Danny Bemrose (vocals/guitar) – Stuart Nichols (bass)
David “Nova” Nowakowski (keyboards) – Aimee Driver (vocals)
Chris Durling (drums)
Making music was the furthest thing from Scars on 45 co-founder Danny Bemrose’s
mind until the professional soccer player for England’s Huddersfield Town F.C. broke
his foot at 21 and his world came crashing down. “I was in limbo, without knowing what
to do with myself,” he says. It wasn’t the first time that fate would intervene in the
band’s formation.
Danny put down the soccer ball and picked up for his father’s guitar. “I’m quite an
obsessive person. I became kind of addicted,” he says. “I used to lock myself away to
write songs and record on four-track recorder.”
Those early years led to the creation of Scars on 45, a quintet from Bradford, England,
that combines the gentle melodic intensity of Snow Patrol or Keane with the added
allure of co-ed vocals. Tension, often propelled by drummer Chris Durling’s insistent
beat, builds throughout the songs as the emotional ante rises. Hearts are broken and
seldom rendered whole again before new wounds pierce through.
Highlights on the group’s self-titled debut album include the gracefully propulsive
“Heart On Fire,” on which Danny and fellow lead vocalist Aimee Driver play out a
couple’s anguished conversation. “That song came out of nothing,” Danny says. “It just
seemed to pour straight out. I must have sung it 4,000 times and it feels fresh every
time I sing it. I’m sure one day, I’ll fully understand it.”
On the lilting, yet melancholic, “Give Me Something,” Danny, his voice vulnerable and
aching, searches for some sign--any sign--that there’s a reason to believe in a lasting
love. “Everyone’s been in that situation of wanting someone and it not being
reciprocated,” he says. “It just rules your entire life.”
On album opener, the piano-driven, pulsing “Warning Sign,” Danny and Aimee’s voices
weave around each other to create a spellbinding story about trying to fix “the hole
inside they will never see.” Crunchy guitar riffs lure the listener into “Don’t Say,” as
Danny pleads with a lover not to say “it won’t get better.” On the stripped bare
“Change My Needs,” Aimee quietly, but with heartbreaking resignation, wishes she
could ask for less, but simply can’t.
But all of that’s getting ahead of the story. After teaching himself guitar, Danny and one
of his best mates/fellow footballer, bassist Stu Nichols, began playing together in
various bands. “We were awful,” Danny laughs, but “we were always passionate about it
and had this belief that we’d make it someday.”
Soon keyboardist David “Nova” Nowakowski joined the pair and the trio began
recording demos and playing live around Leeds. The nascent group ultimately picked
the band name Scars on 45, taken from a radio interview that Danny heard with
Emmylou Harris, in which she recalled her father telling her as a young girl that she
better not get any “scars on his 45s” as she played them.
The trio became the axis of the band, with other members coming and going. “We must
have been through at least 500 members,” Danny says. And then, amid the revolving
door, the second serendipitous event occurred that firmly set Scars on 45 on its path.
Danny wrote a song that required a female voice. Out of the blue, Nova heard his friend
Aimee singing along with the radio to The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love.” Although she
wasn’t a performer and had never sung in public, he was struck by her innocent, sweet
voice.
“I was just singing along when Nova rushed in seeming really shocked,” Aimee recalls.
“I thought his dad had a heart attack or something! He made me stand there in his living
room and sing another song to him - which was the scariest thing ever at the time.
Danny recorded me on one of the songs and it just seemed to work. The next thing I
knew I was in the band. When I told my family and friends they were saying, ‘but you
can't sing, can you?’”
The band, now expanded to a quintet with the addition of Chris on drums, placed songs
on A&E’s since-cancelled series, “The Cleaner” and later “CSI: New York.” The show
selected the group’s song, “Beauty’s Running Wild,” for an extended closing scene, and
the music caught the attention of noted music supervisor, Alexandra Patsavas, who
signed the band to her Atlantic Records-distributed label, Chop Shop Records.
Touring the U.S. for the first time, the band released a pair of EPs last year to sell on
the road and introduce their music to fans. The reaction exceeded all expectation. Last
summer, the title track of their Give Me Something EP went top 5 on the Triple A radio
chart, placing the young group alongside the likes of Adele, Coldplay, and Death Cab
For Cutie. Meanwhile lead single “Heart On Fire” was selected as the theme song to
ABC’s fall season promo campaign for the hit series “Grey’s Anatomy” – the same
exposure that broke The Fray’s “How To Save A Life” and Snow Patrol’s “Chasing
Cars.”
Since then, the band has been on the road nearly non-stop which suits Danny just fine.
“Just to be able to put yourself out there and let people know who you are is
wonderful,” he continues. “What I write about is who I am really. When people listen
and react to one of your songs, there’s no better feeling.”
www.scarson45.com
www.chopshoprecords.com
www.atlanticrecords.com