Turn up for the books! 10/6/13

 

Image compliments of Christine Donnelly

The Turning is an up and coming pop rock group featuring local boy Luke McLaughlin as front man. The group formed as the result of a match making effort on the part of Robert Stephenson, their manager. David (Dave) Bardon on Guitar, Louis Gilbert on Bass and Ruben Kenton-Harris on drums had found themselves without a singer and Luke seemed to fit the bill. Dave said: “He was Luke Mc in Ireland, he still is Luke Mc he likes to think, playing gigs in Ireland going round playing acoustic stuff. We were in a band in London, originally called ‘The Pieces’ and it kind of imploded and nothing really went through.” “We knew our current Manager Robert who we meet through various competitions and he sort of took us under his wing and we knew him for quite a few years and he kind of helped us out. Eventually when we split up and we told him we were looking for a singer and he knew Luke.” added Ruben.

Luke explains: “I was signed to Robert and all by that point as an acoustic act. I was getting managed as a solo act but then he paired me up with these guys.” “He flew Luke over to meet us and we had a few rehearsals and everything went well and here we are today. It was fate I think, we get on so well and the music interest is spot on so it goes really well.” Said Ruben

Louis raises a very important point, “The only problem is that Luke is in Derry and we live in London.” The band have managed thus far to travel between England and Ireland to practice and record. “At the moment he comes over when he’s got holidays and we’ve got free time. This is our first time here, we only got here yesterday. Enjoying it. Eventually I’d imagine Luke will come to London or we’ll work something out. If we’re going to take it seriously and gig a lot harder, have a base in London, it’s three on one!” said Dave.“If we’re making all the effort of going between different countries to play then we may as well take it seriously.” added Luke, who has found himself doing most of the travelling to London.

What would happen though if Luke wanted to stay in the city you may ask? Louis said,  “I’d kill him! I don’t know, I think it’d be quite hard to lug the three of us out here. I don’t know. Where would you stay? We could find some sort of accommodation. “We saw a little island when we were flying over between Ireland and England, Isle of Mann, maybe we could just settle there and meet half way.” said Dave.

The guys are all still quite young and excluding Luke are currently studying at college. “We’re all still in college doing our first year of A levels doing a bit of Music Tech and loads of other subjects. Said Ruben.  “We’re going to go flat out as much as we can until these exams are over and then we’ll take a complete year off and just go for it. But any gigs and that, we’re up for it up until about three weeks before exams.” said Dave.

When it come to the song writing in the group both Dave an Luke work in partnership. Their latest single ‘Magazine Street’ saw Dave contribute to writing about somewhere he’d never even laid eyes on! “The new single is called Magazine Street, it was obviously myself that came up with that. I came up with the name. I had a massive poster from a gig in masons. It was Jerry Dammers, the fella that used to be in The Specials but does DJ sets now, he was playing in Masons. I had this big ska poster on my wall and just turned left and the poster was there saying Magazine Street and I thought, name for a song. I wrote the name down and that lay for 6 months and I wrote a riff and that lay for about 6 months. I had the first line.” tells Luke.

“He just thought about it, I made it a song. He had the first line and a riff and I said, ‘well come on then let’s finish it.’ I’d never been to Magazine Street and so I didn’t know what it was but I thought about magazines, newspapers and thought about what could work well words wise. I sort of just made up an image in my head. I think it worked well because I didn’t know it and he does know it. I can make up a little magical place.” said Dave.

The guys will have new material coming out soon with two singles and an EP in the pipeline however Luke isn’t keen on the term EP.  “We’re not calling it an EP, if it’s a vinyl it sounds cool. I could go home and make an EP in two hours like.” said Luke.“What he’s trying to say is that we’ve got a single coming out with a B-side, which is a single. Then we have another one coming out in July and then we’ve got a little EP coming out in October, it’s got 4 songs on it.” said Dave.

The guys are going to be playing in the Gweedore Bar this Friday which will one of only a few chances to catch them locally as they’re going to be touring in England too. You can check out they’re new video of the single ‘Magazine Street on You Tube, it’s a really catchy up beat tune. You’ll find links and updates of what’s coming up on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheTurningOfficial?fref=ts .