Written by Linda Mason

Opening the Edgar Davies Stage for us on Saturday 23 August at this year’s festival are local band Young Braves, a 4 piece rock/indie band from Shropshire, consisting of brothers Ollie and Elliot Scott, Jacob Ferguson and Dan Byrne. Formerly Arcade Parade, they were the 2012 winners of the Shropshire’s Next Big Thing competition run by BBC Introducing in Shropshire and the Shropshire Star. The band have performed at The O2 Academy 2 & 3, Birmingham Ballrooms and The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton in recent months and 2012 saw the band perform at Osfest and Shrewsbury Fields Forever Festival alongside The Wombats, Sunshine Underground and Razorlight. 2013 was their busiest year ever with numerous live shows, festival appearances and recording.

The band are featured regularly on BBC Introducing in Shropshire and in Octber 2013 released their debut single ‘Youth’, produced by acclaimed producer Gavin Monaghan (who has worked with Editors, The Twang, Kings of Leon, Robert Plant). 2014 is set to be another very busy year for the band.

Young Braves have already received some pretty favourable exposure through BBC Introducing and who have recently released their first single under their new name. “Youth” is out now and you can download it for free from the link below. Although their earlier material was good, “Youth” feels like a big step forward. It has a clean, crisp sound without being too polite: a little rasp in the vocals and some heavy use of cymbals in the chorus rough it up enough to dodge over-polishing. I heavily approve of the bass throughout; too many bands are guilty of a criminal disregard for the wider capabilities of this instrument: here it provides some lovely melodic underlay as well as a solid rhythm. The guitar lines are strong where they need to be, emphasising the chorus, but also sunny and inviting in introducing the track and the verse. There’s a really pleasing subtle progression in their employment – absent from the first verse but augmenting the synthesisers in the second.’ (Backseat Mafia,Dec 2013)

In the summer of 2013, the band decided to start a fresh as a brand new band, and from a GCSE History lesson on the American West emerged the name, Young Braves – Yes, these kids are still in school! And they are immensely talented. Their first single Youth is a rather radio friendly pop rock anthem that overall sounds more like it was the brainchild of an American rock band such as Lifehouse or The Fray. I was immediately impressed by the singer’s vocals which are well beyond his years. Here’s hoping we’ll hear more from these lads very soon’.(Indieisnotagenre, Jan 2014)

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