Corella's guns blazing

Photo: DAWNCAST

DETERMINED . . . Corella

INDIE popsters Corella are determined to head out and make their mark in 2017 ­- starting at Manchester's hugely popular Gorilla venue on February 25.

The four-piece band met while studying at BIMM (the British and Irish Modern Music Institute) in Manchester in 2015.

Consisting of Oldham's Jack Taylor on guitar (formerly of Indigo Empire), guitar/vocalist Joel Smith, bassist Ben Henderson and drummer James Fawcett, so far Corella have made excellent progress, having released two cracking singles - 'Waterfall' and 'See the Day', just a fortnight ago - and played a number of high-profile gigs.

Now much of their focus is on February 25, where Corella will grace the huge Gorilla stage as chief support to city centre darlings Larkins.

Smith said: "We've done one song at Gorilla actually, at a BIMM showcase, but we've not counted that. This will be our first proper gig there and we can't wait. We'll do a full set, all guns blazing, and it's going to be fantastic.

"We're recording the next single a couple of weeks before that gig, and then a month after that we're going in to record our fourth single. Once we've got all those tracks together, with videos too, we'll release them as an EP and we'll just push that as far as we can.

"We'd like to start branching out a bit next year, looking at gigs outside of Manchester, and the festival scene appeals to us as well.

"We'll keep ourselves grounded, and that's going to be the good thing with us, there will always be that next step. If we play a gig and it's amazing, we won't stop there, we just want to get better and better."

Corella's maiden single 'Waterfall' was released in the summer, and that offered the young band a timely early boost.

"We couldn't believe the reaction to 'Waterfall'," added Henderson.

"Considering we came from nothing if you like, certainly from all different backgrounds, people were pleasantly shocked when they heard it.

"Sugar House (production team) had done a really good job with it.

"It was our first recording, and it helped us set our stall out really. Hopefully people realised that maybe these guys mean business."

Corella followed that up with the extremely catchy 'See the Day' and the eye-catching accompanying video has been watched almost 10,000 times.