It’s Al over now as foursome disband

8:38am Thursday 3rd July 2008

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In November 2002, a group of four lads got together to form a band which, while it may not have shaken the earth to its very core, certainly helped to kickstart an interest in music coming out of Bradford once again.

Six years later, however, This Et Al have decided to call it a day.

Throughout their time, the band became one of the brightest musical hopes from this city, with a well-received debut album, major tours and numerous singles and EPs, including their most recent The Figure Eight EP.

Their sound was one that moved with the Dance to the Radio idiosyncrasies coming out of Leeds, but benefited from a more introspective shoe-gazing slant, presumably influenced by Bradford’s way in the world.

The split has been hard for many of the band’s fans – a quick look on their MySpace offers a truckload of sympathies and “gutted” posts, but at least they won’t be left completely without their Et Al fix.

Not only is the band planning to release everything they have recorded on a “B-sides and rarities” compilation in August, but guitarist Ben Holden told me there was no way he and the rest of the band would not continue their musical journeys, be it separately or together.

“There was a few kind of inter-band relationship issues going on,” he said. “It’s kind of been coming for a while; its not a case of musical differences or anything.

“Its weird because it just started to feel comfortable, but I suppose maybe that was the problem. It’s kind of gutting because you don’t really expect it.

“It’s sad, but I’m also quite excited about new things. I can imagine it will be a while before we do something else. But for the meantime we can just take stock and get us heads round it, really.”

With the promise of new developments in the future, did Ben think it would be possible for the band, completed by Wu on vocals and guitar, Steve Wilson on drums and Chris Wall on bass, to perhaps come alive again, under a different name?

“Not with the same members. I can’t imagine that, but to be honest, there has to be something else,” he said. “I can’t stop writing music – I’ve still got that urge.”

Surely this will be comforting to the band’s fans in Bradford, as well as further afield, who have been engrossed with This Et Al since the release of their “post-rock” debut album Baby Machine in 2007.

“Its been really quite sobering,” said Ben. “When you’re in it you don’t realise that it actually means quite a lot to quite a lot of people – it kind of makes it a bit worse really.”

With performances at Leeds Festival as well as tours with some of the most well-respected names in the current indie scene, there must have been a few moments where the band had to pinch themselves.

Ben said: “The first tour with Forward Russia was probably my favourite set of gigs.

“It was our first single tour and it was around the time that we first played Leeds Festival – it was all really exciting for us.

“Obviously, we went to Germany last year, which was a ball as well.”

Again however, Ben returns to the exciting prospect of future projects. Of course, nothing at the moment is yet set in stone, but this is perhaps one of the things Ben enjoys the most.

“I have just instantly started writing stuff,” he said. “Some of it is really heavy and shoegazey, but other stuff is just like pop music.

“But I have not got any ideas of what I want to sound like – I think I would rather get some people together and see what happens, really.”