Whit Friday: Interview with Aidan Smith, Chav Brass

As June approaches, we draw closer to one of the finest, and my absolute favourite, events on the banding calendar. Yes, Whit Friday is just around the corner and it won't be long until the sounds of brass will be reverberating around Saddleworth and Tameside for the first time in two years after a Covid-enforced break.

One of the great things about Whit Friday is the sheer variety of bands that turn up to compete, bands from across the UK and abroad, of all levels, standards and backgrounds. In particular, one of many aspects that make the contest unique are the scratch bands - groups that come together for the contest. In 2019 one such scratch band caused something of a stir as 'Chav Brass

' hit social and mainstream media in a way banding has not done for a long time bringing the movement right into the public eye.

I caught up with Aidan Smith, the driving force behind the band to discuss its origins, the highs and lows of Whit Friday and what it was like when videos of the band went ‘viral’.

BBH: Aidan, thank you for taking the time to chat with me about Chav Brass. Firstly, could you please tell me a bit about yourself?

AS: Hi, yeah of course! I’m Aidan, one of the founders and current ‘steering voice’ behind Chav Brass. I grew up in Bolton, north of Manchester, into a non-banding family. I won’t say non-musical as my father was a sound-engineer for BBC Radio with a great pair of ears, and there were many musical talents on my mother’s Irish side of the family.

I actually started playing violin and piano in primary school but I wasn’t introduced to brass instruments before the age of 12 when a peripatetic teacher came round to recruit from my school. I immediately gravitated towards the cornet, but the teacher was also the conductor for the local youth band who were in need of tenor horns. I was given this awful smelling old horn and that was that! At 16 I joined Besses o’th’ Barn band, my first taste of championship section banding in a very youthful talented band where I made some great friends.

Continuing with my musical education I studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Sandy Smith and Owen Farr, before moving to Salford University studying with Sheona White. Whilst at Salford I joined the Yorkshire Building Society Band, who were arguably one of the best contesting bands to exist in that period, sat next to and still learning from Sheona.

After YBS’s fairy tale ended, I left and actually stopped playing totally for the best part of a year before the Leyland Band convinced me to pick it up again. Leyland will always be “my” band in the UK and I had a happy year and a half there before, in 2008, I left the UK for the Viking shores of Norway and have lived in Bergen on the west coast ever since. Upon moving to Norway I played with Eikanger-Bjørsvik for six years before moving to play with their arch-rivals at Manger Musikklag, with whom I’m now in my eighth year.

I’m fortunate enough to have the world’s best job where I teach people my hobby and get paid for it! I conduct various youth and adult bands and teach horn and conducting students in Bergen.

BBH: What is it like playing in Norway, and how does the banding movement compare to your experiences of that in the UK?

AS: The scene is great over here, very young and vibrant. There is a great tradition for school bands here and I think bands go more out of their way to support each other. The bands have far fewer ‘projects’ than in the UK, both concerts and competitions, which leads to longer rehearsal periods before the gig and maybe a higher quality end result. The double-edged sword is that the actual quantity of notes gotten through is far less, and this definitely impacts the level of sight-reading for example, in your average Norwegian band.

BBH: Could you provide an overview of the history of Chav Brass?

AS: As with all the best ideas, this one started with a conversation in a pub!

YBS weren’t doing the Whit Friday marches that year, so we decided to put together a band of mates to do it as a ‘scratch’ band. It ended up with a few from YBS, some from Salford Uni, from contacts in YABB (Young Ambassadors Brass Band of Great Britain) and some other friends whose bands weren’t involved on Whit Friday. We ended up going with a Blues Brothers theme for the band and called it BOC Brass.

Everyone had a great time, so the year after we decided to go again with a different theme, this was the first outing of Chav Brass, 2007 I believe. The reactions were great so we decided to keep the theme going!

The main instigators were myself together with Alex Thomas and Robert Richardson who played cornet and baritone with YBS. In more recent years I’ve had some good help from Tony Whittingham who’s a bass player from the Flowers band.

BBH: I understand that the band only comes together for Whit Friday - is this the case? What are the highlights from your years playing there?

AS: Yeah that’s true! We’ve had to disappoint a lot of people wanting us at their weddings and festivals and parties! I’ve tried to direct them towards local bands instead so hopefully some bands have gotten a few extra gigs through us! To pick a single highlight would be hard, but the atmosphere marching through some of the bigger villages such as Delph and Dobcross late in the evening does take some beating.

I would like to draw attention to our undoubted lowest point though, it hasn’t always been plain sailing. In 2010, the coach we had hired for the evening was involved in a collision with a pedestrian in Greenfield. The band were further down the village at this point playing, but we found out straight afterwards and obviously cut our night short. We found out that the poor guy passed away in hospital later that evening. I was devastated, we all were. It took another 5 years before I took the band back again to Whit Friday, and 8 before we returned to Greenfield; I just didn’t feel it was appropriate.

BBH: Can you give an insight into how the band is put together? Is there a minimum standard requirement?

AS: Our players come quite literally from all over! Our current roster for this year has players drawn from just under 20 different bands or affiliations, from London and the south to Wales to north west England, and players from three different cities in Norway. Quite a rag-tag bunch!

Standard has to be an unwritten requirement, yes, because we don’t really practice at all. We might have time for a quick run-through before leaving (or on the services carpark as we’ve done more than once!) and for the street march this is more so that everyone knows where to start and stop than anything else! But other than that, the first competition is the rehearsal.

