If someone gives you the chance to listen to up and coming young indie band Metis from County Durham, you'd be mad to turn it down.
Metis are definitely going places as can be seen by BBC Tees making their original track Turn It Down’ their record of the week and the band winning a prestigious Battle of the Bands competition at Newcastle University recently. Coming from the heartland of Durham, the band aged 19 to 25, all live locally in Darlington, Barnard Castle, Coxhoe and Newton Aycliffe and have built up a steadily increasing following since they formed in 2014.
The unusually named Metis are Elliot Fenwick on vocals, Andrew Archer on rhythm guitar, Daniel Smith on lead guitar, Liam Samson on bass and Sam Graham on drums. Their name has a number of meanings including a person of mixed indigenous and Euro-American ancestry, mixed blood, the Greek Goddess of Wise Counsel and the band’s favourite “a fusion of culture.”
Their sound certainly contains a fusion of culture with influences spanning Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Stereophonics through to Catfish and the Bottlemen and early punk and new wave. The bands songs are written primarily by Daniel.
Andrew said: “I joined the band after I watched college bands play at events in Darlington. My early musical influences came from my parents as I was brought up on 70’s punk sbands like the Ramones and The Clash and 90’s bands like Oasis. I think my personal musical taste resonates around the 90’s and early 2000’s and I still regularly listen to and play Oasis, Stereophonics, Nirvana tracks etc and I think this has influenced the style of music that we play in the band as it definitely comes through in our sound.”
Drummer Sam has been playing drums since he was just seven years old and is now studying chemistry at Newcastle University where he aIso represents the university at rugby and American football. When he’s not pounding the skins with Metis he does a lot of climbing and mountaineering and he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro making him the band’s ‘action man’.
The band’s debut EP, “Lost and Found” is due to be released soon and contains the tracks Turn it Down, Marilyn and Drive. Singer Elliot is looking forward to getting the EP out and getting back on the gig circuit when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
“The pandemic has been devastating for a lot of people and from our point of view it’s stopped us getting our music out there. There’s nothing like the feeling we get playing live and seeing people singing along to our songs. We feel that the time is right to release the EP and see where the next chapter in Metis’s history takes us,” said Elliot.