Music

Meet the A Shot at Discovery finalists: Sheffield

Meet the Sheffield finalists for The Pogues Irish Whiskey Presents: A Shot at Discovery ahead of the regional heats.

The Pogues Irish Whiskey have teamed up with Academy Music Group, the people behind all of those iconic live music venues across the UK, to award one unsigned band with a huge prize. The national winner will enjoy £3000 towards new instruments, studio time with The Pogues as guest producers, live opportunities and management services, plus much more.

With the regional finals kicking off on Sunday 5 March, we’ll be bringing you an introduction to each of the bands scheduled to play.

See all of our A Shot at Discovery coverage here.

Here are the Sheffield finalists, who will take to the O2 Academy 2 on Saturday 11 March. You can grab tickets here.


Femur

FEMUR - Spook (Live Session at Yellow Arch)

Describe your sound and how you formed.
Grunge, post punk, psychedelia, shoegaze enthused with a heavy atmosphere is what Femur can be best described as. The creepy ambience compliments the contrasting aggressive stage performance that Femur exhibit.

Femur formed three years ago through the website Join My Band, a band dating site if you will. There has been a few line up changes that have contributed to the sound changing significantly through the past year. Conclusively this has led the band to grow progressively darker.

Why should fans check you out?
We are collectively broke and in dire need of money for sustenance . Let us be your karma vending machine.


Graces

Being described as, ‘One of the best new bands coming out of the U.K’ by Custom Made Music is only one great comment in a torrent of praises about four-piece band, Graces. As the brainchild of songwriter Steve Harrison, Graces have toured with the likes of Funeral for a Friend, The Xcerts and Blitz Kids. The band’s brand new sound and vision, a change they made late in 2015, was a product of their work with producer Phil Gomell – also known for his work with Bring Me The Horizon, Feed The Rhino, and All Time Low.


Sibroquet

Describe your sound and how you formed.
Sobriquet’s vast array of influences can be heard throughout their discography. Blending the abrasive, heavy riffs and densely layered guitar textures of metal with the passion & energy of punk vocals and the catchy, soaring melodies of pop music, this is music to mosh to that will be stuck in your head for days after hearing it.

Originally a bedroom project formed by three friends at Sheffield University in 2014, the band underwent several line-up changes throughout their evolution as a live band playing venues across the north of England to become the 5-piece you see before you today.

Why should fans check you out?
Because we’re writing unique and original music, aspiring to put the UK on the map of a predominantly US-dominated post-hardcore scene.


Home Wrecked

Home Wrecked - Never Say Never (Official Video)

Describe your sound and how you formed.
We are a progressive pop punk band singing songs about day to day struggles, relationships, anxiety and self destruction. Our lyrics are real, our chugs are sharp and our drums are kicking making a raw but tight sound. We formed in the summer of 2016 when ex members of numerous bands came together to start Home Wrecked.

Why should fans check you out?
For our true and real lyrics, our lively sound and ability to get the crowd moving. We’re not like a typical pop-punk band, we’re broad Yorkshire Pop-Punk with an interesting and lively character wanting to reach further into the music industry by writing new content and pushing ourselves into more and more gigs. We’ve never wanted anything more.


Steel Trees

Steel Trees 'Womb Raider'

Describe your sound and how you formed.
Sounds like the awesome feeling of eating a KFC after a really bad hangover thats fucked you over for 2 days straight. Also. Grunge.

We met in the dole queue at Goldthorpe Job Centre.

Why should fans check you out?
Cos we are no bollocks rock n roll band full 9f feedback and enough shit to shake your tits at.


The Blewes

Describe your sound and how you formed.
We’re a funky/punky sound influenced by Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, Iggy Pop and Drenge. The original line up was formed by Shaun, Joe and Tom. Joe and Tom are brothers and Shaun their cousin. However Tom left to start a family and Dom a childhood friend took his place on drums.

Why should fans check you out?
Because we make good music and keep it original. More importantly we keep it fun.


The Velcro Teddy Bears

The Velcro Teddy Bears - That's What Makes You Right

Describe you sound and how you formed.
It started back in 2009 when me and Chaddy began jamming some songs as a duo, and laid about 10 tracks down in a weekend whilst he was at University in Oxford Brookes. After Uni I lived in Huddersfield for a year where we practised pretty much every day, pissed off the neighbours, and took our songs on the road as an acoustic duo. When I returned to Sheffield as a student we began gigging the local scene.

We then realised the added benefit of having a percussion player so asked Craig if he had any drum contacts, and he suggested Mikey. We rang him up, asked him if he reckoned he could play the Cajon box, he said yes, and we kidnapped him and took him to a gig in Milton Keynes. He currently has Stockholm Syndrome and hasn’t left since.

Enter Josh, my brother, on bass guitar after a jam session on day and the 4 piece we are today was formed. We gigged as an acoustic band for about 2 years, recording an EP and winning Yorkshire Unplugged along the way.

Finding gigs as an acoustic band can be hard, and people don’t take you as seriously as they would an electric band, so the progression to electric came somewhat naturally, although we still retained our acoustic roots. We began gigging some new material and some converted from acoustic tracks, leading us to win best single in the Barnsley Music Awards with Summer Breeze, along with the help of our manger Neil Clarke who really gave us a jump up the ladder with organising gigs out of town town, looking after daily dealings with promoters etc and giving us room to concentrate on our music.

We describe ourselves as Northern Fried Rock and Roll, with influences from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Led Zeppelin and our love of classic rock with a lot of heart and soul is apparent.

Why should fans check you out?
As we play proper music that challenges the non existent ethos of todays ‘musicians’ that flood the charts with tripe and heartless warbling.


Find out more about the Pogues Irish Whiskey: A Shot At Discovery competition over on the Academy Music Group website.

Grab tickets to all of the A Shot At Discovery regional finals through our friends over at TicketWeb.