Leona

"The first wad of songs was hard hitting melodic rock which, if you knew the words would keep you singing for hours on end, big hard crunchy guitars with angry but melodic vocal melodies followed by a bass player which it looked like his fingers didnt stop moving for a while, you could tell the band had thought long and hard about their set and had made it tight, the band had got me intrigued." Leona are a hard/melodic/prog rock band forming from the NE of England. Forming late November 2003, the band are already on the road and bringing you the sounds of the future,

Leona are a new up coming rock band from the north east of England. The band was formed in the late stages of 2003 and the band immediately started work on original material. The band was first formed when Andy ('Blue Mist', '*Banned*') phoned up each individual person and asked them if they wanted to form an original rock band. With a lot of persuasion and long talks all of the members, they decided to form Leona. The first Person Andy asked was his friend/HND colleague at the John Marley center Philip Bell. As they were put in a band at University, the noticed that they had a lot in common with one and other. They decided to form a 3 piece band with Phil on drums and percussion, Andy on Guitar/vocals and Piano and a bass player to help out. But yet Phil and Andy hadnt found a bass player, until Stephen Bagnall. Andy and Stephen (stronger than death) were friends before Leona were formed, but never came into Andys head until they had a night of drinking whiskey at the flat. Where Andy was talking about Leona and how they were looking for a bass player to fill the lineup. Stephen put his name straight forward and the lineup for Leona was sorted. The band went in to practice straight away, with rehearsals going well and the band being tight as they could be, they all knew what this could turn out to be. The music became more important and social lives became a thing of the past. The band knew what they wanted and werent afraid to put time in to get it. After some stiff rehearsals and some good songs written, the band went in to the studio. It was a weird feeling to be in a band for about 7 weeks and the week after recording in a studio, it just seemed so unreal. I dont know why as it is a good thing, I just feel as if we have missed something Andy Hanlon on the life of Leona As the band got the studio booked; they got in record producers Tim Croft and Owain Bennett to help with production of the E.P. In the first session there the band got the drums and guitars down for all for tracks of the 4 songs that are to appear on there. The four songs are time will tell, Coming down, Dreams and take it all in. With the session being a good one and the band being comfortable, the studio seemed like a nice place to be. A lot of the work on the E.P. was done by the band as Tim and Owain could not make the sessions every week. But whilst the band had the basic structure of all the songs down, it was time to add the essential bits to the songs to make them complete. Including pitch shifters, Harmonicas and church organs as some of the few examples to the tracks, the songs started to sound professional. This is when Tim and Owain became most important to the band as soon it was time to master the sounds of the first E.P. As the band then had a week off from the recording studio due to it being fully booked, the band went back to rehearsing. The rehearsal was tight, strong and powerful as the band had worked so hard on the songs that they were playing. They knew then that soon they would have to hit the road with other original bands and see how their music is seen by the public. I think we will go down well in some places, some places might think that we are the worst thing that they have ever seen, but the fact of the matter is that we are doing something that we like and what we want to live for. I would play any where to have that opportunity! We will just have to wait to play live now The first sign of playing live, (November 2003). As the band has said they will launch their bands career in the beginning of January, it is looking more promising and the band seems some what confident in their rehearsals. The songs now sound more complete and structured and the material they have looks to be in the professional status, it was time to hit the road.

mostly at the moment in newcastle and it is really good at the moment, getting followers is always a good thing really

Muse,the foo fighters, the used, tool, primus, coldplay, rage against the machine, the list could go on