’s why for The Aftershow, there’ll be no VIP treatment."

Come back to what you know

Having had huge success with his own band, McNamara now wants to help out the unsigned scene, though there will be some surprises.

Danny in his day job with Embrace

"I want to share my knowledge with new bands. Embrace have been together eight years and we’ve struggled in that time. The band understand what I’m doing now, I just want to help people out.

"We’ve got some big bands playing, but nothing we’re going to announce just yet - otherwise it’d be too full. It’s all really exciting.

"There’s going to be four spaces to party - every week’s going to be like a mini festival; we’ll have four bands in the main room, three in another and DJ’s. We want to attract arty people, musicians, hence the name Aftershow. We want bands to come down after their gigs and hang out."

The good will out

Selection for the shows is done by McNamara himself, a task that he’s found dizzying as the night has had "thousands contact us. I categorise them into different groups; I’ve listed 500 by genre and whether I like them or not."

So there you have it. Danny McNamara, a softly spoken, all round nice guy who’s about to make a huge impact on Manchester’s young hopefuls. If you can make it to the top of his list, that is.

The Aftershow opens at Sankeys on Thurs 13 Sept.