Centre Stage winners The Mexanines take home £1000-worth of gear from JHS

Oct. 31, 2011 - PRLog -- When young Yorkshire band The Mexanines played at and won Martin House Children's Hospice's Centre Stage Battle Of The Bands in front of 1200 fans at Leeds O2 Academy in July, they probably didn't realise how many doors would open for them.

But since then, the indie-rock three-piece – made up of James Brander (vocals, guitar and piano), Elliot Roper (bass and backing vocals, and Rory Senior (drums) – have played slots at the prestigious Reading and Leeds festivals, will soon be supporting the Pigeon Detectives, and got to pick £1000-worth of gear from Centre Stage supporters John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd.

The band came down to JHS's headquarters in Leeds to pick up their prizes, and, as self-confessed pedalheads, chose a range of Dunlop MXR pedals to take home.

Guitarist and singer James said: “These pedals are really exciting! We use a lot of effects, and we love putting pretty much everything through them and seeing what sort of noises we can make.”

James picked an MXR Custom Comp compression pedal (£179rrp) and an MXR Flanger (£219rrp), while bassist Elliot plumped for an MXR El Grande Bass Fuzz (£139rrp) and an MXR 6 Band Graphic EQ pedal (£115rrp). They also picked up a Dunlop DC Brick pedalboard power supply to power everything, and a range of Kinsman and Wilkinson accessories.

Elliot said: “You can never have too many pedals! I've got three sorts of fuzz for bass now. One's more distorted, one's a lot more fuzzy, and I'm going to use the MXR El Grande to make a middle ground.”

The band will be able to put their new effects to the test on a number of live dates coming up this year, including that massive Pigeon Detectives support slot at Leeds Academy on November 24th, and they've also got recording plans in the pipeline.

James said: “To win Centre Stage was fantastic, and the best experience we've had as a band. It was mental. I was surprised at how many people came to see us at Reading – it looked great from where we were standing!

“We're going to write ourselves a proper EP now and see how much exposure we can get. You have a bit more of an edge when you played Reading and Leeds, and you don't want to waste it. We're trying to be realistic but we want to take this as far as we can.”

Dunlop/MXR products are distributed in the UK and Eire by JHS. For more information, visit the JHS website, and check out The Mexanines' Facebook page for all their upcoming tour dates.

END

Useful links:

The Mexanines:
http://www.facebook.com/themexanines

MXR pedals at JHS:
http://www.jhs.co.uk/mxr.html

Martin House:
http://www.martinhouse.org.uk