BBH: What has the reception to the band been like over the years, and has it changed as the band’s fame has grown?

AS: Haha, yeah it has! The first couple of times we were out, we had comments such as “Chav Brass? Whereabouts is Chav?” and an unironic “I think it’s nice to see a band who’s just turned up in their own clothes!”

But I think despite how dubious the more traditionalists may be of our street march, when we play our contest march there has always been an element of quality there, and that is something I’ve really tried to focus on. The band knows when we go out that although the street march is a bit more “anything goes!”, when we hit that stage and the adjudicator’s whistle goes, it’s game faces on and full focus. This is really important to me. At the end of the day, we are all fiercely competitive, and we are there for scalps not to make up numbers!

I’m sure the raised eyebrows of the traditionalists are still there and I’m sure the banders still know we can play to a good standard, but I think the real difference has been from the general public; people without a vested interest in brass bands and just want to have a good time. We have people actively message us to find out where we will be going to so that they can follow us or set up camp to see us. People singing along and cheering when we march, it's a great feeling definitely!

BBH: What do you enjoy most about being part of the group?

AS: This may sound a bit cliché but I think I’d have to say the friendships made as a result of playing in the band. I know I’m not UK based anymore but I’d consider myself fairly well connected in the scene. A lot of the players that come to play with Chav however, I probably wouldn’t have met or gotten to know to the extent that I have done had it not been through spending time with them in Chav.

BBH: Do you have a Musical Director?

AS: We’ve had several come in and conduct us but the past few times I’ve conducted myself. It’s easier to find a good quality horn player than a good conductor, so it’s just one less thing to think about when putting the band together! Also, we’ve tended to get better results with me conducting, which I’m obviously going to put down to my ability as a conductor, not inability as a horn player!!

As for the music, well obviously we want to keep it suitably 'chavy', so there is always lots of discussion about trance/club hits and 90s/00s dance music. We’ve gone through a fair bit but always gravitated back to “Heaven”, this is one that has hit home with lots in the public and always gone down well. The older generations know the Bryan Adams classic, and the younger ones know it from the DJ Sammy remix, which is what our arrangement is based on. We’re always looking out for new “choons'' to do but that one will take some beating in terms of appealing to the masses.

BBH: The band went viral in 2019 with multiple recordings of you marching at Delph to ‘Heaven’ hitting a variety of social media accounts around the world - what was this experience like?

AS: Yeah that was a bit surreal really, I think it was a local lady from Delph who took a video which was shared a lot on Facebook and eventually got picked up by a social media marketing company. The same video was then reposted by one of the ‘LadBible’ group’s subsidiary pages and that was the one that really took off! I think it’s at 4.5million views at the moment!

I actually wish it was a better video that went viral. Horns are a bit behind at the start (oops) and we had lots of better clips, but hey I’m not complaining!

Obviously this boosted our profile, and I think the follows on our Facebook page pretty much doubled that year! I had to put an automated answer on our messenger inbox as we were having too many queries for potential bookings to keep up with myself.

BBH: The popularity of this video showed it doesn’t take much to pique people’s interest - a catchy tune, bags of enthusiasm and something ‘a bit different’. In an age where banding is struggling, particularly thanks to Covid, do you think doing things differently to traditional/accepted norms can help raise the profile of banding and get more involve?

AS: Yes absolutely, we tend to say “all publicity is good publicity” but having a constant stereotypical image of flat caps, pitheads and the Floral Dance anytime brass bands make mainstream media is really not doing us any favours in terms of recruiting the next generation of banders and the future of the movement.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the ditching of tradition at all, but as a movement we need to be far more open and inclusive, especially when it comes to choice of repertoire. Brass bands are known, even amongst musicians, for being insular and self-serving. Let’s work to change that!

BBH: What simple steps do you think bands can take to help attract a newer/larger audience?

AS: In my opinion we need to keep what we have and what works, but move with the times; both with repertoire and with reaching out and recruitment.

Social media is a BIG tool both for establishing links with local communities but also to attract attention from all over the globe, I think it’s definitely worth bands investing time and energy into how to use it to better promote their band.

Just as an example I think Philip Harper and the Cory band are quite good at this. Interviews with players, well produced YouTube videos, interaction with audiences at concerts through Facebook comments. If we want to break through to the younger generation though, how about learning and using Instagram and Tik Tok more actively; be creative, be funny, that is what will pique the interest.

Not every new beginner will fall in love with compositions of Eric Ball, William Rimmer and the like, but if we don’t draw them in with a few memes and arrangements of (current!!) chart toppers, then how will we ever know?

BBH: Whit Friday is a contest like no other and attracts huge numbers as a result. Do you think other contests could learn anything from Whit Friday to appeal to a wider audience?

AS: Whit Friday is pretty unique, due both to the history of the event itself, but also the location, which you could easily label as the centre of the banding world. It’s basically a public holiday for the residents there!

I’m not really sure they do anything “different” to other contests in that respect, besides the obvious sign-in registration rather than fixed play order. The whole ‘big fish’ competing side by side with the ‘small fish’ is a cute factor, but it isn’t going to work if every contest adopts it. I think I’m leaning towards a ‘no’ here!

BBH: Will Chav Brass be there this year?

AS: F**k yeah!

Thanks again Aidan for taking part in this interview. It's been really interesting to understand the story of one of bandings most interesting groups. All the best at Whit Friday!