Yorkshire Battle Of The Bands, Heat: Silvermill + Octafish + Novacain + 35 Stock / Greenside Arms, Waterloo, Huddersfield

After two and a bit years of gigging Novacain were still pretty wet around the ears. Even so we'd always been savvy enough to avoid 'Battle of the Bands'. The vast majority of said 'competitions' are run by Child Catcher-esque promoters who make ludicrous claims about record contracts and future gigs at Wembley Stadium to entice naive young bands into signing up. BotBs appeal to our basest instincts - we are better than everyone else and OH GOD WHY CAN'T THE WORLD JUST REALISE THIS. Rather than working at one's songwriting craft and ceaselessly touring the 'toilet circuit', the young musician can allow herself to believe that taking part, and winning, a Battle of the Bands will provide a short cut to the recognition her undoubted talents clearly deserve.

So what the devil were we doing taking part in the 'Yorkshire Battle of the Bands 2001' then?!! The competition had been pitched to me by Tony, the virtuoso guitarist in my Dad's band, Bad Habit. Tony had been a huge influence on me when I first learnt to play guitar, in fact he even leant me a Les Paul copy, my first electric guitar, and sold me a H|H amp which I gigged with when Novacain started out. I was a little bit in awe of him, even though he was just my Dad's mate, and I think I was much more open to the idea of taking part in a BotBs as a result - if he thought it was a good idea, then it must be a good idea. Also, not for the first time, we were in a bit of a rut. We'd been through a purple patch of songwriting but, even though our songs and live performances were better than ever, the earth stubbornly refused to stop turning on its axis as a result of the magnificence of our indie-rock tunes. In short, we didn't know what to do and thought we might as well give the competition a shot. Of course there was another, far more pragmatic, reason for us to take part... Despite the fact that bands were expected to pay a £50 entry fee, we could keep the first £50 from any tickets we sold plus there was a £100 prize for each heat winner. And Tony happened to be one of the judges. Not that he would be biased or anything. Obvs. Nevertheless I was sure as I could be that we'd win our heat and thus have £100 profit to put towards our next recording session. Finally, the BotB was in aid of the Greer Lawrence Foundation, a charitable organisation set up in the name of Greer Lawrence, a girl from Huddersfield who had been strangled in her bed by her ex-boyfriend Eddie, who became obsessed with her after she ended their relationship. Even if we didn't win, we'd be doing our bit to help a charity.

After paying our £50 we received a welcome letter, rule sheet and a book of tickets. It was all very professional. We easily sold our 30 tickets and began practising for our heat. We hadn't heard of any of the bands we were playing with so reasoned that victory would be even easier to come by than we'd originally anticipated.

We'd also written a new song, which we confident was our best yet. "Heads You Lose" (or "8 Ball Rolling" as it was originally known) was a relatively complex indie pop number, and fit in well with the rest of the songs we were playing at the time. After years of trying, we'd finally got a coherent set. Cor blimey.

Novacain - Heads You Lose

We recorded "Heads You Lose" at Woodman Studios in Elland along with "Cull". Although we were happy with the result, it sounds much tamer than the version we played live.

I was shattered on the day of the heat, having stayed up 'til 6am the night before to watch the BBC's coverage of the general election. After meeting Mike in Leeds and doing a bit of flyering for our show at Joseph's Well later in the month, we headed to Huddersfield with our gear. I was expecting a pub, but the Greenside Arms was actually a social club with a reasonably big function room at the back. Because it was a Friday, Win and Leigh, who had jobs, couldn't make it to the venue for soundcheck at 5pm so I ended up checking the drums. Awesome.

35 Stock were on first and were half decent, although clearly not as good as us. Oh no. Buoyed by the failure of 35 Stock to blow the audience away, and consumed by an unpleasant competitive spirit, we took to the stage around 8pm and blasted through our standard 35 minute set. We made a couple of minor mistakes but generally played well and were rapturously received by the friends and family we'd bused in from Leeds and Dewsbury.

Watching the remaining bands was an odd experience. I love music utterly and completely and am always ready to listen without prejudice, but the fact we were in a BotBs meant that I wanted Silvermill and Octafish to be shit. Or at least have such wide ranging technical issues that they were unable to play and the heat would be ours, ALL OURS. What a nice guy eh? In retrospect I think this behaviour was indicative of the fact that, behind the bluster, I really wasn't particularly confident in my band... Anyway I needn't have worried. Octafish played servicable, but unmemorable ska tinged pop, while Silvermill were an under-rehearsed alt-rock band without any standout tunes.

The plebs had to put up with white, hand written tickets but us VIPs had golden (i.e. yellow) invites. Wow.

Given our arrogance and attitude towards the other acts you're probably hoping/expecting that we came last and left with our tail between our legs right? Me too. But we actually won. Sozzle. 

The scoring system meant that the band with the fewest points was victorious and we ended up with a total of 9. The minimum possible total was 7 and we were miles ahead of, not just the other bands in our heat, but also the winning bands from the previous heats. We left with £100 and a ringing endorsement of our musical genius reverberating in our ears.

Set list (Novacain)

1. Gibbsy's Street
2. Cull
3. Heads You Lose
4. Now You've Got It, Use It
5. Quick Release
6. One For The People
7. Echo
8. End Of The World