The Cold One Hundred

When it comes to plotting rock ’n’ roll success, there’s a lot to be said for good timing. For Manchester band The Cold One Hundred, however, the very opposite appears to be true.

When the indie five-piece formed just over a year ago, there were few – if even any – signs of positive encouragement. Which is exactly how they wanted it.

“I think the past couple of years have been terrible for guitar bands wanting proper success,” announces the group’s bass player Jakob Walker, over beers in a Northern Quarter bar.

“I think this band formed because of that adversity. It’s like the general public think all guitar music is awful – so we’re like, ‘We’ll show you how good guitar bands can be’.

“It spurred us on. We have absolute belief in our songs – which is something you haven’t been able to say about guitar bands for a long time. The musical climate might be against us, but good pop music is timeless, and we’re hoping to prove that.”

Such statements bear testament to The Cold One Hundred’s resolutely out-of-step stance with the 2011 rock ’n’ roll universe.

Named after a Peter Green (of Fleetwood Mac) solo album, The Cold One Hundred’s rise over the back half of 2010 has felt as old-fashioned and pre-blog as their manner.

Arriving seemingly fully-formed and armed with a clutch of full-blooded romantic pop anthems, the Manchester five-piece suggest wilful incarceration in a 1980s student bedsit, laden with Echo & The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes and – most audibly – Smiths seven-inchers.

Certainly, from the group’s dandy-ish appearances (skinny front-man Amory Neish-Melling resembles a character from Brideshead Revisited restyled by Interpol) to guitarist Josh Harper’s admission that, “I’ve only just downloaded iTunes on to my computer”, there’s no escaping the sense that The Cold One Hundred are playing to a pre-digital era romanticised English pop type.

And while they won’t deny such such old-school convictions, The Cold One Hundred are equally keen to stress the abundant humour in their arch pop shtick. It’s something any true Morrissey fan – and the band are certainly that – should know.

“I think there’s a danger in all Smiths-influenced bands being tarred with this po-faced, miserablist image,” defends Neish-Melling.

“We’ve never wanted to be seen as this intellectual pop band who are snobbish towards audiences. We’re a pop band, foremost.

“Some of our reviews have categorised us as this Smiths-ey, arch band but, if anything, we satirise the doom and gloom of that image. Some of my lyrics do satirise those sorts of characters – intellectuals drinking and smoking in their attics, looking down on people. There’s a humour there.

“Morrissey did that better than anyone; he could be pretentious and full of literary references, but there was irony in it as well.”

With members spread across Lancashire before all relocating to Salford (where they study at university), The Cold One Hundred first took shape when lead guitarist Jacob Ward and singer/lyricist Neish-Melling started bunking off lectures to write songs, eventually roping in Harper, Walker and drummer Sam Dabrowski to complete the band line-up.

Despite being infants during the mid-Nineties Britpop hegemony – all their members are aged 20 or 21 – the group cite the more erudite end of that era’s back catalogue as their greatest influence: from Blur to The Longpigs and plenty of early Suede.

Unmoved by British indie’s more recent mutations (“synth-pop, lad-rock, the Mumford & Sons folk scene... it’s all passed us by,” says Walker), the five members found collective succour in the idealism and ambition of
their handed-down Britpop record collections.

“Most of the Britpop stuff I picked up from my dad’s music collection,” Ward explains. “He’s always had decent music taste, and I was handed down a lot of those Britpop albums.

“But it was Suede that really stood out for me. When people talk about a new Britpop resurgence, that’s because a lot of the people who are old enough to be making a difference in music now were probably brought up on Britpop.

“Even when I was five years old, that sort of Britpop guitar music was always around the house.

“As I got older and started writing music, those bands became more of a real influence. Bands like Blur and Suede showed how you could make popular guitar music, and with real depth and intelligence. That’s something you don’t see much of these days.”

What do the band make of 2011’s other self-appointed Britpop revivalists, Brother?

“I can’t stand them,” says Walker, clearly emerging as his band’s bold voice of un-diplomacy. “They’ve decided they want to be this Britpop revivalist band, but before that, they used to be an Emo act. It’s all so calculated. Brother are all swagger with no substance behind it at all.”

Substance, along with intoxicating doses of idealism and romance, is something The Cold One Hundred clearly aren’t lacking in. Combining Suede pomp, Clash punky freneticism and large splashes of Morrissey poetic swoon, The Cold One Hundred are classic Britpop elegance compacted into the neatest seven-inch pop parcel.

“We do have strong ambitions – and it’s always about the songs,” Walker insists. “For as long as I can remember, all the new guitar bands I can think of have been hyped for all the wrong reasons.

“Bands need to put as much ambition into their songs as they put into getting on magazine covers.”

Harper adds: “It’s about having songs that connect with everyone. No indie snobbery. When we say we’re a pop band, we really mean that.

“If bookish indie fans like us, and drunken girls in nightclubs want to dance to our songs, then we’re happy.”

The good denizens of Manchester music have their feet on that dance-floor already.

