CENTRE STAGE ‘I wanted to a sound reaction come back because of my diagnosis the last time’
Congratulations are due this week to fast-rising Welsh band Chroma who this month play two of the UK’s biggest festivals.
A band who come into their own on the live stage they will grace the stages of the Reading and Leeds Festival on the Bank Holiday weekend, and when the band’s members heard last month, they fittingly all started screaming.
They will play the festival’s BBC Introducing stage in their first ever gigs outside of Wales, and the band’s drummer Zac Mather, said they found out when on the way back from the Royal Welsh Show, where they played the Young People’s Village.
He said: “We received an email that stopped all conversation immediately. I read the email from BBC Introducing aloud to Katie and Bev who we’re sat in the front of the van.
“They didn’t believe me until they read the email themselves. Everything just kind of stopped for a minute and we all started screaming. It still hasn’t really sunk in that we’re playing Reading and Leeds this year. It’s such an amazing opportunity for us and we’re so grateful to be given a chance to play at two of the biggest festivals in the UK.”
The news was announced on Monday evening on Huw Stephens’ Radio 1 show, and Zac added: “It’s been really difficult keeping it to ourselves as we’ve known for a couple of weeks now but we’re so excited to get out there and play both stages. This will be our first leap out of Wales and we’re well up for it.”
Inspired by bands like Mamozets, Biffy Clyro and Reuben, Zac, along with bandmates Liam Bevan and Katie Hall, are renowned for their fierce live performances. The band has played sold out shows in Cardiff, having also received support from BBC Radio Wales. And 2017 is turning out to be a great year for them, after they picked up the Best Breakthrough Act award at the Cardiff Music Awards in March.
Zac added: “To us as a band, we are ecstatic and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank every single person that has supported us over the past two years.
“Family, friends, promoters, venues, sound technicians, our producers (Sound Quake), the Forté Project, Horizons, John Rostron, John Morris, BBC Introducing and anybody else who has been involved with our band in any other shape or form.”
Congratulations are also due to Campfire Social, who are heading to Asia.
After a whirlwind year which has seen them make huge strides in the music industry with their Wellbeing EP, the Llangollen and Wrexham based five piece are now winning over new fans around the world, including South Korea, where they have been invited to perform a series of shows as selected international guest artists,during the major Asian music industry event, Zandari Festa, which takes place in Seoul in late September.
The opportunity materialised after a new partnership was struck between the Wrexham based FOCUS Wales festival and Seoul’s Zandari Festa, resulting in Campfire Social being selected to represent Wales at the Korean event in 2017. What’s your favourite moment or song in the show and why? I just love You Can’t Stop the Beat because it goes through so many different gear changes.
In rehearsals its known as Beat 1 Beat 2 and Beat 3 and as I said I like the way it just brings us all together that’s the point where everybody is together and I think its brilliant. What’s your all-time favourite musical? All the ones I’ve been in! Aside from those I did enjoy Motown, The Bodyguard, Les Misérables, and I cried watching Memphis and I absolutely loved Jersey Boys.
There were songs in there that I didn’t realise I knew were originated by the Jersey Boys. I was singing the whole way through. What inspired you to go into musical theatre? I was born and raised in the church.
There were a lot of times when we never had microphones, so we had to project, and so I grew up singing in a lot of big spaces – I think in some way, I’m drawn to them.
Sharon (Osbourne) told me that she was approached by the producers of Chicago the Musical when I was on X Factor in 2005 to come for an audition, so that was how I