RISING STARS

Fifth Element

Fifth Element

Youth Music’s Build A Band campaign to give young musicians the opportunity to play live at Glastonbury festival scored a triumphant second year in 2008. Winning band, Fifth Element, performed on the Left Field stage giving band members MC Abi Lufadeju (17), keyboard player Archy Marshall (14), bass player Alex Saleh (14), lead guitarist Ben McCurdy (15) and JJ Mitchell (16) an experience they will never forget. 16 year-old Ben told us “I learned a lot from the things we did. The music we made and played to a great crowd, in such a legendary festival was the highlight of a great experience.”

Glastonbury sponsors, Orange, provided brand new video mobile phones for each of the band members to record video diaries of their experience from the point when they officially met for the first time on Glastonbury Wednesday. They spent the next three days in a local rehearsal studio writing a brand new song with support from Musical Directors Ruth Jones and Colin Holton. Ruth commented: “The exciting thing about the winners was that they had such different styles and approaches to their music.”

The annual project which is open to 14-18s across the UK aims to create a new band specifically to come together to write and perform brand new material at Glastonbury. Over 300 entrants uploaded demos to the competition website and 40 of these were selected to attend four regional auditions including solo and impromptu group performances in Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and London. “After listening to the competition entries we were expecting very high standards, but I don’t think we were really prepared for the sheer talent, originality and musicianship that we saw,” Ruth told us. All the musicians reported a very positive experience and many met peers with whom they struck up subsequent friendships. Bristol Auditionee Emma Hughes said, “I especially loved the jam – wish it was longer!” A winning band was created in each region and then London, which emerged as the best of these four bands, was selected as the national winner and invited to play at Glastonbury.

In 2008 Rough Trade, the UK’s leading independent music retailer added their support to the campaign by hosting weekly Saturday workshops throughout April and May at their flagship store and performance venue in London’s East End. 20 local young people attended the workshops run by tutors from delivery organizations CM (Indie) and Rolling Sound (Urban), which covered production, songwriting, MCing, singing and stage performance. Stephen Godfroy, Director of Rough Trade Retail told us, “Working with Youth Music gives us the opportunity to convert our knowledge into an educational experience, helping empower talent and inspire creative expression at an age when it can make a real difference"

Additional support came from the BBC Blast Tour which offered musicians help preparing their demos at locations across the UK and also from music seminar events in London and Bristol where expert music industry panelists shared their insights with teenage audiences.

The band subsequently reconvened to write their second song ‘Pure Love’ and debuted it at London’s Underage Festival, their second gig. Musical Director Colin Holt commented “Not only has Build A Band highlighted the wealth of young musical talent across the UK, it has also brought together youngsters from diverse backgrounds with differing musical tastes who worked together and created some simply brilliant music.”

Fifth Element recorded their first track together with producer/engineer Jason Howe (Hot Chip, Lily Allen, XX Teens) at The Premises studio in London.

Watch Fifth Element's recording studio session below

Find out more about Build A Band and watch the band’s performance videos plus their daily video diaries from Glastonbury and Underage Festivals at
www.buildaband.org