SHORT BIOGRAPHY - STRAIGHT TO THE POINT
(see long version underneath)
Barricades Rise are Jonathan Coates and Michael McEntee. Based in the Midlands (UK) they are an acoustic duo and the music they produce can be described as Acoustic-Folk-Rock. Comparisons can be made to a blend of Mumford & Sons, Turin Brakes and Elvis Perkins.
Jonathan and Michael have played together for close to 15 years in various bands and Barricades Rise was born from the ashes of a 5 piece rock band in 2008 . The energy and passion of the rock band is something that they have carried forward into Barricades Rise and coupled with their desire for creating songs with memorable melodies, they truly but on a performance on stage by disregarding the set etiquette of the standard acoustic gig and always leave the stage glistening in sweat. This energy and passion has also been captured on their recordings. Jonathan's voice rips through each track with a force that is rarely heard from other vocalists and put together with Michael's creative guitar style, they truly have crafted a unique yet accessible sound.
Since forming, Barricades Rise have been gigging constantly all around the country and gaining new fans with every show. From small pubs to large scale festivals, they have made their mark. They recorded their debut album ‘You and Your Adored’ in 2009 and it received great reviews from the online press. A free download EP, No Love Lost, followed in 2010 and on June 24th 2011 their second album All I have Is Here was released.
THE LONG VERSION - FOR THE FANS ONLY
In the autumn of 1994 at an unremarkable High School, the new meat entered the prison for the start of a new term and the start of their 5 year sentence. The setting was on old redbrick, decrepit hulk of a building, bearing down upon the soulless inmates, with its meandering staircases leading to long-lost, dust filled rooms, to its abandoned swimming pool filled with rank brown liquid and the occasional shopping trolley. This is where dreams are created and poems seep out of the air. Over a hundred new would-be friends entered this establishment in September not knowing the journey it would take them on. Two of these individuals were local boy Jonathan Coates and out-of-towner Michael McEntee.
Jonathan took the 5 minute walk from his home in Atherstone whilst Michael turned up at gates following a 15 minute car drive. Fate decided that they were not to meet until later in the year however, with each of them based in separate parts of the vicinity. One fateful day though out of the blue, the young Coates, enriched with Vitamin D from the barely acknowledged sun, bound through the limited open spaces available during a lapse in judgment from the education committee, expressing his delight in the clean, crisp air whilst singing gaily a show-stopping tune from the conglomerate that is Disney. In the unease that followed, Michael courteously turned and tried to forget the experience that would be imprinted on his mind for ever more. The momentous occasion had occurred; the Gods turned to themselves and acknowledged with a nod and a little wry smile knowing that their work had begun.
Alas, the beginning was a false start. More than a year passed without more than a Pog™ match between the two. Having acknowledged each other the previous year no friendship materialised. The circles the two ran in only occasionally overlapped and it seemed the pair were never to connect in the way Fate planned. Between year 1 and year 2 the establishment made the very wise decision to relocate the ragged sophomores from the overbearing jigsaw that was known as ‘Upper School’ to the very low brow, non-the-less schizophrenic ‘Lower School’. This change in location also coincided with a shuffle of personnel between lessons, and therefore friends were being swapped left, right and centre. One of these friends collected by Michael was Matthew Dowell. Dowell was to play a large part in their story as along with Coates, Dowell was a local boy and had connections across the vast land of Atherstone.
The musical landscape at the time was heavily shifting to British bands under the banner ‘Britpop’. Both Michael and Matthew started to become interested in this movement. On the other side of the wall, Jonathan and fiend Chris Smalley were equally intrigued with the scene and made the decision to start a band. After a period of time it became clear that Smalley lacked the dedication and so, with Matthew being involved with Jonathan’s circle of friends, Michael was offered the gig. From the get go Michael and Jonathan connected but a problem arose quite quickly. After digesting the mountain of Britpop on the market, the 3 boys realised an important factor that all these NME fronted bands had but they did not. They could not play an instrument. This dilemma was brushed aside with aplomb though as they each assigned themselves an instrument quite clinically. Jonathan was to sing, Michael was to play the guitar and Matthew was to play the bass. Another hurdle was overcome once more as the three confident nippers required a drummer. Yet another local in the form of Robert Ballentine was claimed from the throng of bodies at the school, based purely on the ‘how-can-this-fail?’ knowledge that his sister played the drums so therefore he must know a thing or two. The foursome was complete.
