There’s a newcomer to the British melodic rock scene that shows so much promise that the new band might just find themselves featured on many Best Of 2014 lists.
IN FAITH will release their debut album via Rocktopia Records at Firefest in October of course!
The band features guitarist Tony Marshall (Contagious, Vaughn), drummer Pete Newdeck (Tainted Nation, Eden’s Curse) and vocalist Pete Godfrey.
The sound? Think classic Harem Scarem (the debut especially), throw in some Tyketto, H.E.A.T and some more Harem Scarem and you’ll get a good idea of what’s going on here.
I’m had a few listens to the whole album and there’s a few tracks there that are definitely going to figure in the 2014 MelRock Awards.
Does It Feel Like Love and If That’s What Love Means are two sure fire monster AOR tracks and then there’s also Million Ways, Addicted and In Flames.
There are rockers too of course – the high energy Danger Danger style of Church Of Rock N Roll and wonderfully moody Bitter End.
It’s a big traditional old-school British AOR albums folks…mark it down on your calendars for October.
Back in the late 80’s/early 90’s, when Rock was King, Pete Godfrey and Tony Marshall were both involved in various Manchester Rock Bands. It was inevitable that one way or another, their paths would at some point cross. Tony Marshall’s name was mentioned when Pete was attempting to put together a Rock band around 1991; they met up in a rehearsal room somewhere in Eccles, threw a few ideas around but nothing permanent came of this first meeting.
About six years late, Pete was playing lead guitar in a local band and needed to bow out. Tony was the obvious choice so they met up with the intention of working through twenty songs, the truth being Tony listened to about three and said he would be fine with the rest (and he was!).
Fast forward through various bands including Contagious, Vaughn and more, Tony Marshall was now married with a young child and apart from being heavily involved with the annual Firefest shows, had pretty much retired from the “Rock Scene”. Pete Godfrey had been writing pop tracks for a couple of years after 15 years away from the industry, enjoying a little success but it wasn’t satisfying from an artistic point of view. He decided to spend a few months writing what he “felt” instead of what he “thought” and came up with 6 or 7 demos that were definitely rock-based. Pete approached Tony who listened to the tracks but to be honest, wasn't massively impressed with the style. The two decided to meet up to see if they could write together. The ideas flowed but it took time to get up to speed with the advances in recording capabilities.
However, it became apparent pretty early on that the material was strong and what was originally intended to be a song-writing partnership quickly gathered momentum and a direction which was crying out for a band situation. To improve the tracks, Tony asked Pete Newdeck — who at the time was still the drummer with Edens Curse as well as fronting his own band Tainted Nation — to help with the drum programming. As an unexpected bonus, Pete Newdeck was also mixing songs in his own studio for his and other artists’ material, so, obviously the honourable thing to do was to ask him to mix a few of Tony and Petes’ songs, as it would have been rude not to!
Pete loved the songs and pretty quickly was drafted in as the third member of the as yet unnamed outfit.
In August 2013, during a conversation with Firefest’s Kieran Dargan, the suggestion was made that Tony and the two Petes write a track for use as the Anthem for Firefest X. ‘Church of Rock an’ Roll’ was that track and it was about this time that the boys decided to name the band IN FAITH
Over the next several months, songs were written, rewritten, tweaked and improved until they were deemed ready to be presented as demos to a select group of trusted friends now known as “the Jury”. The comments were pretty much phenomenal across the board, with some very positive critique offered which was taken onboard.
Once the decision was made to give “the project” a name, the push was on to complete an album. Favours were called in from several friends including Chris Green of Rubicon Cross plays a solo on ‘Addicted’,
Furyons Pat Heath adds his considerable talents to ‘Radio’ and ‘Learn to Fly’, and Brooke St James of Tyketto contributed a guitar solo to the track ‘Where I Wanna Be’.
In Faith’s debut album ‘There’s A Storm Coming’ was engineered and mixed by Pete Newdeck and co-produced by Pete Newdeck and Tony Marshall. Described by the UK’s FIREWORKS magazine as being “the best British melodic rock debut in almost twenty years”, we believe the album has been well worth all the hard work over the past two years.
