The Worship Band

Contributed by David Nuttall



The LES Band has been together in a constantly evolving form for six years now, since the inception of the actual Late Evening Service, where the band leads worship every Sunday at 9 p.m. The band plays a mixture of original material and contemporary worship songs by such writers as Martin Smith / Delirious?, Matt Redman, Brian Doerkson, Kevin Prosch and so on; which in turn is reflected in the songs included on the bands first album, 'In Your Hands'. The band line-up presently draws upon the talents of 11 musicians. This means that the band's regular worship slot is able to continue even through holiday periods, with the line-up size varying between 4 and 10 people. As well as our regular slot, the band is being booked for and increasing number of extra activities, varying from weddings to youth events like 'b:real', and playing the mainstage Sunday morning Communion Service at Greenbelt, to a crowd of 10,000 very wet worshippers!

The Band members are as follows:





David Nuttall

- Band Leader, Drummer, Vocalist, main Worship Leader, and occasional Guitarist. 'Nutty-Bloke', (or Tubby Nutty Fatty Bloke to give him his full endearing title!) is the joint longest standing member of the band, joining a few weeks after LES started. He is one of a rare breed of drumming worship leaders, and has recently started writing a couple of worship songs.You can e-mail him at david_lesband@hotmail.com





Joel Guinness

- Guitarist, Keyboardist, Worship Leader, and general sorting the sound and lights out expert! Joel is the other longest standing member of the band; he even moved to Lancaster in the same week as David! Joel is our most prolific song writer, contributing 3 songs to the Album, including the title track and the contemporary classic 'How Can I Tell?'.





Marc Vallente

- Guitarist, Backing Vocals and occasional Worship Leader. Marc is a definite new boy in the group, and also a great song writer: check out the Celticly-overtoned 'Oh Lord' on the album. Mark is majoring in singing at University, but chooses to focus on his guitar playing within LES. His latest gadget is his E-Bow, which we lovingly refer to as his 'Oooooh-Ooooh-Thing!'





Adrian Copping

- Saxophone, occasional Worship Leader, Guitarist and Vocalist. 'Big Ade', as he is known, is another long standing member of the band. He combines his musical skill with extreme laid-backness to the point of, and I quote, "What Key is this in? Aah, Who cares!?"





Ceridwen Copping

- Vocals and Violin. Ceri, wife of Adrian, is a newer member of the band, who contributes both by singing and by turning out some pretty groovy fiddle lines in songs like 'The Happy Song'. Both Ceri and Adrian are now delving into the realms of song writing, so 1997/98 should be a productive year musically. Ceri is also blessed with the most miss-spelt name in the world (simply check out the album!).





Lee Richardson

- Drummer and occasional Backing Vocals. Lee joined the band 3 years ago while David took a 6 month sabbatical, since when they have shared the drumming duties. Lee is responsible for bringing elements of percussion into the band's sound, as well as excessively bright shirt-wearing. And you guessed it, Lee is getting into writing too!





Martin Cumming

- Vocalist and Egg. Martin, our resident joker, is another long-standing band member. He is our main male vocal with a rich baritone sound. Martin has started to delve into the world of percussion with his Chicken Nugget 'egg' playing: is there no end to this man's talents!





Lynda Clark

- Vocalist. Lynda completes our vocal line-up and is the newest band member. She has two great attributes to her credit: firstly the ability put give out the best put-downs to over-amorous males while maintaining there self-esteem; and secondly delivering great vocals, which do sometimes reveal her native Irish lilt. These sporadic lapses into Cranberry-esque pitch shifts do prove to be a source of great merriment to the rest of the band.





Chris Dixon

- Keyboardist and occasional Worship Leader. Chris, another recent arrival to LES, is the man who lays down our keyboard melodies with the aid of his magic black box (effects unit). Chris, however, has made two fundamental errors in life. Firstly, he has mislaid his power lead for his magic black box, rendering it temporarily useless, and secondly, he seems to have made the mistake of having his hair cut at a Star Trek Convention!





Tim Ellam

- Keyboardist. Tim is a part-time member of the band these days since he decided to spend a few weeks per year at University. Tim is responsible for two major contributions to the band. One, his tell tale Hammond-style keyboard licks, and two, the patented 6-foot by 4- foot music filing system, which has to be seen to be believed (and more disturbingly, it actually works!).





Martin Hodgson

- Bassist and occasional Keyboardist. Martin is our mystery man. Being a busy sound engineer he rarely makes it to practices. But come Sunday, he'll stroll in at five to nine, plug in his bass, lay down some funky bass grooves, pack up and go again. Where he comes from and where he goes to are still a mystery. Martin also invented the TARDIS Brief Case (failed).

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