Bradford band the Cellar Rats are gaining a rising fanbase, and this bank holiday weekend they’re out in force with a series of gigs.

The band originally started life as a four-piece at a School of Rock run at Buttershaw Youth Centre. Original band member John Bolton was a youth worker at the centre, and when he later started another rock school elsewhere, the band evolved.

Today the line-up is John on percussion, James Lynch on vocals, Neil Pullan on guitar, Kyle Holdsworth on guitar and Ricky McGee on bass.

“We’ve gone from being a three-piece to a five-piece and it’s given the music a lot more depth. It’s a much bigger sound now,” says John.

The band performs both covers and original material. “It’s essentially guitar-based rock,” says John. “We cover tracks by bands like the Stereophonics, Green Day, Blink 182, Biffy Clyro, Bryan Adams and Franz Ferdinand. It’s done with affection and respect for the artists.

“The band has evolved really well and we’re a pretty tight unit. We all have different influences – Ricky is a metalhead, Kyle’s a big fan of Charlie Simpson (lead vocalist/guitarist in rock band Fightstar), James and I love swing and jazz and Neil is influenced by acts like Paul Weller. You can see that influence in his guitar playing. I was a Mod as a teenager and I’d be happy to play Paul Weller all day long. I’d also be happy to do more jazz and swing if the others would let me!”

For acoustic sets, John plays a cajon, an Afro-Peruvian box drum.

“It’s quite a talking point at gigs, a lot of people have never seen anything like it before. You can get a big sound from it, even with the bigger numbers,” says John.

“We’ve been doing a lot of gigging around the district and have built up quite a fanbase now. We’ve got a big Facebook following too.

“Our aim is to keep on playing live and building up to bigger venues and events. I always wanted this to be more than a pub band.

“Nothing beats playing live and getting that immediate response from an audience. It’s brilliant to see people up dancing and enjoying themselves, and knowing that we created that vibe.”

The band are working on new material, which John says is a collaborative process.

“We’re always tweaking away at new songs, adding our own input. “You’re always more critical of your own work, and we each bring something different to the process,” says John, who works with young bands in the district, including Scorpion Tears, due to perform this summer at Thorpe Edge Festival and Wrose Carnival, and at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

* The Cellar Rats are at The Northern pub, Halifax Road, Bradford, tomorrow; Bar Uber, Bradford, on Sunday; and at the Heart of Buttershaw Festival on Millennium Green, Buttershaw, on Tuesday, from 1pm to 6pm. For more about the band visit cellar-_rats.co.uk.