Hip Parade ring our bell

06 January 2009

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With the Orange unsignedAct with Sony Ericsson winners title in sight, Hip Parade are the only band left in the competition, and with incredible performances week after week, they are strong contenders to bag the ultimate prize.

With their only real rival being fellow Scotsman Tommy Reilly, I managed to drag front man Rob away from band practise for a couple on minutes to chat about the experience so far, and what the future might hold for them.

So what are you up to at the moment Rob, anything super exciting?

Nah, nothing much, I have been reading your stuff that you�ve been writing; it�s such a cool website; I don�t want to lose my macho credibility though!

Don�t worry Rob, you�ll always be a rock �ard Scotsman to us. So how excited are you now it�s getting close to the final.

So excited that I even forgot it was Christmas! Someone told me and I was like �Are you kidding me on?� I just can�t stop thinking about Orange Unsigned.

Aww, that�s the cutest thing I ever heard. So other than yourselves, who would you like to win the competition?

It�s got to be Tommy Reilly, we have to stick up for our country!

So to anyone who hasn�t been lucky enough, or cool enough, to have been watching the show, can you sum up your band in five words for them?

Energetic, Cheeky, Loud, Explosive and Fiery.

Woo, they are great words! So what do you think makes you guys stand out from the rest?

I think the fact that we have all been doing this for a long time and have all dabbled in different genres and we all have really different tastes in music and I think that eclectic taste means that when we all collaborate we get something that is quite pop sounding and people seem to like it so it�s cool.

So other than your amazing cover of Blue Monday that you did on the covers show, which other song would you love to cover?

Ah, we have always dreamed of covering a Led Zeppelin song but we don�t think we are cool enough to touch it! [FF: That�s what Alex James said about you�re last cover! So do it!] Yeah, but Led Zeppelin are completely untouchable; we made Blue Monday our own but if we copied the original we would have never been able to have pulled it off.

Who are a few of your musical inspirations.

Definitely Led Zeppelin. We all like different music; the guitarist is into nineties bands such as the Stone Roses and Oasis and the bass player is more into Metallica and things like that. The drummer�s favourite band of all time is Biffy Clyro

Biffy are MY Favourite band! I think your drummer is officially my new best friend! So after that bombshell, tell me who you would love to go on tour with?

Ooh, right now I would have to say The Strokes or Kings Of Leon because they are amazing bands and we all really love King Of Leon at the moment; so it would be great if you could organise that for us!

Haha, I�ll get my little black book out! So what would you like to do when the show ends, whatever the result?

Hopefully we will get to do it full-time and be in a band as a job rather than just a hobby. We have been doing this for about seven years now and it�s always just been for the fun of gigs and playing in front of our friends. We never really took it that seriously until we got into the competition and found that people actually like us and now the idea of doing it as a career is just amazing.

More Hip Parade ring our bell on page 2