Catching fire

Colour Of Fire release their debut album, Pearl Necklace, on Monday but will not rest on their laurels.

The York band are tipped to be the city's most prominent rock export since Shed Seven, with television exposure on MTV2 and Scuzz and radio sessions on Ian Camfield and Claire Sturgess's show on XFM and The Radio One Rock Show, and they are determined to move onwards and upwards.

Listen to Owen Richards, the band's Manchester-born guitarist, pianist and co-vocalist. "It was the same with The Beatles and the Stones, though no way am I comparing us to them, but you learn as you play. The album is a document of us putting down on record what we'd done at that stage, and now the songs have grown again on the live stage.

"Where do we want to be this time next year? We want to have songs ready that will be a great improvement on this album. Our aim with this one is to be able to sell enough to make another one and create an impression among our peers. We want to attract mainstream play rather than just indie elitists. It would be nice to move up a league and compete with the real players."

Stuart Jones, his fellow vocalist, guitarist and piano player from York, concurs: "It's all about being able to move on and live the dream," he says, with mock American emphasis.

"We formed in 2001, and since last year we've been doing it full time. With this band it was like, we've done bands for years that came close but this time it's our definite aim to really go for it."

Owen takes up the point. "The difference between this group and the ones we've been in before is that we're very organised; we wrote the songs, we did the demos and sent them to everyone we could think of. Mary Anne Hobbs played our Robot Rock demo on her Radio One show the day after it came through her letterbox and you can't ask for more instant recognition than that," he says.

"It's also helped that there's never been one of us commandeering the group. Writing, administration, artwork: we've allocated it and shared it out."

Owen, formerly of Inertia, and Stuart, former frontman of 1998 Fibbers/Evening Press Battle of the Bands winners Cognac, are the songwriters. New Zealand-born bassist Thomas Craigen puts his days with Here magazine to good use in publicity and administration, and Knaresborough drummer Matt Lunn... well, he drums.

They come across as a highly democratic bunch. "The sound we have came about as a natural thing. We just blended together, and we have that dual vocal thing that's our most recognisable feature," says Stuart.

"When we started we had individual styles of writing but gradually we've influenced each other so that we write with similar chords. Maybe with the next record, you could say 'that's Colour Of Fire' straightaway, whereas there's a lot of different styles on Pearl Necklace."

The band chose Placebo producer Steve Osborne to produce the record, and it proved an interesting choice. He watched the band at Fibbers and in rehearsal... "but then the whole cabin fever thing set in once we were in the studio," says Owen. "He had given up smoking for six months before we worked with him and he was up to 30 a day when we said we preferred the rough mixes!"

It was ever so in rock'n'roll, and Colour Of Fire are loving it and living it. Owen is on crutches, courtesy of a self-inflicted stage injury at the Vienne Amphitheatre in France. He had picked up his amp and kicked it. "It was delicious! I broke two toes, and I didn't get to see a doctor for five days, but Brian Molko, from Placebo, put a big bandage on it, and when I asked for a crutch, they brought the whole ambulance crew."

Fiery, colourful, this is the Colour Of Fire.

Colour Of Fire launch Pearl Necklace at The Junction, Leeman Road, York, on Tuesday. Doors open at 7.30pm; admission to this all ages show is £5 or £4 with a copy of the album. Support acts will be Lynchpin, Thom Mills.

Pearl Necklace will be released on Monday on Riverman Music. The band will do a record signing session at HMV that day, probably at 5pm.

Colour Of Fire's latest session for The Radio One Rock Show will be aired at 1am on August 11.

Updated: 16:14 Thursday, August 05, 2004