Bad timing might be intrinsic to their romantic outsider shtick, but make no mistake, as of 2011, The Cold One Hundred’s time is now. - Manchester Evening News

When it comes to plotting rock ’n’ roll success, there’s a lot to be said for good timing. For Manchester band The Cold One Hundred, however, the very opposite appears to be true.

When the indie five-piece formed just over a year ago, there were few – if even any – signs of positive encouragement. Which is exactly how they wanted it.

“I think the past couple of years have been terrible for guitar bands wanting proper success,” announces the group’s bass player Jakob Walker, over beers in a Northern Quarter bar.

“I think this band formed because of that adversity. It’s like the general public think all guitar music is awful – so we’re like, ‘We’ll show you how good guitar bands can be’.

“It spurred us on. We have absolute belief in our songs – which is something you haven’t been able to say about guitar bands for a long time. The musical climate might be against us, but good pop music is timeless, and we’re hoping to prove that.”

Such statements bear testament to The Cold One Hundred’s resolutely out-of-step stance with the 2011 rock ’n’ roll universe.

Named after a Peter Green (of Fleetwood Mac) solo album, The Cold One Hundred’s rise over the back half of 2010 has felt as old-fashioned and pre-blog as their manner.

Arriving seemingly fully-formed and armed with a clutch of full-blooded romantic pop anthems, the Manchester five-piece suggest wilful incarceration in a 1980s student bedsit, laden with Echo & The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes and – most audibly – Smiths seven-inchers.

Certainly, from the group’s dandy-ish appearances (skinny front-man Amory Neish-Melling resembles a character from Brideshead Revisited restyled by Interpol) to guitarist Josh Harper’s admission that, “I’ve only just downloaded iTunes on to my computer”, there’s no escaping the sense that The Cold One Hundred are playing to a pre-digital era romanticised English pop type.

And while they won’t deny such such old-school convictions, The Cold One Hundred are equally keen to stress the abundant humour in their arch pop shtick. It’s something any true Morrissey fan – and the band are certainly that – should know.

“I think there’s a danger in all Smiths-influenced bands being tarred with this po-faced, miserablist image,” defends Neish-Melling.

“We’ve never wanted to be seen as this intellectual pop band who are snobbish towards audiences. We’re a pop band, foremost.

“Some of our reviews have categorised us as this Smiths-ey, arch band but, if anything, we satirise the doom and gloom of that image. Some of my lyrics do satirise those sorts of characters – intellectuals drinking and smoking in their attics, looking down on people. There’s a humour there.

“Morrissey did that better than anyone; he could be pretentious and full of literary references, but there was irony in it as well.”

With members spread across Lancashire before all relocating to Salford (where they study at university), The Cold One Hundred first took shape when lead guitarist Jacob Ward and singer/lyricist Neish-Melling started bunking off lectures to write songs, eventually roping in Harper, Walker and drummer Sam Dabrowski to complete the band line-up.

Despite being infants during the mid-Nineties Britpop hegemony – all their members are aged 20 or 21 – the group cite the more erudite end of that era’s back catalogue as their greatest influence: from Blur to The Longpigs and plenty of early Suede.

Unmoved by British indie’s more recent mutations (“synth-pop, lad-rock, the Mumford & Sons folk scene... it’s all passed us by,” says Walker), the five members found collective succour in the idealism and ambition of
their handed-down Britpop record collections.

“Most of the Britpop stuff I picked up from my dad’s music collection,” Ward explains. “He’s always had decent music taste, and I was handed down a lot of those Britpop albums.

“But it was Suede that really stood out for me. When people talk about a new Britpop resurgence, that’s because a lot of the people who are old enough to be making a difference in music now were probably brought up on Britpop.

“Even when I was five years old, that sort of Britpop guitar music was always around the house.

“As I got older and started writing music, those bands became more of a real influence. Bands like Blur and Suede showed how you could make popular guitar music, and with real depth and intelligence. That’s something you don’t see much of these days.”

What do the band make of 2011’s other self-appointed Britpop revivalists, Brother?

“I can’t stand them,” says Walker, clearly emerging as his band’s bold voice of un-diplomacy. “They’ve decided they want to be this Britpop revivalist band, but before that, they used to be an Emo act. It’s all so calculated. Brother are all swagger with no substance behind it at all.”

Substance, along with intoxicating doses of idealism and romance, is something The Cold One Hundred clearly aren’t lacking in. Combining Suede pomp, Clash punky freneticism and large splashes of Morrissey poetic swoon, The Cold One Hundred are classic Britpop elegance compacted into the neatest seven-inch pop parcel.

“We do have strong ambitions – and it’s always about the songs,” Walker insists. “For as long as I can remember, all the new guitar bands I can think of have been hyped for all the wrong reasons.

“Bands need to put as much ambition into their songs as they put into getting on magazine covers.”

Harper adds: “It’s about having songs that connect with everyone. No indie snobbery. When we say we’re a pop band, we really mean that.

“If bookish indie fans like us, and drunken girls in nightclubs want to dance to our songs, then we’re happy.”

The good denizens of Manchester music have their feet on that dance-floor already.

Bad timing might be intrinsic to their romantic outsider shtick, but make no mistake, as of 2011, The Cold One Hundred’s time is now. - Manchester Evening News