Rooster
Cock rock: "We want to bring back stadium rock," declares Rooster guitarist Luke Potashnick, tongue firmly on his fretboard. "No modern, young bands are really trying to do that anymore." Get ready to see the name Rooster writ high on the marquee at your nearest enormodome. These four young fellas, two of them still in their teens, are chasing the old-fashioned rock 'n' roll dream, and if that means playing guitar solos with their tongues, dropping Stonehenges onto the stage and performing unnatural acts with seafood, then bring it on. Rooster's heroes are classic rock monsters such as Led Zeppelin, Cream and Free. "That's what I'm calling on rather than any of the 1980s stuff," says Potashnik. Young, good-looking and with a mature rock instinct and bundles of attitude - Oasis must be quaking in their slippers.
Wild fowl: Singer Nick Atkinson's idols were such flamboyant frontmen as Mick Jagger, Steve Tyler and Axl Rose, so he and his old schoolmate Potashnick had no trouble finding common rock 'n' roll ground. They recruited 19-year-old Cornwall lad Dave Neale on drums and found 19-year-old bassist Ben Smyth through an ad in the music press. They got their name not from a flightless fowl, but from a racehorse, Rooster Booster, that Atkinson won £250 on. After signing a deal with Hugh Goldmith's Brightside/BMG label, Rooster were ready to rock.
Busted out: They may emulate rock's dinosaurs, but it looks as though Rooster's classic rock sound is not extinct just yet. Their live shows have attracted hordes of young girls, who have taken to baring their breasts at gigs and whipping them out for the band members to autograph. "It's a lot more pleasant to have lots of beautiful women in front of the stage," states Atkinson. Many of these female fans would have been into Busted, but now that they've gone bust, Rooster are only too happy to educate their new fans in the ways of "proper" rock 'n' roll. "There's a lot of 16-year-old kids that have missed out on the 1970s and the kind of great music that was around back then," says Potashnick. "If anyone hears us and gets into Zeppelin or AC/DC as a result, then that would be a huge thrill for me."
Rooster rule: So far, it looks as if the kids are learning fast. Rooster's début single, Come Get Some, cracked the UK Top Ten last October, and was followed swiftly by lighters-in-the-air ballad Staring At The Sun. The début album went in at No 3, proving that there's still an appetite for classic rock played by good-looking guys (as if Bon Jovi didn't already prove that). Rooster will be rampant at Queens University, Belfast tonight (Feb 11) and Dublin's Temple Bar Music Centre tomorrow (Feb 12).
