Stornoway

Stornoway are an alternative-pop band from Oxford, UK, consisting of two groups of brothers and another non-related member. First forming in a snow encrusted garage in early 2006, Brian Briggs (vocals/acoustic guitar), Jonathan Ouin (keys/banjo/electric guitar/cello) Rob Steadman (drums), Oliver Steadman (bass/electric guitar) and Adam Briggs (trumpet), write melodic folktinged pop.

Brian met Jon at university in Oxford; Brian's first words to him were 'Do you like Teenage Fanclub?'. They jammed regularly in Wolfson College dining hall, a grand oak-lined room with a grand piano and beautiful acoustics, and first performed in the annual Wolfson Talent Contest, coming second to a group of Norse singers and winning a giant bowl of fruit. They started to record demo's in bedrooms, recording all parts themselves, and making drumkitsout of what was around (e.g. desks and water bottles). For bass they downtuned an acoustic guitar. This kind of approach has since continued in later recordings, e.g. buying all the crockery in Age Concern and recording its mass destruction for a song called Beachcomber's Windowsill; recording carrots being chopped + Rob's footsteps + sawing wood for the drums & percussion on Here Comes the Blackout; etc. Brian and Jon advertised for bassist and drummer and Oliver Steadman replied saying “Dear Sir, I would very much like to be considered for the position of…” He said he was at Magdelen College, Oxford, and they didn't find out for over a year (when he went off to study at Warwick Uni) that he had actually been at Magdelen College SCHOOL all along. Turns out Ollie thought he'd be turned
down if they thought he was still at school! Apparently he brought a screwdriver to the audition in case they were actually planning to murder him.

The first gig with Ollie was at the Oxford 'Catweazle Club', on a bill including a half-naked mandolin player, St Lucian storyteller, and a beat-poet priest. Ollie had to ask the audience for a Philips screwdriver to fix his bass, which was gratefully received (Incredibly they were outdone by the subsequent act who had equal success in requesting a replacement hurdy-gurdy). They only had time for 2 songs in the end. Ollie's brother Rob completed the core line-up about 6 months later, after disastrous auditions with seven other drummers. They'd originally decided against auditioning Rob because of his age (15 at the time), but eventually Ollie persuaded Brian and Jon to let him come round, and he played the songs like he'd known them all his life (and he brought a heater to their snow-covered garage which helped seal the deal). The garage had neither heat or sound insulation of any kind and the neighbours came around pretty much every practice and talked to the band through the garage door. This experience may have helped to shape the band's acoustic sound!

Once the line up was up to 4 (Brian, Jon, Ollie, Rob) the band settled on a name after many nights pouring through nautical almanacs and charts. Brian has subsequently tried to reach Stornoway by sailing boat but was forced back by gales. As of this time, none of the band have been to their Hebridean namesake.

The band started to play gigs regularly in Oxford. They had no experience and were absolutely petrified, and in the summer of 2006 they played 7 gigs in Oxford within two weeks, and unsurprisingly attendances were awful. On the last gig of the series the other bands didn't turn up and they played to an audience of two people, one of whom turned out to be Tim Bearder of BBC Oxford. Somehow the experience didn't put him off and shortly afterwards he devoted an entire hour of his breakfast show to Stornoway demos and interviews. He barricaded himself into the BBC Oxford studio and got suspended for two days as a consequence!
They were first played on Radio 1 by Colin Murray during a gig at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, via texts to the audience. They still get scared when playing live - all of the band are naturally shy, with the possible exception of Brian's brother Adam, who joined the band at the start of 2007, playing trumpet on certain songs (he plays the same trumpet as was used in the recording of Portishead 'Dummy').

This shyness partly explains the relative lateness of Brian getting into the world of rock'n'roll - he only started to write songs at university, where the best performance he could manage was to play to his girlfriend, who was forced to look the other way while he faced the corner of the room. Also, Brian and Adam's Irish parents are fairly traditional, and were keen for them to have secure career paths. The latest regular addition to live performances has been violinist Rahul Satija, who has also led the Oxford University Orchestra. They met Rahul at a private gig at Balliol College where he asked if he could join in on one of the songs (Unfaithful), and they were all blown away by his ability.

The band use quite a lot of instruments onstage - especially Jon, who plays (amongst other things) Banjo, Cello, Keyboards, Lead guitar, and backing vocals. They usually record at home on an 8- track digital recorder, using the recording process as a creative opportunity to try different instruments and arrangements, generally preferring to working at their own (snails) pace, rather than with a producer in a studio.

This year, Stornoway have headlined the BBC Introducing Stage at Radio One's Big Weekend. They won a place for Glastonbury Festival 09 via an Emerging Bands competition and were subsequently been booked to play an unprecedented four different stages at the event. The debut single 'Zorbing', released in June 2009, is a joyful brass-driven pop song which refers metaphorically to the New Zealand extreme sport and has received airtime on BBC Radio 1, 2, and 6. At press Stornoway have received accolades from The Telegraph, Independent, Q Magazine and the Guardian has officially named them their new favourite band. Stornoway have already gained a reputation for being slightly more educated than your average band; one of their number has a PhD in Duck ecology, another is a real doctor, and another holds a masters degree in Russian literature. Their extracurricular interests include hiking trips, tandem cycling, power-kiting, nature-watching and something called hackisack.

Stornoway on Film