When he started the Reytons in Rotherham in 2017, singer Jonny Yerrell wrote the song On the Back Burner about his dashed ambitions on the South Yorkshire open mic scene. “I can vividly remember the point in my life when I wrote that,” he says now. “I wouldn’t have even been able to afford a pint at the open mic that week.”
Six years on, Yerrell admits “life is very different”. After the Reytons’ 2021 debut, Kids Off the Estate, reached No 11, their second album What’s Rock and Roll? went in at No 1 last month – and they play the 13,500-capacity Sheffield Arena this summer. The wordy, tuneful Arctic Monkeys-style quartet are among several northern, indie, generally male guitar types who are achieving very high initial chart positions thanks largely to devoted regional fanbases.
Manchester band the Courteeners – whose 50,000-capacity home town gigs are five times as big as their biggest London show – just scored their first No 1 album with a 15th anniversary reissue of 2008’s St Jude. Wigan/Greater Manchester band the Lathums’ new album From Nothing to a Little Bit More should give them a second chart topper next week; they play a big home town show at Manchester’s 8,000-capacity Castlefield Bowl in June.
Artists often do well in their own regions – one thinks of the 90s “Bristol sound” or Madchester in the north-west. But according to Official Charts Company data, 40% of the Reytons’ physical album sales were in Yorkshire and 36% of the physical sales of the Lathums’ 2021 album How Beautiful Life Can Be were in Lancashire. “It’s important that the charts reflect that the world isn’t all about London and the south-east,” says CEO Martin Talbot. “As pop becomes more international, people have responded by buying into their local stars.”
The Courteeners typify the trajectory. “It has a lot to do with the quality of the act,” says the band’s manager, Conrad Murray, “but there is civic pride involved. People in Manchester really like to support music from the city, so if you’re good you’ll get spotted.” Plus, Manchester has an indie-based radio station (Radio X Manchester), the local press has always been supportive and even mayor Andy Burnham is a fan. “So you can start at a 100-capacity gig, then 200, then 500, 1,000 and eventually arenas,” says Murray. “You’ve always got to be looking to step up. Because you can’t afford to tour initially, you can play to a load of kids in Manchester and use that buzz to go much further afield.”
Similarly, the Reytons’ first gig was at Sheffield’s Plug club as a support act – they sold 70 tickets “to literally everyone we knew” – and their second was headlining the same 350-capacity venue. Yerrell explains: “We’ve been doubling the audiences ever since.” An online presence helped, before which Yerrell, 37, had endured years in bands “having doors slammed in my face, being told ‘yer band are shit’. You skint yourself trying to make it happen.”
It’s been a similar story for Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Jamie Webster, who circumnavigated the music industry to score Top 10 and Top 5 albums in 2021 and 2022 respectively. An electrician who started out playing covers in pubs to “people falling out of windows and all sorts”, his initial “back door into the music business” came via an association with Liverpool FC. His song Allez Allez Allez (based on a football chant), and in particular a video of him singing it to 60,000 Liverpool fans in Madrid, went viral. “Right time, right place,” he says. “But I am a diehard Liverpool fan. It wasn’t fake.” He headlined the city’s 11,000-capacity M&S Bank Arena in November.
These artists’ anthemic guitar-led songs are connecting with audiences that aren’t always catered for in mainstream pop – Webster sings about “the trials and tribulations of working class life” and Reytons singer Yerrell about “everyday scenarios, real life people” – and they’ve become stars without the usual gatekeepers. “I’ve had one BBC Radio 1 play in my whole career,” complains Webster. “I’m as big as anybody, so why aren’t the radio playing me?”
The Reytons get played now – but after putting their own money into promoting What’s Rock and Roll? with a pop-up shop in Sheffield and billboards in the region, they can justifiably claim: “No label. No backing. All Reytons.”
As with many No 1s driven by first-week physical sales, the album subsequently dropped to No 66. Is such regionally driven success limiting? “The more successful a release is, the less regional it becomes and the profile helps an artist cross over,” argues Talbot, pointing to how Sam Fender’s north-east fanbase translated into a gold album and national success.
Thus the Reytons will shortly announce a big London show, and they’re heading for Australia. “We’ve sold 400 tickets in Melbourne and 500 in Sydney,” grins Yerrell. “Which is weird. It’s the other side of the world.”
