The Little Black Hearts

Written By: Violette Nlandu Ngoy on November 23, 2009

Vibe Bar at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane was where I discovered The Little Black Heart who literally rocked the crowd with their 30 or so minutes set. LBH who are a four piece rock band from Leeds met each through a love of rock and roll and a good drink, they have been busy over the last year gigging, touring, writing, recording and generally trying to push things forward for themselves.

The band’s name ‘Little Black Hearts’ was taken from the name of a song Rich (one of the members) wrote years ago about disastrous relationships. LBH proud their music style to being fairly dark and dirty rock n roll with hints of early seventies blues-rock – brought up to date with a certain accessable sensibility, its pretty mean but there are still hooks and melodies in their songs. Rich was brought up on Thin Lizzy and AC-DC but has a pretty broad taste as far as new music goes – Benny was weened on late 80s rock and metal but again still has a varied collection – Gaz’s roots lie in early delta blues and seventies blues rock – similarly Dave was first influenced by 90’s American guitar bands like Pearl Jam and the Lemonheads, but found his passion to be 60s and 70s blues rock and equally 60s and 70s Funk and Soul

‘I guess we are like most people in the sense that we are influenced by life and experience, but we are all massive music lovers – primarily early blues, seventies blues rock, some more recent rock and indie stuff too – but its also not unusual to find all sorts of stuff in our record collections – we all love soul music, some early hip-hop, reggae….anything goes really,’ says LBH

The fashion style of Little Black Hearts? Well they all dress as they do every day, they don’t strive for a look but suppose its fortunate that they all like leather jackets, boots, vintage t-shirts and tattoos! ‘You can’t beat a cowboy shirt either’, says LBH. And it’s not a surprise as their favourite food is Guiness. Yeah… that’s right (rock-roll baby). And the coolest gadgets LBH thinks were ever invented are Fender’s, Vox’s and Gretsch’s – because they make the best noise.

Being a Rock & Roll band I was sure LBH would have lots of strange/weird stories from their performance like how ‘once in Glasgow a Polish chap came sliding across the front of the stage on his knees and just started going absolutely crazy jumping off stage and flipping out – it was amazing but there were only about three other people there – it was on a monday night or something – he later told us he would make us big stars – we are still waiting to hear from him.’

Little Black Hearts are genuinely down earth guys you can have a decent conversation or debate about serious issues with, although overall they make music that evokes emotions that are not the norm. Their favourite artists/bands right now include; ”The Black Keys are great, they just prove that it can all be stripped back to a riff and a beat, with no loss of power or passion. Also almost anything Jack White turns his hand to is amazing his output is just staggering to say he writes arranges and produces it all, let alone plays loads of instruments. We are all big fans of his.’ happily LBH states.

Future plans for LBH is to play in the States and Japan – ‘it would be a big ambition fulfilled if we got to tour over there – but in the meantime just to play bigger and better gigs, keep building the fanbase and writing better tunes.’

lbh‘ Be prepared to put the work in and do as much as you can yourselves and make sure you are all mates cos you are going to be doing a lot of travelling, playing, partying, sweating and sleeping with the same three or four sweaty bastards for a good while!’ is what advise the grounded but also constructively noisy Little Black Hearts would give anyone thinking of a career in the music industry. - Big in Japan

Rare Chemistry – The Little Black Hearts

The Little Black Hearts are an element all their own, one which cannot claim a specific genre. The eclectic sound they’ve developed over the short space of a year was created with a mix of influences such as indie and southern rock. Live performances explode with charging energy and pure sex appeal. They have recently been described as “The Artic Monkeys in leather”, which is close; however, The Little Black Hearts are very unique and stamp their own style. Rare chemistry and amazing talent make for an experience their audiences wont forget.

Four very charming and extremely talented lads from Leeds make up this extraordinary band. With Richard Denby on guitar and lead vocals, Gareth Dixon on bass, Dave Knowlson on drums, and Benny Moran on guitar, together they form a unique and future very successful group of sheer talent.

In July 2008 before the band was formed, the four met at a local pub for a few pints and to hang out as mates. The meeting went from “its just what you do” to an understanding and meeting of the minds. According to Rich Denby, they all knew that night they had the same goals, and ambition to form a successful band. Since then, they practice and perform religiously as well as maintain their day jobs. It’s easy to understand their drive and determination when you see them live. The group’s travels to different gigs lend some very entertaining stories, from their £550 mound of transportation to their interesting and comical experiences together. The band’s hard work and humble approach has started to seriously pay off.

