Fuel For Fires

The Beginning

‘The Flys’ started in February 2008 with only two members – Sean Parker and Dale Stanford. Our music was very raw. Dale found a drum kit in the free ads and then it began. Dale had only played the drums a few times before we got together. I had never sung in front of more than one person, so it has been a steep learning curve.

After a few months we were ready to play in front of a handful of people. Russell McMillan was one of them – he would watch us jam almost every week. He had had a guitar since Christmas and decided to learn some riffs. Over the next few weeks Russ would come back with the riffs he had learnt and then he joined the band. This meant ‘The Flys’ had become a three piece band.

Everything was going well but we were still missing a bass player. A few people came along but no one was consistent, so the search went on. Later in the year Jay (Jason Mandley) turned up wanting to play. I borrowed a bass from a friend and we were off. Jay had played the guitar before so the change over wasn’t too hard.

With the line up sorted ‘The Flys’ became ‘Fuel for Fires’ overnight.

After about six months we had played two gigs, one at our rehearsal space in front of approximately 40 people, and the other was our first paid performance which was in front of about 130 people. The videos of that night are now on YouTube.

Since then we have pushed ourselves to sharpen our performance and write new material. We have played publicly three more times. The first was a short set at the Steamboat Tavern in Ipswich. Though we only had a short time slot, we tried to fit in as many songs as possible in the time, and it went down well.

The next gig was at The Bristol Arms in Shotley. We were told there were about 120 people there. We had a great response from the crowd and have been asked to play there again in the near future. (Check out the gig dates in the My Space page).

The latest gig was at the Shotley Beer and Boat Festival hosted by The Shipwreck Bar at Shotley Marina. This was our first outdoor gig and definitely won’t be the last! We managed to pull one of the largest crowds of the week and the large age range of people interested in the band pleasantly surprised us. I’d like to say thank you to everyone, the feedback and support was great and very humbling. We have been asked to play again, and we will be. (Dates on My Space).