Hot shots (From Bournemouth Echo)

Hot shots

12:06pm Friday 8th September 2006

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THE music industry's newest hot-shots Gun Angel look right on target for stardom - and yet all three band members are just 12 years old.

The Bournemouth-based grunge-punksters have already been hailed "the next Hanson" by 2CR after their EP featuring original tracks and covers landed on their desk this week.

Power FM, meanwhile, has short-listed the boys to open Power Amped 2 at Southampton Guildhall next week before an audience of 2,000, alongside headliners The Zutons, Captain and Vega 4.

Rob Smith, the 2CR drive time presenter played their cover of The Who's My Generation as well as one of their own songs, Somewhere, this week.

He told listeners the station receives hundreds of demos but Gun Angel's Where Do We Go from Here? was "unbelievable".

Playing the tracks, he said: "They're unbelievable. That's so brilliant...that's excellent. The next Hanson could be from Boscombe!"

The station's newsdesk was also hot on the case and invited the boys in to be interviewed this week too and they have been featured on regular news bulletins.

Their talents have also been spotted by the director of Bournemouth's biggest summer show, That'll be the Day's Trevor Payne who, after hearing the boys live, asked them to perform their cover of My Generation in the final show at the Pavilion on September 16.

The boys, Rob Degan (guitar and lead vocals), Will Porter (bass) and Paeris, known as P, Giles (drums), have been good friends since meeting at St Thomas Garnet's School Boscombe at the age of four but decided to form a band just nine months ago.

While Rob, who now goes to St Peter's school, has taken guitar lessons for a few years, Will and P, who go to Twynham School, are entirely self-taught.

It all began when they started to go to Electric 896 in Boscombe - better known as Numbers - the classic basement coffee bar hang out for young "musos" which is kitted out with a selection of instruments.

The boys' emerging talent was spotted by youth worker Laura Nicholson who gave them tons of encouragement and the opportunity to audition for Set to Stun, a gig featuring 11 young bands she was going to stage at The Opera House.

They got through and set about writing and rehearsing enough material for a short set.

After badgering their parents for equipment and a few weeks of intensive rehearsals in Will's front room they took to the stage for the first time at the Opera House in front of an audience of 700.

Mikes had to be lowered, mixing desk volumes turned up a notch. The unsuspecting audience was clearly stunned and amazed by what followed as the entire room really started to rock.

On the Fly Wessex message board Sam Goodman posted:"On the second stage, and drawing the biggest audience, are Gun Angel. Raising (or lowering) the bar as far as young bands go, Gun Angel are all 11 or 12 years old and open with an almost note-perfect Smells Like teen Spirit. Their crowd is a mix of fans, gobsmacked on-lookers and sing-along parents who are clearly as impressed as I am. It's as though Hanson never grew up but instead moved to Boscombe.

On the Solid Air message board Paul Hills posted: "I actually went to the Opera House last night, lasted about five bands, but nice to see a few hundred in, and all for a good cause. Musically not really my cuppa but nice to see a 12 year-old trio singing a Nirvana song just for the sheer exuberance! Obviously the local talent is in the genes in these 'ere parts."

As a result of their performance at Set to Stun they were invited to play at the Earthwise open air festival at Cerne Abbas where, with a couple more Gun Angel penned songs under their belt, they once again converted the crowd and their own sound began to emerge.

It was time to get into a recording studio after that and a day at Active Studio in Poole resulted in the EP.

Power FM will be playing tracks from it over the next few days as it looks for a "band that has graduated straight from the school of cool to take to the stage as Power Amped 2 rocks the county".

"Playing alongside the UK's biggest acts, this isn't a gig for Nervous Norman and the Sixth-form all stars - this is the real deal. Confidence, passion and talent must be gushing through your veins and music must be the very meaning of your life" states the 103.2 Power FM website.

The boys have been assured that they havn't been short-listed because they are so young but because they are so good.

Should Gun Angel be selected to open Power Amped -which falls on Saturday September 16 they will change their performance in That'll Be the Day to another night next week.

• www.gunangel.co.uk

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