Teesside indie outfit, Provenance, made up of members Theo Formby-Jackson (vocals/rhythm guitar), Joe Bradford (lead guitar), Harry Blythe (bass guitar) and Jack Obern (drums), are going from strength to strength at the moment, having recently won our NE Volume Music Bar Battle of the Bands competition.
The band got together in summer last year after a few attempts with other bands. Harry and Joe met in college and started jamming together, trying out different drummers until they met Jack – and, as Joe explained: “There was an instant connection there. We were looking for a singer too and after one practice with Theo, we knew he was the right fit for us. The original content started snowballing from that point on.”
As I caught up with the band, they mentioned just how varied their influences are. Harry was inspired by Sea Girls when he saw them live because it really put into perspective the touring lifestyle of musicians and how much he wants to peruse that. Jack is inspired by Sam Fender due to his absolute passion for music, and Joe looks up to Brian May for his powerful and emotive guitar skills and The Strokes for their consistent picking patterns and using different melodies for harmony on the guitar. Theo also spends a lot of his time listening to bands such as The 1975, Catfish and the Bottlemen and The Beatles.
On their best gig to date, Theo noted: “That would have to be the NE Volume Music Bar gig a week after ‘Say It Again’ had been released on all platforms. The crowd were singing back the lyrics louder than me…that was definitely a surreal experience.”
As previously mentioned, Provenance won our Battle of the Bands competition at NE Volume Music Bar, a competition designed to support young, up-and-coming musicians. The band explained: “The Battle of the Bands competition has helped us out massively with publicity and growing an audience fast. The people and bands we met along the way have been amazing local connections for us too. The studio time we won was also huge for us because it meant we could get a start on properly recording our songs to create a little portfolio of our music. Overall, it was the best starting point for our band that we could’ve ever asked for.”
Provenance are aiming big for 2023 and will be releasing as much of their music as possible. They also noted: “We want to break out of the local scene and get our music heard far and wide.”
To find out more about Provenance, head to Instagram.com/provenance.bnd.
