Solid Steel - Steel Band for Hire - Book Online Here
We’re Solid Steel and we’re a professional UK-based steel band (or ‘steel drum band’ as our American cousins wrongly call it!) available for hire with musicians based in London and Manchester. The band was born into this less than tropical climate back in 1986, and promptly achieved nationwide popularity. We travel all over the country, and indeed abroad, playing to audiences at events with (or without!) a tropical theme like Caribbean nights, private parties, wedding receptions, corporate events, product and project launches etc. in venues as diverse as hotels, festivals, schools, tv and radio studios, village halls, pubs and restaurants. In so doing, we make it our business to transport your imagination to the most idyllic sun and rum-soaked Caribbean vacation you have ever or never had!
And so to the music. The instruments we play are Caribbean ‘steel pans’ or ‘steel drums’ (the national modern folk instrument of Trinidad & Tobago) which we augment with other stuff as and when required. So we can sing, we can perform in various sizes and guises, organise steelband workshops and generally on request mould performances that expand upon the traditional calypso and Latin styles of music that form the core of our repertoire. This flexibility and a great sense of fun, we could argue, give us the edge over the competition. But we’d be lying. It’s the music. Just click the ‘Our Music’ button, listen to samples of our latest CD, ‘Three’, and decide for yourself
More about us
Paul Cherrie
‘When it comes to steel band, mih fav’rite number is three’. So writes Paul on the title track and so it has ever been since, as a teenager in the late seventies, he was smitten with playing in his father Max’s band ‘The Cherry Pickers’.
With a musician for a father and a mother who was a dancer, Paul’s early career as a classroom teacher was perhaps predictably ill-fated, but he remained and remains an enthusiastic educator and a fair number of pan players can claim to have benefited from this over the years.
He founded Solid Steel back in 1986 at a time when British-born players were far and few between let alone bandleaders. In this environment he committed himself to hiring only the most promising young musicians irrespective of their status within the pan community, whilst he honed his vocal talents alongside his skills as a second pan and bass pan player.
He also founded his own management company ‘Tropical Entertainments’ in 1992 and is still busy providing a platform for talented artists of Caribbean heritage to get paid work. ‘Three’ is his concept and shows that at this stage of his career his drive is as energetic as his bass pan grooves!
Dennis Davis
Dennis was born and raised in Notting Hill of Jamaican parents. He started playing the guitar at the age of nine, and was soon playing in youth bands largely populated with pupils at a school where Paul Cherrie taught. Dennis showed a strong interest in pan and started rehearsing at Paul’s house and performing with Solid Steel as long ago as 1987. He’s maintained his pan playing over the years and has displayed his talents on tenor, second, guitar and bass pans on numerous domestic gigs and foreign tours with the band.
He’s also pursued his career as a guitarist alongside his pan playing and latterly is in much demand as a bass guitarist on the session circuit. His amazing versatility on this instrument has recently seen him play reggae with the Bob Marley tribute band, ‘Trenchtown Experience’ calypso and soca ‘on the road’ with ‘Pan Necktar’, blues and funk with ‘The Blues Of Cain’, Brazilian music with ‘Made In Brazil’, jazz funk with ‘Express Yourself’ and Afrobeat with Fela Kuti protogé Bukky Leo’s band ‘Black Egypt’!
All these influences are subtly borne out in his inventive pan style which is integral to the sound of ‘Three’.
Tom Alleyne
Encouraged by his Trinidadian father, Ben, Tom started playing tenor pan at the tender age of 7, and promptly joined his first steel band, Pantonic. Since then he’s played and won several Panorama competitions with Mangrove and Ebony in the UK and the legendary Desperadoes in Trinidad. As a soloist and improviser he’s also been recognized in the UK as one of the brightest talents of his generation. Intensely musical, Tom is also a talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and whilst he continues to play with Solid Steel (as he has since 2001) and teach pan in schools and workshops in London, his alter ego, D.ablo is forging a burgeoning solo career. He’s very well known on the UK Hip Hop scene as part of the Terra Firma collective and has toured with Lady Sovereign. However, with broad musical tastes in Hip Hop, Jazz, Soul, Reggae and Calypso, he brings an eclectic and modern perspective to his craft that resonates brilliantly in his performances on ‘Three’. Still only 26, he’s a star in the making and is certainly one to watch!