Over the next 2 years the boys, under the name ‘Gel’, played purely their own songs, unique for a band so young. After playing several on-site gigs (like Jonny Cash at Falsome Prison), they started to get a name for themselves. Jonathan had also picked up the guitar along the way and became the chief songwriter. Cracks were showing though. There was a lot of friction between Dowell and Ballentine and a few times during rehearsals scuffles broke out and several practices became slanging matches not just between the rhythm section, but between them as a whole. It was Michael that took the decision to leave the ramshackle group behind in the winter of ’98.
Coates and McEntee continued to work together after the demise of Gel by dragging Chris Smalley back into the frame, along with fellow hanger-on Steven Harborne. With Smalley insisting on playing the guitar, Michael moved onto bass, Coates continued his vocal duties with Harborne on the drums. Pink Jelly Vibe as they were to be known lasted only a handful of appearances within the walls of Q.E. and before the year was out they had gone their separate ways. In the middle of 1999 the boys escaped the establishment with several completely useful qualifications and headed together towards a brighter, better future in a whole other world (County).
Together Coates and McEntee ventured into Leicestershire to embark on their future plans to conquer the world musically. The college, glistening with respect, promise and a bit of wet paint held their dream alive for several days. Coates attempted a new musical venture with new friends Steve Yapp, Pete Menney and the old faithful Rob Ballentine, who had somehow scraped himself through a few qualifications and ended up, also alongside Matthew Dowell, at the same College. On the flip side McEntee started a band with Dowell, old Pink Jelly Vibe drummer Steve Harborne and new face Sam Stockley. After a few weeks of both these bands playing, the realisation struck like a brick to the face, nowhere was there a partnership as strong as McEntee’s and Coates’s. Knowing that the trend for bands reforming would be huge in 2009, the four boys from Gel took a knowing step to start the trend by starting to play together again, this time under the name Idle Hollow.
No longer held back by the walls of a school or the curfew of 9pm by Dowell’s mum, the now rebranded band kicked on in big style. A more disciplined outfit emerged from the rabble that had been in its place and they took on Nuneaton with vengeance. Actual real life gigs were played on the local scene, twice selling out a 250 capacity venue. The highs were higher, but the lows were lower and in the new millennium Dowell’s changing attitude towards the band, mainly caused due to a change in his social circle and musical tastes, raised its head once more. Refusing to play a gig due to his side band also playing the same night he was thrown from the chariot to start his own branch on the musical tree. Close friend Gary Lockley-Ault took up the four-string for the gig which ultimately was his baptism of fire. Shortly afterwards GL-A joined the band in a permanent position. This was in the short term a very valid replacement but in the long term lead to a lot of poison in the band which came to blows several times.
Once the college period of the band came to a close there was a fork in the road. Both McEntee and Coates were very much going down the University route, whilst Ballentyne and GL-A were facing the long road to Jobville. Newcastle was the destination for Coates and McEntee and a long thought out decision by GL-A confirmed he would be trailing along too. Ballentine left the band amicably and went on to join the RAF and never touching a drum kit again. Plans were laid by the remaining 3-piece to aggressively seek out a drummer and take on the North East. With the new found freedom and wealth (of a student loan) and with the 3 all sharing a house the band took a back seat for a while whilst they bedded into student life. This period continued longer than expected though and it was nearly a full year until a drummer was found, and they wished he never was. Jimmy was a tough Scotsman with a few missing teeth and a medicated anxiety problem that he constantly forgot to take his pills for. They stuck with him for a few practices until they decided to ditch him. Help was on hand though with Sheffield’s finest Joe Freeguard. Joe slotted in perfectly for a good year, playing several gigs across Newcastle until the boys left the heights of the College to move to the University. Tensions around this point were rife between Lockley-Ault and McEntee, with Lockley-Ault insisting he should be playing the guitar as McEntee was no good. Living together as well the feelings became great between them and several times drunken outbursts would be encountered. Coates was a bystander as even though he had a deep and long lasting relationship with McEntee, he enjoyed the creativity of Lockley-Ault’s songs. McEntee wrote little in this period and once Freeguard left, Coates and Lockley-Ault started writing and recording together under the name Hollow Tide. It was in this time that several future Barricades Rise songs were written by Coates such as Wake and Dazed. Although McEntee and Lockley-Ault often locked horns, the idea of drafting McEntee in and starting a full band was banded about often but never fully realised. Five albums worth of Hollow Tide material was recorded between 2003 and 2005 before Coates decided it had run its course and made his return to the Midlands.
