CityLife

The Magnets do cover versions with a difference

The Magnets

Band On The Wall - September 21, 2010

With a slew of singing-related TV talent shows in recent years, these are happy times for vocal harmony.

And it’s easy to see the attraction of The Magnets – one of the slickest, most respected a cappella groups Britain has to offer.

They’ve been at the Edinburgh Fringe, and are now embarking on a UK tour, which includes Manchester’s Band On The Wall.

It will be a rare home fixture for baritone Michael Welton, from Altrincham, who is the only member of the Magnets not to be based in the south east of England. He moved north with his wife Emma Loat – a manager at Forsyth’s music shop and the fifth generation of her family to be involved in the 153-year-old business in Deansgate, Manchester.

“We’d been living in London for 10 years, and she moved up and I thought, why not?” he says.

He was studying middle eastern politics at university in London when The Magnets began.

“A few of us were in a musical, Guys And Dolls, and got on. One of the guys, Nic Doodson, had been in a school singing group in the States and taught us a few songs while we were in this production,” says Welton.

“The girls loved it and we started to get invited to sing at student balls. We used to busk in Covent Garden for beer money. Although we weren’t very good in those days, people loved seeing us sing.”

The Magnets ended up on two TV talent shows – Jonathan Ross’s short-lived Big Big Talent Show and Jane McDonald’s Star For A Night – and got a recording contract with EMI.

“That did not work out, but it did put us on a European stage and we started touring around Europe, particularly Germany.”

Along the way, the line-up matured into Welton, fellow baritone James Fortune, bass Fraser Collins, tenors Doodson and Steve Trowell and ‘vocal percussionist’ Andy Frost.

“He makes astonishing beats with his mouth,” Welton says of Frost. “Andy does a ‘drum’ solo that amazes people every night.”

The Magnets have toured as support act to the likes of Tom Jones and Michael Ball. Their repertoire runs to a bossa nova re-working of Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer, Human by the Killers and a ‘cheesy but happy’ finale of The Jacksons’ Blame It On The Boogie.

But why should such close harmony high jinx by a bunch of Brits appeal to the Germans?

“They have a very strong vocal tradition,” Welton explains. “There was a band called the Comedian Harmonists who were around in the 1930s and were totally a boy band. People went nuts for them.

“With all the singing shows on the TV, there is a big resurgence in interest in singing here. We’re as busy as ever, but what’s kept us all together all these years is that we’re best mates.”