by Amos WynnSCOTTISH six-piece Neon Waltz - who are heading for this year's Bingley Music Live - have enjoyed a great 12 months.

With their debut album release, big support slots under their belt and a series of festivals booked for the summer; singer Jordan Shearer is now looking towards the future.

Shearer believes their first album, Strange Hymns, was “a long time coming”.

But he adds: “I wouldn’t change a thing because we ended up with the album we actually wanted. You only get one shot at making your first album, so we wanted to do it on our terms, the way it was done was perfect for us.”

Shearer believes that coming from near Wick, high up in the north of Scotland, can have its ‘drawbacks,’ due to the lack of a music scene. Despite this, he still feels the good points outweigh the bad. “It has been good for us because we’re not trying to sound like anyone else.”

He says feedback to the album from the local community has been positive. “Because we’re so isolated from everywhere, everyone here knows who we are, which is quite cool. Some people think we’re really famous, which isn’t the case at all. People only have nice things to say.”

The band have worked hard to expand their fanbase; playing across the UK. Their biggest show was supporting Noel Gallagher in Manchester, which Shearer describes as “surreal”. Earlier this year, the band enjoyed one of their longest tours. “Usually we only do two-week stints but this time we did two supporting The Sherlocks then another three on our own. It was by far the best tour we have done, the gigs were rammed and we weren’t expecting it all,” says Shearer. “We’ve played in Europe once before, in Amsterdam, but we're pretty keen to tick a European tour off the bucket list."

For this summer one of the band's main aims is playing festivals across the country. “Festivals are a great way of winning more fans, you definitely recognise a growth," says Shearer who studied film at university and makes videos for Neon Waltz and other bands. He and bandmates Jamie Swanson, Kevin Swanson, Calvin Wilson, Liam Whittles and Darren Coghill have all been in bands from early ages. “We’ve played in each other’s bands since we were 12, and at some point, it shifted from us doing covers to getting together and writing. At school we got into bands like the Coral, the Libertines and the Strokes. I wouldn’t say there are any specific bands we wanted to sound like, we take little bits from numerous bands.”

Now the band's focus is to get their second album out. “Because it took so long for the last album to come out we have a massive back catalogue of songs as well as the ones we're writing now, which we want to show people. We are well aware there needs to be a progression, that’s the way we’ve always wanted to do it, as the new album can’t sound exactly the same.”

With a second album and a European tour on the tick list for the next 12 months, Neon Waltz can allow themselves to dream big.