It was Ian Brown who said, “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.” But he said that after he’d already made it. What he didn’t realise is that for most people, they don’t make it out at all, and for those who do, what really leaves the impression is the journey.
This is what Morning Parade have discovered. And for starters, Morning Parade are Steve Sparrow (vocals/guitar), Chad Thomas (guitar), Phil Titus (bass), Ben Giddings (synth) and Andy Hayes (drums). And they’re set to be among the most exciting breakout guitar bands of 2011.
Morning Parade hail from the Essex satellite town on Harlow, and they know the pleasures and frustrations of towns like that better than most. As Steve explains of the town, which is still struggling to adjust to the decline of its manufacturing base: “Harlow’s like a weird bubble where no-one really enters and no-one really leaves.”
Harlow isn’t quite Royston Vasey from The League Of Gentlemen, but the point still stands. “The place stay the same but the generations change the adults and then their kids come in and then their grandkids. When you live in these places there’s really nothing to do. There’s just everyone there, doing whatever they want all the time.”
Solace of sorts came in the town’s one live music venue, The Square where Steve and Phil, gradually joined by the three friends who would become their bandmates in a nascent band scene. But even there they felt like outsiders.
