WHO ARE WE?
Lucy Shevchuk - Vocals, Guitar & Keys
Tomos Cooper - Drums
Benedict Rhodes - Bass
Mike Grubert - Lead Guitar
Square Wild, often described as an injection of energy, are an intoxicating genre-bending 4 piece from Manchester. Winners of Prog Magazines Best Unsigned Band 2022 with Lucy placing in the top 10 Female Vocalist Category AND winners of M2TM Manchester 2023, winning Best Rock Band for KDS Promotions - Square Wild are proving they're not to be missed, dominating more than one underground scene.
Their style is not one to be pigeon holed. Although usually labelled as Rock, they have a huge mixing pot of influences. From reggae to metal, funk to gypsy jazz, blues to folk, Square Wild will get a multitude of audiences moving. The mixture of Tomo’s danceable beats fronted by the force of nature that is Lucy wooing the crowd in true punk style, creates nothing short of an entertaining-shape-throwing fusion of festivities.
Taking inspiration from a diverse catalogue of artists such as Streetlight Manifesto, Snarky Puppy, Vulfpeck, Rush, Yes, Queen, Deep Purple, Kate Bush, Traditional European Folk with Lucy's Ukrainian roots, they naturally lean towards experimental and progressive writing. Due to their differing influences, they've created a sonic mash up of moods and styles, but don't skip on catchy choruses and boogie inducing breakdowns. Their strong dual guitar work is drawn from personal influences such as Alex Lifeson, Santana, Brian May, Bill Nelson, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Lettieri to name a few.
Whilst recording their long-awaited debut album DIY and performing a jam-packed list of live shows in the coming months, including Not A Cult, Bloodstock Open Air, S.O.S Fest, Sav Fest, Cader Rocks Fest, Call Of The Wild and Nene Valley Fest, the band also have the return of their self-ran festival ‘Mega Fest’ that was a huge success in 2022 which champions other genre bending bands from around the country.
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After countless live appearances at popular events over the past few years, such as Planet Rock Fest, Cambridge Rock Festival, Winters End Prog Festival and Rockmantic Weekenders, Square Wild are on a rising path of huge popularity, despite being relatively new to some scenes and are quickly becoming crowd pleasers across the board.
Our Work With Ian’s Chain
After playing Sav Fest 2023 and becoming inspired by Alan and Wendy Savill’s story and their charity Ian’s Chain, Square Wild decided they wanted to help. Lucy won herself an ESP guitar at Bloodstock for being one of the favourite guitarists of the weekend on the New Blood stage. Instead of keeping the guitar and adding it to her collection, she suggested that instead the guitar was raffled off in order to raise money for Ian’s Chain charity, and helped raise over £300 for them! The raffle may be over but you can still help out and have an awesome time in the process by getting a ticket to Sav Fest 2024! Tickets here
“Ian’s Chain was set up after the death of our 23 year old son. He took his own life after a long battle with his mental health. We offer support to anyone who is in crisis and to date we have saved over 120 people from taking their own lives. We also offer support to those who have lost someone to suicide. We are qualified to train people in ASIST ( Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training ) and SafeTalk with plans to subsidise future courses. This means there will be more people trained to recognise the signs of suicidal ideation and save more lives.”
