The Favours
Gig Seeker Pro

The Favours

| INDIE

| INDIE
Band Rock

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"The Favours @ Leeds Festival, 2005"

THE FAVOURS immediately take me back to last night's Charlotte Hatherley set. But where that seemed, well, a bit mannered and dull, this is something else. Sara Sanchez is an absolute star – a teenage witch who grunges her guitar and sings feisty great dollops of tune. A scraggy looking punchy rock band keep the airbrush perfection and rock chick posing down at ground level (almost). I'm gibbering by the end and dollar sings are spinning in front of my eyes like those old Donald Duck cartoons when the rich Uncle turns up. I find myself texting an A&R contact. Crazy or what? - Sam Saunders - www.whisperinandhollerin.com


"The Favours @ The Cooperage, Newcastle - August 2005"

The implacable opener 'Sick of it' along with 'What's in it for me?' appeared to lift the audience's apparent soporific mood. Gutteral bass lines and searing guitar work, backed by a drummer whose clearly mastered his art were all trumped by beautiful chanteuse/guitarist Sara. Her ebullient strumming to 'Kill' belied a delicate frame capable of generating the power of a windfarm in a blizzard. This lady has a beguiling stage presence. Rounding the night with the same intensity it started with, the well served throng had finally achieved 'catch up' in their appreciation. Sealed, delivered but still not signed. Why is that then? - Steven Lee - www.thecrackmagazine.com


"The Favours @ Joyfest 2004"

Extracts from review of Joyfest at Hackney Ocean, London - 14th August 2004:

"At this point we decide to have a breather and plan to just to take a
quick look at The Favours to see if they are any good. I walk into the room, take one look, one listen to them and ...half an hour later they finish their set and I breathe out. This band are so polished, so sharp, so blindingly brilliant that compared to them every other band here today are like little kids playing in a dressing-up trunk. The Favours come from Hull, are a four piece comprising three guys and a startlingly good looking lead singer
and they play power pop of the sort that the Cardigans used to when that band were in the charts a few years back. I cannot believe that this lot are playing here and are not selling out places like the Astoria. Not a duff song in the set and not a hint of shambles about them. They are already the finished article, the real deal. They tell us that their album is on sale upstairs and I trample people underfoot to purchase a copy.

After that I am absolutely stunned and going into the upstairs inferno
I find that I am in no mood to ponder the low key Americana of Bikini Atoll. Which may be unfair on them, but there you go"

"Today has been a real feat of endurance, yet has been hugely rewarding. I've seen at least seven really top bands and in The Favours have discovered a real gem. It's a shame that it wasn't better attended, but hopefully this won't deter the organisers from doing something similar soon.

I listen to The Favours album and it is fantastic. My new favourite
band!"

WYLDMAN
- www.artrocker.com


"The Favours - 'Magpies Revenge'"

Review of self-released album 'Magpies Revenge':

Hull, the crappest town in Britain according to the Idler magazine (and it had some competition!), at least has some sort of musical heritage to compensate for the “smell of death”. It’s produced or accommodated musicians like the Housemartins and The Beautiful South, Red Guitars, Roland Gift, Kingmaker, Lene Lovich, Sade’s backing band and Everything But The Girl. To this heroic list we can add the Paddingtons and, now, the Favours, who are possibly the finest band to come from Hull.

The Favours’ album is series of short pop gems which shouldn’t go unheard just because it’s self-released. Buy it and bask in the knowledge that you’re getting early warning of a band that has the potential to go a long, long way. It’s punky pop music with a 60s melodic topping, splicing Buzzcocks and Ramones with Hole and Ash, but what really sets it out is the energy and belief with which it’s played.

‘What’s In It For Me?’ is the brilliant opening track that leaves you gobsmacked after three-and-a-half minutes of punchy power pop, full guitar mayhem and propulsive bass sound. ‘Bad Intentions’ has the same fierce punk melodic sound while ‘Kill’ is full of power and attitude, snagging you on jagged pop riffs and snotty polemic before dismissing you with a wonderful “I don’t give a fuck what you say”. The big melodies of ‘Satisfy Me’ are counterpointed with the slower, sassier ‘Your Just Gonna Have to Wait’ (sic) on which spelling takes second place to Bond-theme epicness. But ‘Bleed’ dwarfs them all in the quest for MTV anthem status, while guitarist/vocalist Sara Sanchez stamps her powerful presence all over the record and is everything that Courtney Love and Brody Dalle clearly aren’t. Greatness surely awaits…

It’s not perfect; there’s not enough variety and some songs veer slighty too near the reefs of nu-rock for this reviewer’s more indie tastes. But that’s carping when their debut record is so powerful, so assured and has been produced so brilliantly without the need for any fatuous NME-hyped scene. - www.soundsxp.com


"The Favours @ Hull Welly, 2005"

Extract from gig review at Hull Welly, 23rd January 2005:

Obviously the evening was to fit to a tight time schedule, The Favours aid Face To Feet to remove equipment and shuffle their own hardware onto the stage. What came next was one of the most entertaining sets I have ever seen a band perform. Keeping the crowd interaction to a bare minimum, The Favours deliver one of the best half hours of the evening.

