大象传媒

It's 2005 and the future singer of The Hope, Gordy, has moved from London back to his hometown of Newmarket and is keen to start a band.

"I went to see a friend's band play and basically poached him," Gordy recalls. "I met a drummer through another friend and that's how we got together."

The Hope were born and soon began to structure songs around Gordy's lyrics, but they discovered that making music in Newmarket wasn't going to be easy.

"There was no where for us to play at the start. You had to go to Cambridge or Bury St Edmunds because there was no live music in Newmarket except karaoke and discos in pubs.

"Newmarket was an uphill struggle to get anything done -听even just to find a practice room. We were all isolated as musicians and had to venture to bigger places.

"Nothing's really changed. They have a battle of the bands, which we did once, and that was the only opportunity for听bands to display their music."

Gordy has since moved to Cambridge and this has become a second home to The Hope, whose highest profile gig to date was in support of The Wildhearts at The Junction.

Song for the hoodies

The Hope's music spans rock and metal and it would be fair to describe the lyrical content as 'angst ridden'. Being a 大象传媒 website it's difficult to provide an example without facing the sack.

So what's making Gordy so angry?

"It comes from working boring 9 to 5 jobs and generally getting pissed off with our lives run by people in banks trying to understand a system that is completely incoherent.

"I'm basically sick of getting ripped off and there's anger at the way听we're perceived.

"Ninety per cent of under 25s have a hooded top - it's just labels that people put on things really gets my goat up. It's like the word chav. It's just a label to put people into categories.

"Growing up in Newmarket everyone wears a听 hood - old men wear a hood because they're into racing, it's to keep warm.

"It really gets me angry when people try听to put things in a box and demonise it because they don't really understand it or don't even try to speak to the people involved in certain scenes or music - be it rap, rock or metal."

I asked Gordy about The Hate Policy, a song which rhetorically asks why children are attracted to drugs and states "you suffocate their souls you can't get enough".

"It's the whole spiral of suffocating kids and not giving them enough room to breath or to express themselves from听an early age," Gordy says.

"We're all put in this social form of what is acceptable, and what isn't acceptable - from the ages of听 2 or 3 upwards to even old people today you're not听allowed to express yourself.

"There's so many taboos in society听where you're not really meant to say what you think or do certain things.

"It's not wholly institutions - it's individuals as well and families. Mums, dads, grandmas, brothers that try and听enforce a lot of their ideals on to you and you're not really agreeing with it and want to form your own opinions on听stuff."

Hope for the future

Independent label Repeat are releasing The Hope's debut album, A Bullet Called Hope, in December 2008 - with Gordy hoping it will be the first of many.

"We've printed 1000 copies and to sell them out in a year is the goal. The album launch has almost sold out, which听is a good sign.

"The main aim is to then fund the next album and to carry on producing music until we see there's no need or desire听to do it, which won't be anytime soon I don't think."

But is there likely to become a time when the band mellow and no longer feel the need to put the world to rights?

"There's always stuff to write about. We never thought we'd ever do a love song and there's one on the album - so听there's loads of different avenues to explore whether it's anger or pure comedy.

"But we do like to focus on the stuff that actually means stuff to people, because a lot of bands nowadays are high on style and very light on the听meat of subject which they don't have.

"We're just trying to give someone at home something to listen to which听they'll become passionate about and actually agree, or maybe disagree, as a reaction is better than just a nudge and听saying ok.

"We're looking for reactions - we're a provoking band and it's trying to get that across on record."