There's nothing wrong with a little escapism

...but it's a slightly more valid lifestyle choice if that light at the end of the tunnel led somewhere that wasn't just the ugly glare of another Monday morning, and as anyone familiar with life here in the real world knows, that just isn't happening.

When the world lets you down, when your government doesn’t speak on your behalf, when your town is all dead ends and dying dreams, there’s always music. That’s the message of ‘House Of Commons’, the debut album from White Light Parade. Formed a few years back in Bradford, West Yorkshire, White Light Parade – aka singer/guitarist Danny Yates, his brother and co-songwriter Jono on vocals and second guitar, bassist Tom Emmett, and drummer Nici Todd – are all about belief… the sort of belief that’s fostered by setbacks and knock backs, the sort of belief you build because, well, what’s the alternative? The album title is a political one, but don’t mistake this as a respectful tip of the hat to our elected leaders. “The front cover is a Bradford council house,” explains Danny.



“It’s just a reflection of our surroundings. A lot of bands out there right now are singing about nothing, but that’s never appealed to us. What with how things are right now, with the recession going on, we really want to talk about real life. Those people who are going through the same struggles, the people who can’t find work – we want to reach out to them.”

And ‘House Of Commons’ is the sort of album you can easily see uniting a small army of believers. Recorded in Devon with Pete Miles, an up-and-coming producer most recently seen on the knobs for the King Blues’ debut album ‘Save The World, Get The Girl’, it’s a debut album that sees White Light Parade’s more familiar early touchstones – the snarling three-chord anger of the Pistols, the anthemic choruses of Oasis and the vintage melodies of The Kinks – softened and broadened. New single ‘Wake Up’ is the band’s brightest, most beautiful moment to date, a sunny blast of optimism that should blow out the cobwebs – but for a real surprise, check out the dub remix. “It’s just a natural thing for us,” explains Danny. “We’ve been into reggae and ska for ages - we started listening to punk bands, but you hear how they’d breathed in reggae, how it had become part of them, and soon you’re hunting down their influences, buying music by Bob Marley and Junior Marvin…”

New single ‘Wake Up’ is the latest in a string of singles that have seen White Light Parade speeding towards the mainstream. First, there was debut single ‘Wait For The Weekend’, which was favourably compared to Hard-Fi in the Guardian Guide (“rather more poetry and passion than Staines' finest...”), sauntered onto XFM playlists up and down the country, and scored White Light Parade support slots with the likes of The View and The Enemy. Next, follow-up single ‘Turning All The Lights Down’, a ‘Caught By The Fuzz’-style blast of petty teenage law-breaking and grown-up penitence, crashed into the indie Top 10 following plays from Radio 1’s Huw Stephens. Even more surreally, the band were contacted over MySpace by Rockstar Games, who signed the track’s rowdy, Clash-tinged B-side ‘Riot In The City’ up for the soundtrack to the mega-selling Grand Theft Auto IV - just log onto YouTube and you can hear the track soundtracking all manner of car-jackings and police shoot-outs.

Which, in a roundabout way, sounds a lot like home. “Where we live, there’s a lot of gun crime, a lot of ASBOs,” says Danny, gravely. “You’ll pick up the paper and see some youth who’s been shot or stabbed.” While White Light Parade’s hometown might be no idyll, though, it’s still home – and that’s something to be proud of. “Three of us in the band grew up in Bradford, and that’s really become our homebase. There’s indie nights starting there, and people are starting to flock.” But while nearby Leeds might be getting all the press attention, White Light Parade aren’t in the habit of bandwagon jumping. “In a way, we don’t want to be the tenth band from Leeds," explains Danny. "We want to be the first band from Bradford.
You know what I mean?”

Links
White Light Parade MySpace website

Wait for the Weekend
released on January 21st, 2008.

'Wait for the Weekend', as the name suggests, is about the chains of 9-to-5 drudgery. The song forms a frenzied assault on the Establishment, a clarion call to call centre slaves and shop staff everywhere giving the signal to get out there and live a little. B-side 'Riot in the City' which was featured in a Nissan advertisement and an Adidas commissioned film about Chelsea Football Club, tackles political struggles.

Vocalist, guitarist, bandleader and dynamic front man Danny, brother and guitarist Jono, bassist Tom and drummer Nici complete White Light Parade's lineup. Danny knocked around the Leeds scene for years, playing with all manner of bands notching up supports including Kasabian, Keane and The Kaiser Chiefs, yet he never quite felt like he had found his calling.

Last year, 1965 Records invited the band down to London to support The View just before 'Wasted Little DJs' hit the charts. Earlier this year, they supported Switches all over the country (outselling them at the merch table!)

and a support slot up in Stockton caught the ear of headliners The Enemy. As well as gleaning radio play from BBC Radio Leeds, XFM Manchester and BBC Raw Talent the band has also been given the nod of approval from the likes of Virgin Radio's very own Christian O'Connell following a breakfast time broadcast of 'Riot in the City'.

A real highlight for the band came in September this year when they supported none other than seminal punk/mod band The Jam and Brit Pop pioneers The Bluetones at Bingley Music Live.