For One Night Only

One Night Only have appeared out of the distant Yorkshire yonder, ramming their hands firmly round the throat of the charts with single ‘Just for Tonight’ and debut long player ‘Started A Fire’. Luckily for Gigwise we find a chance to have a sit down with lead singer George Craig, seventeen and the “charismatic rock god guy” of the group. The first question we have to ask is just what is it like to be the ‘new’ indie sensation’s, with a sold out U.K. tour underway and support slots with broccoli headed contemporary’s The Pigeon Detectives and The Kooks? George goes quiet before answering humbly, “Sometimes it’s hard to believe this is reality really, totally surreal.”

George’s modest rebuttal immediately downplays the arrogant rocker tag he’s been lumped with, “it’s just what people say, mainly people that don’t know me.” With all the hype currently surrounding this young lad we had a picture of a sun glassed messiah in mind before meeting George, but instead we meet a strange amalgamation of laid back cool and boyish charm. George insists he’s “just a normal kid really, having fun and touring with my band,” but it’s rare you meet a front man who’s too young to buy drinks but writing songs currently giving Rihanna a run for her money.

So how did it come to be that five teens managed to emerge from Yorkshire’s tearoom capital (Helmsley to all you non tearoom lovers) to become the latest act touted as ‘the next big thing?’ “We were just hanging round really, missing school and playing gigs and stuff,” George says. Forming in 2003, it took three years before the flash of life giving lightning came as Steve Lamacq began spinning their demo and first single ‘You And Me’. “It just sort of happened” admits George. “That’s when I think we started to take ourselves a little more seriously to be honest.” The endorsement of Lamacq prompted a flurry of gigs, which lead to nearly every major label in the UK marching up to Yorkshire for a personal meeting.

It’s not often a band has industry types trekking to the dales; so what is it that has put them on the end of everyone’s tongues? They’ve been likened to a cross between the aforementioned Kook’s, if Luke Pritchard sported a Vegas mustache a la Brandon Flowers, with Jack Salis’ late entry into the band on keyboards adding an extra dose of grandiosity for good measure. Was Salis’ entry into the band a conscious effort to have a commercial sound? “No, it just turned out that way as we wanted a bit of a change; we found our sound more when we started putting organs and stuff in the music.” Though George admits they strove for “a really big epic sound,” does the label commercial worry him at all? “Not really, I think that it’s a good thing because its music for anyone to listen to, there’s a little more in it that just commercialism, more depth to it than just pop songs, but that doesn’t bother me at all.”