The local music scene has not quite been the same since Empire Affair decided to call it a day a few years back. To date, they have released three EP’s and played hundreds of high energy shows in the UK and Europe including two tours of Croatia. The band were tempted back to do one last charity show for Prostate Cancer in 2017 at Mr Kyps. The various members of the band went off to do their own things: Jack got married, Neil moved to London, Darren rode his mountain bike in the Dorset countryside, Matt was particularly busy – he joined a heavy rock band, bought a house and planned to start a family while Tom started work on a little project that would have repercussions for the band’s future.
Tom had thousands of hours of film footage taken from all corners of the band’s career and thought it would be nice to put a documentary together as a momento of the band’s time together. The film was put together with footage from the last Mr Kyps show, along with various YouTube clips fans have uploaded from as far back as when the band were called “Echo”. The project turned out to be much bigger than Tom first intended and at the end had a 48-minute documentary. The film was slowly seen by all the band and as each of them watched, it conjured up a host of emotions and they all agreed that after being reminded of all they had achieved they needed to find a way to continue.
The band wanted to show the film to their most loyal fans, friends and family arranging a special surprise screening at Absolute music. The event was shrouded in secrecy and each attendee was only given details of it a few days before. The band also chucked a red herring out with the release of a new retrospective compilation album ‘Forget & Ride On’, which is a mixture of demos and live tracks available from their bandcamp site here. Only about 20 people attended the event where the band played, debuting the film as well as performing about half a dozen live tracks. They announced that they intended against all odds to continue as a band together, make new music and most importantly play live, with their first gig back at the Blue Boar in Poole on December 20th. Watch the documentary in full bellow & watch this space for more announcements…….
Empire Affair are still.
Neil Tallant – Vocals
Jack Woolston – Guitar + Vocals
Tom Parrett – Bass
Matt Park – Guitar + Keys + Vocals
Darren Sheppard – Drums
Contact the band here.
Links
http://empireaffair.com
https://www.facebook.com/empireaffairband
Words & Pictures by David Chinery (Chinners)
