El Camino

Meet El Camino, a band which doesn’t claim to have ALL the answers, but does resolve some very big questions.

Five young men with the ambition of reigniting and justifying your faith in the raw, life-affirming, emotional power of rock and roll.

A band who, in 2005, bring proof to several long standing dilemmas the best British rock bands have left behind:

Can a band sound genuinely, naturally transatlantic? Really have musical their roots in the landscapes of America and Britain?

Can a band deliver the visceral, heart-tugging roll of late 60s/ early 70s UK blues bands – and the emotional, head-thrilling rock of 90s stadium rock legends? And then sound essentially modern?

Can - in such cynical pop days as these - a band still change someone’s life through the simple power of their songs (if only til the CD ends)?

Let’s let them answer those questions.

First, the transatlantic question…

From The Beatles to The Killers, there has been a long and shared obsession with music from the other side of the Atlantic. El Camino has a musical youth in common with a long tradition of British bands - they grew up listening to a lot of American records. But one listen to their album and a difference is clear. There’s more than an influence or flavour – there’s a definite, genuine trans-Atlantic sound. “Having a North American singer helps,” explains Guy. “It means we do it without it feeling like we’re trying too hard. Tim’s voice holds our inspirations together. Our sound really comes out of our mouths.”

The band originates from West London. Self confessed middle class kids, with a shared love of the best in rock and soul. Guitarist Patrick Mascall had an especially long standing fascination with American music, paying several pilgrimages to “experience the landscape that inspired that music”.

Singer Tim, meanwhile, was born and living in Spirit River in Alberta, a backwater settlement in the middle of nowhere, part native-American (Cree Indian). Tim’s was a very different upbringing of alcohol, car body shops, and Hell’s Angels. From a deeply musical family, he had a fascination with all things British: The Smiths, The Kinks, The Who… He came to the UK to find a group in London, end of story.

Three years ago when the band advertised for a front man, a person to pull together their broadest ambitions, Tim was the first person to walk into the audition. El Camino: The best of both (parts of the) worlds.

Second, the classic and modern question…

Fate may have brought together El Camino’s musical ‘special relationship’ – the other meeting of their twin ambitions is no accident. The band have clear influences in classic, late sixties, early seventies rock and roll, music with blues and soul; in the attitude that made bands like The Stones or The Faces famous in clubs across London. They also have grand, wide-screen ambitions of the epic stadium sweep of U2, Radiohead or The Verve.

Personal and passionate. Expansive and atmospheric. El Camino wants to be both.

“We believe that hit records today can sound like classics. They can be modern, vital – and stand the test of time. That nothing is better than a great song,” says guitarist Patrick Mascall. It was this broad ambition – masquerading in the forms of a demo tape and Putney gig - that attracted the attentions of Mark Taylor of Metrophonic Productions. One of the top music producers in the world, and an inspiring force behind unlikely El Camino bed-fellows Daniel Bedingfield, Cher and Cristina Aguilera.

“We’re a traditional rock band, but we didn’t want to work with the bloke who produced the Eagles,” explains bassist Mike Potter. “We didn’t want to make a retro record.”

El Camino wanted to work with a producer at the forefront of the latest sounds and technology; someone who could deliver their sound: Classic, ambition and thoroughly modern. It works.

“It sounds honest,” adds Tim. “You can hear all the reference points in it, but it has the real contemporary edge we wanted brought to it. Not just fusing two diverse elements of rock’n’roll… You have something genuinely new.”

Third and last but not least…the great songs question…

With the band and sound in place, that just leaves us the small matter of their songs. Patrick, or “Patch” thinks he knows the secret: “We don’t want to make nice airy, fluff music, or write songs that won’t have an emotional impact on people. We make music that will make people think and feel something. Writing great music that moves people: that’s our overriding ambition and desire.”

“Our music should move you - it doesn’t have to make you sit down cry your heart out (though it should definitely do that at times) - it should never be background. Music should be felt and not just heard,” summarises keyboardist Andy Tinning.

This is music where a band make confessions they’d never reveal to their closest friends and family. “But we want those songs played to the biggest audi