Where the new era began…
This week feels properly mad.
We’re here at Studio 250 for five days and, I’ve got to tell you, big things are on the way!
This is the new era of Bendricks – our second coming.
We’ve honestly had enough of the whole clean-cut, safe, polished, poster-boy thing that’s everywhere right now. That world’s not us and it never has been.
We are a rock n’ roll band. We want big sound, heavy bass, and songs that you can’t get out of your head. We want the crowd shouting back at us after they’ve had a few drinks. We are a guitar band that you can dance with. We’re not manufactured and our music taps into something universal, something that anyone can connect with.
So here we are at Studio 250 and we know it’s the perfect place to create all that.
Firstly, the place is unreal.
Brand new, state-of-the-art, stuck right in Cinderford in the Forest of Dean. It’s not just “nice.” Studio 250 has this energy about it. It’s like the whole building just wants loud guitars bouncing off the walls.
It’s open – properly open.
No one boxed into tiny rooms. No weird separation. You can move around, throw ideas around, sit on the floor arguing about a chorus, and change an entire part because someone accidentally played something better. Everything feels collaborative without even trying. Ideas just sort of happen here.
Studio 250 screams rock n’ roll.
Maybe it’s the absolutely ridiculous sports car collection sitting right below us.
You’re up here chasing guitar riffs and downstairs it’s just rows of beautiful, stupidly cool cars like something out of a 007 film!
Like dreams are not just made here – they are welcome here – and we are here for it.
We’re in with Danny Thomas this week behind the desk. Not only is he a great engineer, he’s a proper musician himself and has worked with some pretty cool people. He tours the world as a guitar tech with Steve Winwood. It’s all about the songs with Danny and that makes him easy to work with.
So five days and loads of new material.
Being named on This Feeling’s “Big in 2026” list genuinely meant a lot to us, but it didn’t feel like “we’ve made it.” It felt more like, “Right then… prove it.”
And we’re taking this week to do exactly that. We’re not playing it safe and there are no half-efforts here. Right now we are locked into our world and the focus is all on the songs. We had a good baseline to work with. We had pre-production nailed down and we know the direction we want to take with the songs, but it’s fun to be open to experimentation a little bit when you are in the studio. Being in this environment puts us into a state of mind that, to be fair, is like having blinders on to the rest of the world. We embrace that and go where the music takes us.
And the maddest part is knowing this all gets to leave the studio soon.
It’ll go to: Cardiff. Liverpool. Manchester. Newport. Skipton. Scunthorpe. And more. It’ll be on stages across the UK starting immediately.
Right now its cables everywhere and trying one more take… but soon it’s going to be all yours. And we can’t wait!