This House We Built Premiere Their Video for ‘Fly Me Up To The Moon’

2nd December 2022 0 By John Deaux

Carrying glowing endorsements and reviews from Dave Ling (Classic Rock) – “Immensely promising quartet playing a confident, summery, sometimes funk-fuelled style that will leave you grinning from ear to ear” and Rob Evans (Powerplay Rock & Metal) – “The best independent album I’ve heard this year”, This House We Built are already on rock solid foundations on which to build a successful career in the music scene.

The real bricks and mortar of the band are a heady mix of bands from England’s Scarborough Strip (think Sunset Strip but with less debauchery, more chips and an untapped resource of talent since five Little Angels flew big in 88’). Players Scott Wardell (vocals guitar), Andy Jackson (guitar vocals), Oz Ward (drums vocals), and Wayne Dowkes White (bass) finally came together just prior to the world shutting down in 2020. Rather than dwell on not being able to bring their collective talents to the stage, they started the socially distanced writing sessions that bought the plot for the house they were about to build. Each man brought a different musical path to the band, and you can hear them all as the album unfolds. Eclectic influences ranging from classic rock, funk, emo, nu-metal, and melodic rock are mixed perfectly across the ten songs, and brick by harmony-laden brick they build a unique sound that transcends all of the aforementioned genres.

Bassist Dowkes White struts into the house via Classic Rock Road. Citing influences from Bad Company, Whitesnake, Dio, UFO, and Deep Purple his low-slung bass swings and sings in equal measure. Handed his first bass at fourteen (a 59’ fender jazz), and he’s been perfecting that bottom-end swagger ever since.

Rhythm section partner Ward drums his way into the house having wandered the paths of rock, punk, and nu-metal. Raised on Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Joplin it would be the sight of Phil Collins drumming with the aforementioned Zeppelin that made him pick up the sticks aged eleven. His progression into 90’s punk came from a life-changing discovery on his sister’s mix tape (remember them!) when he heard The Offspring for the first time.

Guitarist Jackson picks and strums into the house by way of melodic rock boulevard picking out the American big guns of Bon Jovi and Skid Row as early influences. Nowadays he’ll solo his way through anything from country to rap. Originally a drummer at school as it got him out of maths, it would be a chance school jam with a guitarist who wanted to swap instruments that saw him swap two sticks for six strings. A quick learn of a Quo lick and the sticks were a distant memory.

Vocalist Wardell serenades his way into the house and has taken a sharp left off Lyrics Lane. Creatively driven by musical heroes Sting, King’s X, Little Angels, and Tyketto a young Wardell was instructed to buy a bass from the back of Kerrang if he wanted to play in his friends’ band. Like all great frontmen though, he ignored the advice, bought a Marlin state-of-the-art series from his local music shop, and started to construct his own musical journey.

So, there you have it, the house is a veritable musical mansion, and when you add in stellar songwriting that is equally at home penning stadium anthems as they are challenging difficult life situations such as depression, alcoholism, and Alzheimer’s you start to realize ‘This House We Built’ are not simply here to rent, they are a long-term musical mortgage investment.

What Danny Vaughn says about the band

Serendipity has a lot to answer for. In this case, I’d like to shake its hand. My first encounter with the band “This House We Built” happened last year whilst playing an acoustic concert of my own in Whitby. About 3 or 4 songs into the show I couldn’t help but notice that some cheeky person was singing harmonies to all of my songs. And they were good! Afterwards, I got to meet the culprit, Scott Wardell, and he told me about his new band which was put together during the covid lockdown. He said that they had written and recorded an album off of their own backs and then gave me a thumb drive with that album on it.
I promised to give it a listen and get back to him about it. This is never easy. I often get approached by young musicians or new bands asking for my opinions on their work and it can be downright stressful because, well, sometimes it isn’t very good.
So, eventually, I bit the bullet and put on the album, hoping for some bright spots that I could talk about when next we spoke.
But this was good. No, fuck me, this was great!!! As each song unfolded, I kept saying to myself, “Well they can’t keep this up”. But they did. The album does what I love most in all truly classic albums; it takes you on a journey of a variety of emotions and styles.
Geeze, these guys can really write songs. I was taken from jumping around the room, fist-pumping anthem rockers like “Fairweather Friend” and “We Are, We Are” to having my heart torn out by the emotional beauty and daring of “Fly Me Up To The Moon” and “Old Haunts”. Frankly, there’s not a duff song in the bunch. And the production!!! This sounded as sonically huge and complete as any of the very best classic rock albums. Think Motley’s “Dr. Feelgood” or King’s X’s “Dogman”.

I remember that I got so caught up in how much this album was rocking my world that when I was finished, I called my wife into the room and sat her down for a second listen because I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t.
Within moments she had the same “holy shit” expression on her face that I had been wearing for the past 45 minutes or so.
Where in the world did these guys come from?
Yorkshire, as it turns out. And as a bonus to my budding fandom of the band, they are all extremely nice guys who have been around the block at least once and know how to really work hard at their craft. I’m honored that they will be supporting me on several dates of my upcoming UK tour and I have every confidence that they are going to make a serious impact on the UK rock scene. Bands like this are why we became rock fans in the first place. This is a group that you can get behind and support with all of your heart, because they are tremendous, and they care. So set aside the better part of an hour and make sure to spin the whole album. You’re going to love the journey it takes you on.