Gill Montgomery (ex. The Amorettes), Josie O’Toole (ex. Tequila Mockingbyrd), Laurie Buchanan (Aaron Buchanan and the Cult Classics) and Lzi Hayes (Sophie Lloyd Band, New Device) have today officially announced the birth of much anticipated new band The Hot Damn!
Gill (vocals, guitar), Laurie (guitar) and Josie (drums) spent 2019 touring as both The Amorettes and Tequila Mockingbyrd to honour their respective bookings following the departure of members from both bands. Early in 2020 they recruited Lzi Hayes (bass) to complete the new outfit. Between the four members they have certainly accumulated their fair share of road miles; from touring three continents, to appearances at Download Festival, Bloodstock and T in the Park, sharing the stages with the likes of The Darkness, Ash, Black Star Riders and Royal Republic, with almost a dozen EP/LP releases to their names.
Gill comments:
“The best thing to come from 2019 was meeting these amazing girls, which made everything fall into place with great ease and excitement. MERGE? YEAH! Feeling we had possibly outgrown our collective communal shoes, a fresh start seemed enticing. A lot of people think we are mad to do it... but we've been beavering away behind the scenes and we are so excited about the new sounds. We absolutely can't wait to share them with everyone!"
The band has spent much of 2020, whenever possible, writing and recording new material and promise to deliver a wall of sound inspired by the likes of Queen, The Struts, Blondie, The Darkness and Blink-182 very soon.
As well as writing and recording, they've been documenting the whole process through weekly "Film Fridays" on Facebook and assure us there's plenty more to come.
Josie explains: "It's a funny time to launch a band - we can't just jump in the van like we usually would, but we couldn't sit still any longer. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes so we're trying to share as much of that as possible - from the actual song-writing process, to culinary concoctions on studio roadtrips - it's all part of the journey and hopefully means people will have a good idea of what we're all about by the time we can finally hit the stages again."
Follow The Hot Damn!'s socials for all of the insider gossip, laughs, tears, Hot Damn! bake-offs, tie-dye tutorials and much more!
Links to The Hot Damn -
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Ceri Davies
Presenter and Co-Director