Spotlight band: Passengers

Members: Marc Winstanley, vocals, guitars and drums and David Redshaw, bass and vocals

When and where did you form? We are both from Bolton. Myself and a long-time friend and writing partner, Chris Parr, were writing and recording an EP together back in 2005. I had always written lyrics but it was decided I should start to play a bit of bass for it. Marc was working at Hamilton's at the time, a music shop in Bolton where I eventually bought my bass. We got talking in the shop and found out he recorded and produced a lot of local bands and artists and so we decided to have him record our EP. Marc liked my lyrics and expressed an interest in maybe collaborating as he also played guitar, drums and sang. When Chris moved to London, myself and Marc started working on a couple of things together. We wrote a song called What Am I To Do?, but things seemed to fizzle out after that initial activity. Then around 18 months ago, Marc called me out of the blue saying he wanted to kickstart the project, and we haven't stopped since.

What is your sound and who are your influences? It's very much a staple answer, but I think it would be hard to find a band that wouldn't say they were in at least some way influenced by The Beatles. Marc is also a big fan of Queen so they have an influence on some of the guitar work. We both love and grew up with a lot of the ‘90s guitar bands and so the melodic songwriting of Ian Broudie and Manic Street Preachers, who we are both fans of, are a major influence.

We want our songs to have a strong melody you can hum along to rather than something abstract and impenetrable. We are primarily an indie pop/rock guitar band and our sound has been described as sounding like anything from Lightning Seeds and Arctic Monkeys to Green Day, but hopefully we don't sound too derivative and have a sound of our own. We plan on diversifying our sound and playing with different genres on future tracks. Lyrically, I admire Terry Hall, Mark Cullen, Neil Hannon and Morrissey. I'm sure their influence must creep in on the lyrics.

What is the biggest gig you have played to date? So far, we have actually only played one gig at Rampage@Blitz in Preston so that would have to be the answer! Seeing as it was only our very first gig, we had a great reception from the crowd and had a good turn out. We were very appreciative of all the positive comments we got and it turned my personal initial reluctance to play live into an eagerness for the next one! We are currently recording our second EP, but once that's in the bag we plan on playing a lot more gigs in and around Bolton, and hopefully soon beyond!

If you are not already, is it your ambition to become professional? It would definitely be a dream come true if that were to happen. We are still in our early stages at the minute though. Our first EP we recorded in Marc's home studio entirely between the two of us, just as a hobby for ourselves really. But we seem to have attracted interest from it without really chasing it and are amazed at the reception our songs have had. We recently had our first promo photo shoot with our friend Nik of Nik Bryant Photography who kindly supplied the photo for this, our biggest interview yet. Preston FM and Biker FM have praised us and played us on the radio, BBC Introducing selected two of our tracks for possible playlist, and we are favourites on the Ale House Rock music website. Our debut music video has had well over 5,500 on YouTube, thanks in no small part to it being directed by our friend Lloyd Willacy, a great video producer from the North West who has worked with many artists and companies Virgin Atlantic, Korg UK and Mike Dignam. So if the momentum keeps up and we continue to get recognition and support, who knows...? I guess our main ambition is to mean as much to people, even if only to a dedicated few, as our favourite bands mean to us. And anything more than that would be a fantastic bonus. The thought of being able to leave a mundane job and be paid to do what you love definitely has an appeal.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Definitely still writing and making music. The aim is to have masses of people knowing every lyric to our songs in the next decade! Just to be a cult concern would be a major thing, but if we end up storming the charts, even better! Creating music is a process we both really buzz off and I can't imagine us ever stopping now that the ball's fully rolling.

Is there anything unusual or interesting about the band? Marc plays guitar for Laura White, Bolton's very own X Factor finalist! Passengers is a duo, and all our music is performed by just the two of us. We are very lucky to have a couple of awesome people who help us out live though. Our live drummer is Simon Smith, who's the drummer for Me Vs Hero, who have just come back from a major European tour. And our second guitarist is Anthony Batley, who has come second twice in the National Guitarist Of The Year.

Upcoming gigs? We hope to play many more very soon as we need to keep our profile up by getting out there and playing to as many people as possible. We have a couple in the pipeline so keep an eye on our Facebook (facebook.com/passengers.music.mwdr) and Twitter (@passengers_uk) pages for upcoming announcements.