MIDAS caught up with Stornoway band Manor Park Elite shortly before their set at the Highland Alternative Music showcase gig in Dingwall, 10th June 2008.

Q. How long have you been together?

A. Around a year. The first gig was on June the 22nd last year (2007). We played in an At the Drive in Style band before. There was another guy in that band, a singer called Norman and we used to cover post-hardcore stuff.

Q. What happened to that band and how did you guys form out of it?

A. The singer moved away to college in Glasgow and we felt like starting afresh and seeing what we could come up with from scratch.

Q. Where did your name come from?

A. Brainstorming I guess. There is a place in Stornoway called Manor Park. It sounds like a gang, we’re a very small gang.
  

Q. Who influences you?

A. We listen to loads of different music. I suppose song writing wise there is a lot of stuff, mostly quite Scottish. It doesn’t really come through in the song structures but Arab Strap and King Creosote and stuff like that. Music wise Biffy Clyro, a lot of people say we sound line Television.

Q. Do you see coming from Stornoway as a hindrance or a positive thing?

A. It’s quite unique and I think that the quality of bands in Stornoway is really high right now. It’s a good thing to be part of that. It’s only a matter of time before a band from Stornoway breaks.

Q. Why do you think that is?

A. I think people start learning music really early because they have nothing else to do and then get really good at it. In the music scene up there we all really know each other. All the bands are a tight knit group and all want each other to do well. There is no competition between bands, you kind of grow out of that.
 

Q. Do you find it difficult to get out to the mainland to do gigs?

A. It costs a lot more by the time you have to get the ferry. When we go away we usually don’t come back with any money. The travelling can be really tiring though.

Q. You recently played the Western Isles showcase at Go North in Dundee, how was that experience?

A. Pretty good, we met a lot of cool people. Got lots of new friends, sort of. Well they said they were our friends but they are not here? They said they were coming! We ended up at this big party at the end of the night and invited everybody to come and they were like yeah whatever. Good times, good gigs and good music. It’s just really good getting your name out there.

Q. Any highlights to date?

A. The tour that we did with Blah Blah Blah. Being on the road with another band and getting to know them was great. They couldn’t make it to the last night in Aberdeen (Café Drummonds) because of the snow. We ended up having a snowball fight outside and went on stage about midnight and there were a lot of people in the bar and a great atmosphere.
 

Q. So you have recently being doing some recording up at Watercolour with Nick Turner. How is that going?

A. We got chosen to spend 3 days at Watercolour and managed to get 9 songs recorded. They’re up on our myspace now so you can check them out. I think you can tell we are much tighter now. We got the bass and drums down live then we’d go back and add other parts after.

Q. What’s coming up next?

A.  We're hopefully releasing a split single with dotjr and a video. The idea is to put out a 7 inch with one side each. There are lots of ideas floating around, but hopefully something comes together soon. We are also going to try the whole downloadable single thing as well so more people can listen to it.

Q. Any advice to other bands starting out?

A. Try not to fall into the whole cover thing like what we did originally. Try and be as creative as you can. We got together and were like let’s see what comes out of this. Just stick at it and get a good set list together.

Q. Describe Manor Park Elite in 5 words.

A. Energy, Pretty, Awesome, Performance, Sailors?
(This was later explained as someone was wearing a sailor style t-shirt and they live on an Island).

© Dougie Brown, 2008

Links

• Manor Park Elite MySpace page