麻豆社

Akeal have been on the local music scene for a couple of years, but one of the first times they were spotted by 麻豆社 Coventry & Warwickshire was at the 2008 Godiva Festival.

They were one of the lucky bands who got to the G Factor final and played the Spotlight tent on the Friday evening.

The lads are soon set to record their debut EP, but we have already played some of their music on 麻豆社 Coventry & Warwickshire Introducing.

Band of the Month for April

One of the standout tracks 鈥� which can be heard on their MySpace page 鈥� is Runaway. It has a really commercial sound and is very radio friendly. It even has a James Bond theme song vibe about it - who knows, maybe it could be picked up for a future film?!

The song certainly has a catchy chorus that could easily fit in at one of the big festivals - with the crowds singing and jumping along.

Crazy character

We asked the band how they met and got together to form Akeal. They told us:

鈥淕az, Matt and Sean all met at college, but the band has had a few line-up changes over the years. In early 2008, our manager introduced us to our guitarist Chris; at that point we scrapped most of our music and started the band from scratch.

鈥淎 guy called Akeal lived on our singer鈥檚 estate; he was a bit of a crazy character, so his name was always coming up in people鈥檚 stories. It got in our head and we didn鈥檛 want to have a clich茅 name, so Akeal stuck with us.鈥�

The band have scheduled most of April as studio time to record their debut EP. We discovered that they will be working with no ordinary producer and that the disc will be going international before it鈥檚 even released:

鈥淥ur mate Tom Clarke of The Enemy suggested we record with Matt Terry, who had previously worked on their first album and has just finished their new single, No Time for Tears.

Akeal

New York

鈥淚t鈥檚 our debut EP so we鈥檝e been worried about getting our sound across the way we hope, but after a long chat, we knew Matt was exactly what we needed. He has an amazing studio in a farm in Stratford, so we鈥檙e excited about what we will create.

鈥淭he EP is then going to get mixed in New York by a friend of ours called Matt Shane. He has won 2 Grammys for work he鈥檚 done with the cult group/TV show Flight of the Conchords, so were very honoured that he has agreed to work on the record.鈥�

Finally, we asked the band about their hopes for 2009:

鈥淛ust pushing forward! We鈥檙e going to do a UK tour in late May and then hit some of the festivals. We鈥檙e in talks with booking agents at the moment so we鈥檒l hopefully be getting on some tasty support slots over the summer.

鈥淚n early autumn we鈥檙e planning to record a single with Gavin Monaghan, who has worked with The Editors, Ian Brown and Kings of Leon, before wrapping up the year with another tour to promote the record.鈥�

To find out more about Akeal, visit their MySpace page by clicking on the link below:

How to get featured?

麻豆社 Coventry & Warwickshire's Band of the Month feature aims to showcase the best local musical talent.

If you think you and/or your band are worthy enough of a feature then get in contact with us.

Email the details to us here at 麻豆社 Coventry & Warwickshire - coventry@bbc.co.uk

Or use the postal address:

Martin Winch, 麻豆社 Coventry & Warwickshire, Priory Place, CV1 5SQ.

All we require is a short biography, a couple of decent quality colour images (in jpeg format) and a copy of your music.