On July 5th, the band was awarded a gig at Bingley Music Live Festival on September 5th. The Little Black Hearts were given the coveted Saturday slot with such bands as Doves, The Zutons and Ocean Colour Scene, which Rich Denby listened to as a kid and says they were a big influence on him.

Vocalist and lyricist Rich Denby gains huge support and input from the band to create an iconic sound of pure energy. Their music and words are unique and stimulating. With songs like “Rebecca” and “Sexy Little Bitch”, audiences can’t resist being captivated by this talented, attractive and charismatic group of proper rock stars. They grasp audiences in a way that can only be described as pure magic. You only have to hear them once to love them, but you only have to see them once to believe they have what it takes to be very well respected members of the music business. They are a very professional band that lack arrogance and instability. Camaraderie, unique works of song art and brilliant performing style, as a whole, will prove to be their industry signature.



- Tomera Rodgers

The Little Black Hearts

Leeds is bursting with brilliant bands at the moment, but very few can match the intesity and live experience offered by Rich, Benny, Dave and Mart who make up The Little Black Hearts.

They are starting to gain a real following now and if they can keep going like this it’s only a matter of time before the right support slot comes along to blow them wide open to a bigger audience.

We’ve got them coming down to play at one of our Beat Surrender presents nights in Leeds on the 31st so we caught up with them to find out a bit more about the band.

You’re playing at our night on the 31st Jan, what can any of our readers expect who haven’t seen you live before if they catch you at that or any of your other shows?

Well we only have 30 mins to win them over so we have to give it everything. First gig of the year, new lead guitarist so expect some hard n fast, dirty rock n roll. It’s gonna be like a punch to the face but something strangely sexual about it!

What’s been the best gig you’ve played so far in your career?

Gotta be the Bingley Festival last year. Big stage, big crowd and massive sound. Worked so hard to get that opourtunity and we did ourselves proud. It gave us a taste of where we want to be on a regular basis, so we know we have to keep grafting, keep writing and most of all keep believing in what we set out to do…all that and a touch of luck and sure we’ll have more days like that!

And the worst?

The ones when you’ve worn out your friends like a drug dealer, then couldn’t be bothered to promote it, you’ve fallen out with your manager and some twat promoter has a go at you because you didn’t bring 100 people with you to a town you had never heard of on a Monday night!

We’ve played our fair share of weird shows, Runcorn on tour a year ago really stands out. Benny drove us down from Glasgow overnight, he took 40 winks in the van as the rest of us braved the locals. We returned to find someone had parked their car right in the side of van and nearly sent Benny through the front window..not a good start. The venue had a steel cage across the stage and a 10ft drum riser. Things started to pick up when about 200 young rockers showed up.. but then the heating broke. It was that hot in there that everyone just listened from the road outside, we played to about 5..crap!

As well as the relentless gigging you’ve been getting your name about in other ways too such as the CD you gave out at Bingley Music Festival etc, does it feel like things are building for you now?

It is starting to, every new tune and every gig feels like step in they right direction. We do play a lot of shows but we have to or we’ll be forgotten about. Unless you have some serious chart success, playing live is the only way a band will make a living, so if we can step it up a level, at least we’ll be ready.

How healthy do you think the music scene is in Leeds at the moment?

A bit too healthy at times! There’s so much talent knocking around that does it make it hard to stand out. As if its not hard enough being a local band then we get all these amazing bands moving to Leeds and nicking our shows! The scene might be getting a little saturated but at least more venues are opening so should be room for everyone.

Which bands are exciting you at the moment?

We’re all blues rockers so Them Crooked Vultures is as exciting as it gets for us. Detroit Social Club that we played with at Bingley are gonna be huge. With Rage getting to No1 it’s pretty reassuring knowing that people still want big rock n roll riffs.

Do you have any recording and release plans for 2010?

We’ll be recording with James Kenosha in a month or so, loads of new material to get down. Think the next release will be a freebie, maybe a 4 track EP in March. It’s important that everyone gets to hear us at this stage so can’t rely on a few downloads on itunes! Just uploaded a live favourite ‘Firecracker’ to our myspace so download it for free at www.myspace.com/thelittleblackhearts

How do you stand on the recent file sharing debate?

Right now yeah, go for it pass our music around your friends and spread the word. But long term, it means the bands we love just won’t be able to afford to make music, so we’ll be just left with whatever Mr Cowell wants us to hear. We’re paying for all the money grabbing record execs that had to format everything 5 times over to drain money out of fans. The only way it’ll come back is if people want the art work as well as the music.
- Beat Surrender - Kevin Trotter