Intertwining dirty, raw manic guitar sounds and powerful drum beats that creates a sound like Radiohead's The Bends and interspersing a hint of The Cranberries punked up, The Favours have coined their own music on their own terms. It was so refreshing to see a band as diverse as The Favours win over the crowd.

Looking around I could see jaws thud to the floor as we learnt this was the quartets first performance as up to date line up. A garage rock pleasure that leaves you wanting more and with a personal favourite performance of 'Kill' you easily lose yourself in the post grunge sound a definite ten out of ten. - www.thisisull.com


"The Favours @ ULU 2006"

"A feisty brand of garage band harmony-rock. Singer and guitarist Sara has siren-call vocals and a pouting punkette attitude.”

David Sinclair - The Times


"The Favours in New York"

“The Favours combine CBGB’s female vocals (ie. 1974) with a Pavement/Pixies punch in the groin. Hard to believe, yet they pull it off and crank it up 3 notches. They bring the culture and angst of a city and country exploding with talent the likes that hasn’t been witnessed since the days of The Jam and The Buzzcocks.”

Daniel Tulino, Newyorkhotlist.com
- New York Hot List


Discography

Magpies Revenge LP - Self Released
Kill/Out of Control - 2 tracks feature on a split 7" single released on Filthy Little Angels
Islands - Single, released on Stonetrax Records September 2007
Sick of it - Single, released on Stonetrax Records December 2007
One up on you - Single, released on Stonetrax Records May 2008

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

The Favours have lost count of how many line-ups they�ve had in the last two years. They remember once trying out twelve drummers in under a month, waving goodbye to two guitarists and seeing Sara blossom from a shy backing singer into a feisty front woman with a great growl and a taste for stagediving in short skirts.

From experience, The Favours know when something feels right and their latest line-up - in place since early 2005 - is one the Hull-based band will be sticking with. Catch one of their superb live shows and you�ll understand why. Explosive guitars, a tight rhythm section, rowdy rock songs with pop melodies and a singer who sounds like Debbie Harry-gone-grunge mark the three-piece out as the best female-fronted band to emerge from Britain in years.

�It has taken us a while to get the dynamic just right,� says Sara Sanchez, whose tiny frame and sweet speaking voice betray none of her anger and energy on stage. �It�s been well worth the wait though. For the first time, we feel a gang and you can hear that in the music. The songs flow like they never did before and when we start to play; we all get the same buzz. People who have seen the new show feel it too.�

The Favours grew from the ashes of a band that bassist Martin Knight formed while at Hull University. Sara, also studying at Hull and working part-time in the same pub as Martin, became backing singer in Martin's band, and as her confidence grew, she began to co-write the songs and take over more and more of the lead vocals. �She basically took over,� laughs Martin. �The more shows we played, the more Sara sang and the better we sounded. It was then we realised that we had something special. It was getting the rest of the pieces to fall into place that was the problem.�

Once Sara had finally taken over all lead vocal duties, the band decided it was time for a name change and so 'The Favours' were born. While Sara and Martin tried to settle on a line-up, they bought a van and took to touring. Already a good group, they built up a strong following in their hometown of Hull and ventured all over England, headlining shows at London�s Dublin Castle and supporting as many bigger bands as they could. As well as releasing a limited-edition, debut single that made it onto London radio station XFM and into HMV, the band self-financed the recording of an albums worth of material to sell at gigs and through their website. It was only this year though that The Favours felt the time was right to sign a deal. Their lengthy search for a drummer was finally over when old friend Dave Meilhan was persuaded to return from Australia to complete the line-up. �Dave actually offered his services a year ago,� recalls Martin, �But we had another drummer then, so he went off travelling instead. �When that drummer didn�t work out and we couldn�t find anyone suitable, we called Dave and within ten seconds of our first rehearsal, we knew we�d found the right man. That was the day everything clicked into place.�

For Sara, The Favours is a dream come true. Having written songs since primary school � �Even at nursery, I remember walking around singing little rhymes I had made up myself, instead of playing with other kids,� she says - she grew up fantasising about fronting a rock band, but doubting she would ever have the confidence to even try. �I knew I could sing and I had always played piano,� says Sara, �but it wasn�t until grunge happened that I actually picked up a guitar. I loved Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and I thought it would be great to be a girl in a group like that, but I was too shy to start my own band. Luckily, Martin asked me to join his and as soon as I got on stage, I felt fantastic. I went from this scared girl standing at the back to watching Martin and wishing it was me up front.�

While all three of The Favours now contribute to the music, Martin and Sara remain the main songwriters. He puts in the pop melodies, while she adds a darker, harder edge with heavy guitars and often angry lyrics. �I�d call them angsty rather than angry,� says Sara. �Right now, they reflect the last two years of our lives. There�s a lot of frustration in there - relationships going wrong, problems with the band, the fact that we�re still penniless musicians - but the songs are never all negative. Even in our darkest days, we�ve loved being in a band. We know we can get up on stage and give people a good time and that�s where the positivity comes from.�

The Favours� current set includes the fast and furious �Sick Of It�, a two minute track about frustration - �Sexual or otherwise,� says Sara. There�s also �Bleed�, about Martin being punched in the face by a stranger while walking through Hull and new song �Until It Hits Home�, a lightly political look at other peoples problems.

Mostly though, The Favours are about having fun, being in a gang and avoiding