BLACKPOOL band Honeyrider are bidding for stardom in a nationwide contest to discover the stars of tomorrow.

They have come through thousands of hopefuls to reach this stage of the competition which sees four home-grown bands from the North play-off in the regional final at Yates's Wine Lodge in Swinton, Manchester, on July 13. The bands will all perform their own material.

After the initial shock of getting through, bass player David Fyall is relishing the chance to take the stage with fellow band members Fred Laird, who plays guitar and sings lead vocals, David Wakefield who also plays guitar and drummer Mark Summers.

David Fyall, 31, who lives in Cleveleys, told the Citizen: "We hit the floor when the acceptance pack came in because we had just been laid into by Radio Lancashire when they reviewed our demo tape.

"We started as a 60s psyche and garage group and our influences are all 60s based, The Who, Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground among others. We're not afraid to have a go at anything though. We started there and now we're moving on.

"In fact, we're moving on to a new name soon because there's already a band releasing material called Honeyrider, the name of the character played by Ursula Andress in the James Bond film Doctor No.

"We've had a few ideas but finding a good band name is impossible so we're sticking with it for now."

The band, who have recently had a promotional CD released to the European music industry by In Yer Face Promotions in Bradford, are also hoping to appear in this year's In the City Festival in Liverpool.

David said: "The promotional CD was the first benchmark to find out if we were any good as we were chosen from around 8,000 bands."

The winners of the Yates's regional heat will go on the grand final gig at Wembley which will give the best bands the chance to target top-name companies and walk away with £5,000 worth of new gear.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.