But Solid Steel aren’t just 3 guys- they’re a family (in some cases, quite literally!) of hot shot steel band musicians. So let’s introduce a few of them to you……
Francis Hylton
Francis' production on 'Three' represents his first experience of recording steel pans, but his association with Solid Steel goes back many years. He began playing steel drums whilst studying sound engineering in Manchester in the early 90's, after meeting up with pan legend and family friend, Max Cherrie. On his return to London, he soon met Paul Cherrie who began calling him for gigs, on single and double bass pans and also bass guitar (which he also began playing in Manchester.) Over the next few years he worked with many of London's most respected calypsonians whilst also becoming an in-demand session bass player. Francis is also an established writer and producer, as well as making a name for himself as a DJ across Europe. Artists Francis has worked with include Leona Lewis, Peter Gabriel, Estelle, Craig David, Shakira, Mary J Blige, Nelly Furtado, Lady Sovereign, Rodney P, the late Lynden David Hall, the Afro Celt Sound System, The Dhol Foundation and Incognito. Incognito's album "Tales From The Beach" which features two production and co-writes from Francis has been number one on the album chart in Italy and number one on the US jazz chart.
More about our services
Performance
We're in high demand as an acoustic (unplugged!) trio. Why so popular? Well one reason is that the format itself is so very natural, organic and beautifully undated. It has a timeless quality only other acoustic groups like string quartets can aspire to. The other reason is that Solid Steel, in particular, use the best musicians playing the highest quality of instruments to achieve the best sound. We then choose suitably melodic material such as traditional calypsos and Caribbean folk music with Latin and popular 'standards' fleshing out the repertoire.
But we don't always play as a trio. As much as we love that line-up, it's not always suitable. Sometimes we are booked to play sessions for dancing. There are times when we play as a trio, especially with vocals, that audiences will dance to us. However, this is far from guaranteed and younger audiences especially find trios too 'light' rhythmically and often prefer us to work with a bass guitar and a drummer in a bigger band with a heavier rhythm. We're then sure to pack the dance floor!
We also play requests, especially those we have prior knowledge of, before your event. Unless we don't know your tune and don't consider it suitable to play on future engagements, we will freely add it to our already extensive repertoire. We can send you a list of all of our material, but it is reliant on the line-up you book which is why we haven't published it on this site.
Support & cabaret acts
Solid Steel is run as the flagship act of its bandleader, Paul Cherrie's 'Tropical Entertainments', so all manner of similarly themed artistes may be booked through us to complement your event. The most popular fun choice of these is a limbo dancer and it never fails to be a huge hit amongst our audiences.
Please take a look at the site at www.tropical-ents.co.uk and if it's great limbo specifically that you're looking for, take a look at Kaniki at www.tropical-ents.co.uk/limbo.htm.
We're very experienced in all things Caribbean, naturally, and will always want to help you. We can even advise you on theming and catering if we're asked!
Team building & workshops
Playing the steel pan is fun! People of all ages and abilities always love having a go at hitting a drum, but given the opportunity to play a steel drum they take that enthusiasm up to another level. We can provide the opportunity to be interactive with a range of fun, educational, and inexpensive team building and workshop services.
These services can be tailor-made to suit any group of people regardless of age or ability and indeed can prove to be particularly beneficial to those with disabilities and special needs. We have full public liability insurance cover and our talented and experienced tutors have all been CRB checked.
Our workshops give children and adults an opportunity to learn about the history of steel pans and how they are made. Then we will, of course, demonstrate how they are played choosing the right tunes for any particular group to encourage as much audience participation as possible, but we'll also demonstrate musical rudiments like scales to make our audience's experience as musically educational as it will be cultural and entertaining.
Then it's time for our audience to have a go themselves!
Our ultimate aim is to have each person leave our sessions with
- Greater understanding and respect of the instrument and its origins
- A sense of achievement having learnt a musical part
- A sense of having bonded with peers working together as a group
- Better communication with everyone irrespective of their position within the hierarchy!
- A broad grin on their face!
