Matthew Bennett vocals, acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin
Matt Foundling piano, keyboards
Tom Farnell jr drums, percussion
Lesley Turner backing vocals, violin, mandolin, tin whistle
Peter Brown bass guitar
Influences
The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Nick Drake, Tim and Jeff Buckley, The Band, Gram Parsons, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Kate Rusby, Ryan Adams, Ron Sexsmith, Neil Young, The Clash, Johnny Cash, Ray Lamontagne, Emmylou Harris.
Sounds Like
What they say...
"The freshness and enthusiasm of these recently graduated musicians has been coupled with mature song writing and a polished production sound rarely found on a debut independent release. "Someday Soon” and “Looking Just Like You Are” almost have the feel of instant standards, the latter is a beautiful piano/violin ballad that grows from a Ryan Adams styled vocal intro to bloom into a full chorus. If someone from Radio 2 catches hold of this band, they could really take off. 67%" The Line of Best Fit
"Plenty of energy! Following that vocal performance this band will be signed very soon" Tom Robinson BBC 6Music
"The Matthew Bennett Band take you on a helterskelter that goes through far too big a range of feelings and joys to be legal, when emanating from a single band. Its real life but it has its hopes and the occasional smile. Give them a listen, you wont need another band for quite a while." BG, The Gnome Label and Festival
"The band has been stirring up quite a lot of industry interest in the past few months...with Pogue-ish tracks such as Kill Me and hints here and there of influences as diverse as Wonderstuff and even folk man of the moment Seth Lakeman" The Hull Daily Mail
"Birmingham's The Matthew Bennett Band conjure up images of Van Morrison,The Waterboys and Damien Rice over the course of their 'The March EP'." CD Times
THE MARCH EP IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD FROM ITUNES NOW!
The Matthew Bennett Band are a Midlands based five piece. Matthew Bennett was born in Wolverhampton, Matt Foundling, Tom Farnell Jr and Peter Brown in Birmingham and Lesley-Marie Turner in Hull. All children of the 80’s...
The Matthew Bennett Band are an outstanding folk/rock/pop five piece
formed in late 2006. Hailing from the Midlands and Hull, the band have played gigs all
over the UK, everywhere from The Birmingham Academy to The Monto Water
Rats in London supporting Scott Matthews, Justin Nozuka, Jersey Budd and Polly
Paulusma along the way.
With a growing fan base they self released their debut EP in November 2007 to
critical acclaim with reviews from CD Times, The Line of Best Fit, The Hull Daily
Mail, The Birmingham Post and The Birmingham Mail. The EP was instantly
championed by Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music, gaining further airplay across the
BBC network and culminating in a series of live sessions for BBC Raw Talent. In December 2007 the band won an MP3 Music Award for best Unsigned
Pop/Rock/Indie MP3 with their song 'Someday Soon'.
In 2008 the gigs continued and the band began to gain interest from various
elements of the music industry including labels and publishers. They were also
discussed at length on industry blogging sites including King of Hits, SONY/BMG’s
A&R Voxblog and The Velvet Rope creating further hype and interest. The
band are now focused on completing tracks for their debut album.
Great gig last night guys! Really enjoyed it, as did all of the DTTV crowd I think! Hope your gigs this weekend go really really well. Will be in touch about a return to Cov!
Ya buggers...you made it through and you didnt stick around! great set though...tight as fook and sound was spot on too. Im not sure how but we got through too. so catch you soon no doubt!?
each time we see you, you get better and better!! the last song was amazing, the whole band is great but for me it was the vocal harmonies that did it.
Thanks for playing the Acoustic Brew tent at party in the park ,your set was amazing we really so enjoyed it a pleasure having you come and play for us guys
you're welcome, it's always a pleasure to go to a gig and get blown away by someone you hadn't heard of. Remember, encore in Kentish Town, must be a slow one ^_^
just wanted to say thankyou very much for the add, hope you like my colours..
i see fionn regan is in your top freinds... i really got into his album recently... really nice tones and feels and waves and washes... i can see why you added me in the first place... i do get the odd flux of metal bands adding me... its strange..
Hey, good to hear from you. How are things? I've got a show tomorrow here in Santa Rosa so I've been busy rehearsing. Oh by the way, the "Day in the Life" reality based video we've been working on will be up at the end of the month on my youtube page.
Stunning band....absolutely stunning. Cheers for playing the Mac - hopefully see you soon as I live in Oldbury...that'll be 4....how many you demanding for a gig?? :o))))
