Out of the shadows

Shadow Palace. Pictures courtesy of Seagrave Social Photography

MUSIC EXTRA: SHADOW Palace may have been together only two months, but the Saddleworth-based indie hopefuls have already made an impact on the Oldham music scene.

The band is made up of ex-Velocetas Harry Lavin (guitar/vocals), Dan Gaunt (bass) and Danny Walsh (drums), alongside Ben Warwick, former guitar/vocalist with the Frakes.

They have already played a handful of gigs, secured a spot at the forthcoming “Revolution Live — Love Spreads” night at Whittles on February 13, and have just recorded two tracks for distribution on the usual online media sites.

Lavin, a close friend of the equally talented Warwick, said: “This band was always going to happen, to be honest, and the chemistry has been good so far. We all like the same sort of music and the same sort of bands, so in fact our set was pretty much sorted right from the start. We’ve been working hard on our original stuff and that’s coming into focus.

“There have been a few songs we’ve taken out of the Velocetas set, but it is different. It’s more like an Echo and the Bunnymen or Joy Division kind of sound now. We’re adding a lot more keys to the tunes.

“As far as playing live goes we’ve not quite worked out what we’re going to do with those keys, but in the studio there will be a lot more of that going on.

“Even our name, Shadow Palace, is a reference to a Joy Division song, so it’s different in the sense that it’s not as bright. There’s a darker image and sound.”

As with most young bands, Shadow Palace have big ideas, but Warwick is delighted to be part of the current buzzing scene in Oldham and Manchester.

“It’s coming back,” Warwick said. “What with Whittles and Tokyo’s putting bands on. The Revolution night will be great. Three good bands on the same bill is bound to attract attention and that’s what we all want. It’s all about progress.”

Any early progress will be measurable next month when Shadow Palace release “Guilty as Charged” and “Tribe” following a recent stint at the FutureWorks Studio with producer Ryan Lavin, Harry’s cousin.

Harry said: “We’ll give the tracks out for free. We don’t think there’s any point in trying to sell them at this stage, it’s just about taking the opportunity to get them streamed on platforms like Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud.

“We don’t want to sell it because it’s not going to cost us an absolute fortune to record to be honest.

“We’re not going to make any money, so we might as well just try and get it out to as many people as possible.”

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