After being awarded with a degree each, McEntee was set to join Coates in the return to the Midlands. This was put on hold though as in the Christmas previous, McEntee had seen a long lasting relationship end bitterly. McEntee decided to continue in the North and continue to live with Lockley-Ault with possibly the aim of starting something new. The stress and strain of the McEntee-Lockley-Ault relationship eased once Coates left the North but they failed to create any musical output together, with Lockley-Ault founding a band and McEntee content to simply start writing again. Back in the Midlands Coates’s effort to get a new musical venture off the ground were hitting a wall with various members tried out but never a gig played. In the first months of 2006, Coates showed McEntee some new tunes he had been working on. It was these tunes alone that re-awoke the partnership between them. McEntee decided to leave Newcastle and join up with Coates to try out these new tunes.
Even though they lived together for four years, it was only now that they started to write together again since leaving College. They sought out a full band to play their new raw edged sound. Graham Eliot played drums, Andrew Stain played guitar along with McEntee with Coates taking on purely vocals live. The bass player over the next year and a half changed. Firstly there was Paul who worked with Coates, then Steve Scott, then finally Michael’s brother Rob. The five piece, again entitled Idle Hollow, registered a fair bit of interest from Coventry and Warwickshire and played dozens of gigs. Song’s were written in this period that later became favourites for Barricades Rise such as Sleepwalkers and This Creation. During the latter stages of 2007 McEntee and Coates took to playing acoustic gigs on the side. After only a handful of these performances it became fairly clear that they were enjoying the low key, intimate gigs to the in-your-face and barely audible ones in the full band. The decision was taken to walk away from the 5-piece band and concentrate on the acoustic band.
The early days of Barricades Rise consisted of reworking some of Idle Hollow’s tunes with few new songs being written. After playing a few gigs the decision was taken, on a cold night in mid winter outside a now derelict pub, to record an album. The songs recorded by Coates that tempted McEntee to return to the midlands a few years previously were placed together with new songs. The idea of an album soon condensed into en EP. As the duo concentrated so much on energy and passion on stage it seemed the logical thing to increase the production of the songs. Acoustic tunes with two guitars soon turned into 5 minute epics with strings, electric guitars and full on drum kits. Six tracks wound up on the very first Barricades Rise release on July 4th 2008. Two of the songs would eventually be reworked and feature on future Barricades Rise material, these being Penelope and The Preacher. A large scale release night was planned for the launch of the ‘Blueprints EP’ but what should have been the start of a new era ended up as a false start. After building up the production of all 6 songs, only 2 of them were actually played on the launch night due to the duo literally unable to play them. Around a month went by promoting the EP until they decided to withdraw it completely as in no way did it replicate what Barricades Rise were about. McEntee stressed these reservations whilst the recording of the EP was still ongoing but Coates convinced him that all would be fine. The previous 8 months seemed like a waste of time and it hit them both hard, but instead of hanging their head they decided almost immediately to start recording what they actually sounded like.
