The Sherlocks Invade America

Mark Raker Photography / DC Music Review – The Sherlocks

The Sherlocks’ Kiaran Crook was only 14 when he and his 17-year-old brother Brandon began messing around with a guitar and drum set. 

Another pair of brothers they played soccer with, guitarist Josh Davidson and bassist Andy Davidson, joined the band soon after, not knowing they had just formed an arena rock band in the making.

Eight years later, the quartet is taking the U.K. by storm, having just finished opening for Liam Gallagher on his February through March outing. 

The band has drawn comparisons to rock groups such as Kaiser Chiefs, Kings Of Leon and, most commonly, the Arctic Monkeys, who Kiaran Crook also names as one of his biggest influences. 

Like many of their forerunners, The Sherlocks started from humble beginnings, playing Police and Clash covers in pubs and bars in their hometown of Sheffield, near their hometwn of Bolton upon Derne in South Yorkshire. 

“We really just started playing until we started sounding good, the old-fashioned way,” Kiaran Crook told Pollstar. “We were playing pubs, doing other people’s songs. Before we knew it we started writing our own songs. It’s not like anything was planned, we were just trying to have some good fun. In a sense we were a band before we even knew we were a band.” 

The band on their own are starting to sell plenty of tickets this year in their home country. They sold out the Liquid Room in Edinburgh, moving 650 tickets and grossing $12,483, and London’s Electric Ballroom, selling 1,300 tickets and $23,659. Other than Liam Gallagher, who finished his U.K. run with the band in early March, the group has also played opening sets for Kings Of Leon and Richard Ashcroft. 

After releasing their debut record, Live For The Moment, on Infectious Music last August, the Crook and Davidson brothers are preparing to replicate their U.K. success in the United States. They already played a brief run of dates in America earlier this year and will kick off a second tour April 21 at Seattle’s 475-capacity Vera Project. 

The plan, like many before them, is to keep touring America until the group builds a strong enough fanbase to move up in each market as a headliner. 

“I expect to see them coming back to the States on a regular basis,” said WME’s Scott Clayton, the band’s booking agent in the U.S.  

“A lot of times you have U.K. bands come over and only play major markets and leave and only do it around a record campaign. But in this case, we are really trying to break these guys as a touring band on the road.”

“Last time we were over we had a good couple of days doing promos and as many interviews as possible We’re basically doing the same thing that we did in the U.K., just starting over again, playing as many gigs as we can. But it’s exciting to be honest,” said Kiaran Crook. 

The singer has good reason to be confident, as The Sherlocks’ live performance is perhaps its biggest draw. The band’s infectious rock anthems are tailored to an arena-sized audience and the setlists have a way of riling up fans and inducing them into epic sing alongs. 

“Even our first couple of gigs went really good for our first-time touring [in the U.S.], especially in places like L.A. When people see us live, that’s when it clicks for a lot of people rather than hearing about us on Twitter or whatever,” the singer said, adding that seeing their fans react to their songs is what drives the band.

Mark Raker Photography / DC Music Review – The Sherlocks

“Playing gigs where people go off, where people are going nuts and jumping around, that’s one of the most amazing feelings and it’s why we want to do this … That’s the reputation we’ve been building in the U.K. and want to bring to the U.S. If you show up to one of our shows everyone is bouncing around, going mad.”

And what is it about The Sherlocks that fans love? The group’s manager, and father of the Crook brothers, Mick Crook, has a hypothesis: “I think a lot of people miss real rock bands” he explained. “Now, I see a lot of bands playing with backing tracks. It just doesn’t feel real, and I think fans pick up on that. They can feel when the music is actually being played, when it’s real. That’s what our band is, even if we need something else when we perform (instruments), we bring it in live.”

The sentiment sums up the band’s mission statement, as Kiaran Crook said he hopes The Sherlocks will be part a new rock movement. 

“I think that guitar music, from my opinion, seems to come around in waves. Its popular and then it’s not popular,” he muses. “We’ve noticed that it seems to be every 10 years. In the ‘90s there was Oasis and Blur, and then in the 2000s there were Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs. I feel like we’re ready for some more guitar bands to come through.”

WME’s Clayton agreed, adding that, “I really feel strongly that guitar rock is making a comeback and The Sherlocks will be at the forefront of that whole movement. That’s what I love about them. They have a great live show, they’re an arena rock band in the making. I really feel like we will see more enthusiasm for rock bands coming from radio and from festivals and we are already seeing it in ticket sales with other bands.” 

The Sherlocks’ North American outing runs through May with sets booked at the Echo in Los Angles, The Mercury Lounge in New York City, Three Links Deep Ellum in Dallas and Shaky Knees Music Festival at Atlanta’s Central Park.  After that the band returns to the U.K. for a couple of festivals, with plans of touring other parts of Europe before the year ends.