The History of Toxic Flames
The Beginning
It all started on 13th February 2010 (we think) when our school announced that there was going to be a school talent show. Bo, Autumn and Peter had been planning a band for some time and we thought that this was the best time to start it.
The next week we got an application form and we spent the rest of the day deciding who else, apart from us, would be in the band. After a little bit of thinking, we picked Aldin. He already had a good guitar talent so we thought he would fit in perfectly! We submitted the application.
On 19th February we had our first practice session. We spent the whole evening deciding a song to play at the talent show. Finally, at the end of the evening when we thought that all hope of picking a song was lost for the night, we chose Black Night by Deep Purple as Aldin already knew some of the song on the guitar.
Over the next couple of weeks we did daily practising. During that time, we decided to add Aleksandar McKay as a 2nd singer because Peter felt he could not do it on his own.
The Auditions
The day of the auditions came and the tension was rising. In the morning, the school decided that our auditions would be at 1:15pm. So at 1:10pm, Bo, Peter, Autumn, Aldin and our classmates arrived at the music room. That was when the bad news came. We discovered that Aleksandar was in detention! We were disappointed, but were still determined to play the audition. A few minutes later, our guitars and mics were delivered (drums were already in the room). Our classmates, who were to vote on whether we would go through to the next round, entered the room while we were setting up our amps, guitars and mics. A couple of minutes later we were ready for the auditions. After a count of four on the hi-hat, we began...
The Results of the Auditions
At 2:15pm, the voting began. There were 7 acts to choose from our class. Everyone could have two votes and could vote for themselves. When the results arrived, we discovered that there was a 3-way tie! It was all up to our class teachers to decide which two would go through to the semi-finals. After whispering in the corner for about a minute, they had decided...
The two acts going through to the semi-finals were....
1. Lollipops
and
2. Toxic Flames!!
We were so excited to get to the semi-finals!
The Semi-Finals
The semi-finals were held on 10th and 12th March 2010. They were held on the school's stage. Toxic Flames' semi-final was on the 10th.
Unfortunately, on the day, Autumn was too ill to take part. At the last minute, it was decided that Aleksandar would play her piece on the guitar whilst singing with Peter. We all thought our performance went well with the judges.
Later that day, we learned that Toxic Flames were through to the final!!! :-)
The Final
The final was held on stage in front of the whole school on 19th March 2010.
It was our first performance together as a band. Detentions and illness had prevented our band from performing as a whole in the lead-up to the final. Bo only just managed to make it for the final as he had been ill that morning.
Toxic Flames were the first to perform as we had so much equipment to set up!! We were the only band in the competition. We felt that it was the best we had played and it seemed to go down well with the audience.
The Result
After a big lead-up to the results (bit like the X Factor!), the results were revealed...
The winner was a dance act by Brandon. Toxic Flames came a close 2nd.
Rock Da Skool
We worked on this song during the first part of 2011 and issued it on our website on the 1st of June 2011.
DarkScythe (The Waves Are Free)
We began working on this in the autumn 2011, after Jodie Laurenson joined the band as a keyboard player. We performed the song for the first time at our second Save the Tiger Event in January 2012. Afterwards, we released a live rehearsal video on our YouTube channel.
The beginning of 2012 saw us recording DarkScythe and producing it into a standard for radio play. SIBC 96.2FM agreed to playlist it from the 24th of March. We then began work on a video for DarkScythe (The Waves Are Free) for issuing it on our YouTube channel. You can view this here.
Catch a Shadow
In autumn 2012, Toxic Flames started writing two new songs. The first of those, Catch a Shadow, was recorded in December and was added to the SIBC playlist on 19th December 2012. The start of 2013 saw Toxic Flames beginning to work on a music video for release on their YouTube channel. This can now be seen here. Catch a Shadow was also played by Jim Gellatly on Amazing Radio and by other radio stations such as Croydon Radio.
Don't Look Now
The second of those songs was Don't Look Now. This was first performed at the Anderson High School Beanfeast in 2012. The song was recorded in late spring/early summer of 2013 and was released on 5th August. This also was added to the SIBC playlist on 23rd July and featured on Jim Gellatly's Amazing Radio show the following weekend.
The Buffet 2013
Toxic Flames were invited to play at the Buffet rock festival at the Mareel on Saturday 24th August 2013. The band played DarkScythe, Catch a Shadow and Don't look Now.
Time Twister
Towards the end of 2013, Toxic Flames started writing their next song Time Twister. This was recorded in January 2014 and was the first of the band's songs to be released on digital music stores, such as iTunes. The music video was also released on the Toxic Flames' YouTube channel on the same day of release, 10th March 2014.