大象传媒

Line-up:
Lee Hull - guitar and lead vocals
Callum Hull - lead guitar and keyboards
Anthony Andrews - bass
Steven Marsh - drums and keyboards

The band formed in 2007 following a meeting between Lee and Anthony at a 21st birthday party. They tried out playing in other bands first, but once the current line-up was settled on in the summer they chose the name Solstice because of the time of year at one of their practises.

Lee, who's 21, recruited his 16 year old brother Callum: "Before him we had another fellow in the band, but he left for his own reasons.

"He was very new on the guitar when we started, but now he's filled the role brilliantly. He's a better guitarist than me even though he's been playing for less time than me."

Drummer Steven Marsh was then spotted in a school production at Castle Manor in Haverhill and recruited immediately completing the Solstice line-up.

The band isn't looking to anything too left-field: "I think our influences go right through from Keane, Travis, Coldplay - all those sorts of bands," said Lee.

"We've a very melodic sort of indie band and people who see us tend to listen and appreciate it. There's the occasional song where people might go mad, but in our hometown we get the audience singing back to us and we do try and interact from the stage."

Live in Haverhill

The band has a short, sharp and, indeed, melodic indie style and seem keen on adding non-indie sounds, such as the 'celestial' chiming guitars at the start of I Don't Want To Do This On My Own. Given their aim to to avoid sounding too metal, the music doesn't have the abrasive edge of indie giants such as Nirvana or Pixies.

"What we want to achieve is what every other band wants to - do the music, meet new people along the way, have a really good time and one day sell millions of records." said Lee.

In 2008, Solstice won the Haverhill Rock Competition which took place at the town's Arts Centre:

"We won our heat and got through to the final by an audience and judges' vote. In the final I got an award for best frontman and we won the audience vote. But by then we thought 'that must mean we've lost it', because the judges' vote was the one that mattered in the final.

"But then our name was shouted out and everyone just went mental!"

The Haverhill scene

Aside from the Rock Competition, Lee feels the town is lacking venues to play: "One of our aims when we started was that, because Haverhill was such a heavy/death metal scene, we wanted to change it a bit.

"We've played an under-18s night at a local pub, The Vixen, because there are no decent venues in town that let under-18s in to see us. The scene here is very limited but we do like these special nights.

"I had these two indie girls come up to me and say they wanted to start an acoustic band and support us, which was nice for us because it showed others want to go in a different direction.

"Not that I'm dissing other genres, because they're all talented in their own way, but you do hear it day-in, day-out at every rock competition.

"There's a lot of bands that form and break-up, whereas we're one of the few that have kept together and stuck at it."

Despite the Arts Centre hosting the Rock Comp and offering a gig to the winners, he feels it isn't the right venue for local bands: "They've recently built a cinema, but there's really nowhere for live music.

"The Arts Centre does gigs for bands that are a bit well known and are going to bring the money in - such as The Hamsters - but there's not really anything there for the youngsters really.

"We do play in Cambridge and we have played in Norwich, but it's hard to get people there.

The band has three self-produced EPs out Equinox, Shadows Of Light and Dusk Til Dawn (from which both tracks on this page are from). They'll be going into the Orchard Cottage studios at Willingham near Cambridge to record a full album.

"We're hoping to spend a lot of time and money. We all work apart from the 16 year olds who're still at school so we're all paying a lot of money into the band.

"We don't get a lot [financially] back from it, but because it's such a big passion in life, we don't mind giving it the extra hard work. If it's something you want to do, you've just got to do it, haven't you?"

Keeping it in the family

As well as the two brothers and their cousin Anthony Andrews, the band is managed by the Hulls' dad Andrew Pugh.

Lee said the band has rules which they all have to follow: "It sounds quite silly, but if something like a festival comes along, we make sure we're all free and it's kept us together really.

"If one likes a song and the rest don't, we just go by the rules and all get along.

"At the last band practise we all decided we'd really start venturing further afield now - to places like London and Manchester.

"We've also recently entered the BurySOUND 2008 competition and we're in one of the heats.

"We don't try and hide behind masks, we don't like to be perceived as anything else but ourselves. If we mess up on stage, we try and joke about it."

And the band is ambitious. The song I'm Getting Out Of Here is about leaving Haverhill although Lee said it's not about slating the town: "I don't hate where I come from. It's more of a band song that we wrote when we were feeling good about ourselves.

"It's more about leaving the town singing na-na-na-na-na and enjoying ourselves."