Delayed Promise (Interview)

by Kimberley Ross on 19.08.09

Four piece Manchester music veterans Delayed Promise are known for their past trouble of keeping bassists. But this hasn’t knocked their confidence or dented their dreams, as they confess to 4Q.

Founding members – Andy Wilde (guitar/vocals), Helen Cheung (guitar/vocals) and bassist number one Paul – met at college, and drummer Rick Steckles was drafted in, to complete them back in 2003. They all shared a love for the likes of Jimmy Eat World, The Foo Fighters and Greenday – some of the band’s main influences, as Andy is quick to point out. “We’re heavily influenced by American pop rock, and we’re still pretty unique, there’s no one quite like us.

Andy is not too proud to admit that this may be somewhat of a hindrance in a city with its own style of music, “Many Mancunians say, ‘I’m not into your style of music, but after hearing you I really enjoyed your sound’.”

After many changes of bassists over six years, the founding three gigged together, before realising something was missing. “That’s kind of our Achilles Heel, we keep swapping bassists, but now we’ve found Gem”, said Andy.

Bassist number five, Gem Carter, joined the band in December last year, and her addition has certainly been a hit. “I think Gem’s just fitted in perfectly”, iterates Helen, “We’ve got that extra depth, as the other bassists didn’t do backing vocals. With Gem we’ve got the extra vocals, so there are more ideas to play around with and it’s going really well.”

With so many line up changes, surely the music must have changed since the beginning, right?

Andy doesn’t think so; “We’ve always been the same as in we’ve always been Delayed Promise, we’ve always sounded like Delayed Promise.”

After five EPs, there’s now album hope somewhere along the line. Although they know things take time, as Andy explains. “We’d rather do it on our own until we get a that big push. It’s just waiting for the opportunity I suppose.” “We’re just trying to write songs, play as much as possible, get our CDs to radio stations, and hopefully we’ll get the song. That’s what it usually is with bands, its one song that gets the ball rolling.”

With many years of hard work, the band would love to use their passion of music as a full time job. “Having to go to work is just a complete pain as well. You go to work and it takes all your strength,” Andy admits.
Rick feels the same; “I’d leave my job at the drop of a hat as soon as we could support someone like Jack’s Mannequin or Jimmy Eat World.”

Despite this, the band has played over 130 gigs, playing once or twice every week, but this isn’t without its problems. “I hate it when the promoter only cares about how many you’ll get to the gig. There are only so many times your friends can come and see you play.”

Delayed Promise is certainly not short of plans for the future. They hope local radio stations such as XFM will pick up one of their singles soon. They also have ideas about putting out a sixth CD, doing a low budget music video, playing festivals and eventually supporting bigger bands on tour. “We need the actual opportunity to play with a band that has a decent following, that are the same style of music as us, and branch out that way,” Rick said.

They even want to go stateside some day. “It’s frustrating because I genuinely think we’d do better in America than we’d do here,” Andy confesses.
“If we got financial backing, then maybe, but there’s plenty to do in England really isn’t there? Do the smaller island first,” he adds.

If they stick to their guns and keep an eye out for that all important supporting act, there may be plenty to do, not only on this smaller island, but that other much bigger island across the Atlantic.