As the clouds bruised the sky in the late eve of autumn, McEntee and Coates took to the creative pod of their studio to burrow down for a full 9 months, laying down their souls on wax (hard drive). The end product of this hibernation was to become their breakthrough. An album of 11 carefully crafted love-infused songs were unleashed to the public in the form of their debut album ‘You and Your Adored’ on August 21st 2009. Over a year had passed since the debacle that was Blueprints and that was all but forgotten when the new material flowed from the publics speakers. Live favourites could now finally be heard in peoples home with tracks such as Dazed, Separate Divide and the new tune Aftermath appearing. A sell out launch show, with Leicestershire native Steve Faulkner on the djembe, cemented the pair as heavy weights in the Midlands acoustic scene with future gigs seeing them playing alongside acts such as Gabriella Cilmi and Roddy Woomble of Idlewild fame.
Not content to sit back and live off this 11 track beast, the pair continued to write and record not knowing where it would take them. With the album out not even 6 months the decision was taken by the duo to not release an album so soon after, so the finely tuned songs that were lined up to feature on album duex were stacked together to form a brand new EP. Releasing a new EP of 3-4 songs every few months was the direction they decided on and so on April 31st, their brand new download only EP became available for free. The No Love Lost EP contained a reworking of the song The Preacher from Blueprints which later became a firm staple in their live set. What No Love Lost EP also featured was a landmark by McEntee. You and Your Adored was written heavily by Coates with McEntee reworking several of the tracks but getting credit for his arrangement skills rather than his writing. The song Brakes on the No Love Lost EP became the first fully penned song purely by McEntee. After the release of the EP the duo continued to tour constantly, taking in cities as far a field as Barnsley to Norwich and London, as well as dozens of gigs in the midlands area. In the summer of 2010 McEntee got married and an obvious break from gigging occurred. Coates spent the time writing but it was a relatively dry period. Upon McEntee returning from his honeymoon bliss they did not have the songs available to release a new EP which was originally planned and so, after having so many leftover demos from the You and Your Adored sessions and No Love Lost sessions, plus a few covers they had recorded, they decided to release, again download only for free, a live, demos and covers album entitled ‘Repertoire’. This came at the start of September 2010 and it was not long afterwards that the creative juices started to seep and the idea of another download only EP of original material weighted on the pairs minds. You and Your Adored was a year old and the hunger for creating a new full album was growing in each of them. After the release of Repertoire, the decision was made to concentrate on their second full studio album rather than an EP.
Whilst crisp white snow fell outside the studio window, work began in January 2011 on recording their new material. The songs appearing on You and Your Adored were of the most part old Idle Hollow songs reworked for the acoustic stage, with some dating back 5 years. The task was now to write a complete album from scratch, no old tunes to be incorporated. Live favourite’s Roundabouts and Animals were written for the new release. Since the No Love Lost EP the pair had accumulated several new instruments ranging from harmonicas to a banjo and the crazy hybrid – a banjolele. All these new instruments made their way onto the new recording, but having lived through the debacle that was Blueprints, they made sure that they started as a great song first then built up around them. The album recording sessions and writing period was more relaxed than both You and Your Adored and No Love Lost. Coates now had a true writing partner and not just an arranger as McEntee's tunes had reached a maturity. With the second album in the bag, called All I Have Is Here, the duo took on a grueling 35+ date tour covering every possible town in the midlands.
The album represented a leap in songwriting and maturity. No longer were these boys exploring a genre, but rather men planting a flag in the acoustic folk rock world. The album was received well by the online press and more importantly the fans. The summer dates saw a massive increase in fans and followers that Barricades Rise connecting with on a daily basis due to social media. A personal and rare connection had been made between musician and music lovers which only fueled their desire to stay in the game for the long haul.
Despite the fire that raged for more gigs and more music, both members found themselves facing another challenge, a bigger challenge than any other. . . Fatherhood. Both members and their respected partners were now facing the joy of parenthood and this was a joy that both BR boys embraced. With one Baby BR that arrived in early Jan 2012 and the second expected for April 2012, the band have taken a well-deserved break from gigging for short period. In spite of this break, phone calls and emails are being swapped with talks of some download releases in early 2012. Gigs have now been booked from June onwards and the BR train will once again depart from the station
TO BE CONTINUED
Last updated Jan 20th 2012.
