Huddersfield band The Demon Barbers scoop prize at BBC Folk Awards

Feb 4 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD folk favourites The Demon Barbers have won a top BBC music award

The band picked up the Best Live Act 2009 title at the BBC Folk Awards in London on Monday.

They collected the award at the Brewery venue, after beating off competition from popular folk act Bellowhead and former Mercury Music Prize nominee Seth Lakeman.

The award was a metal statuette made by Holmfirth artist Mick Kirby-Geddes, who has made the awards for the past decade.

Vocalist and fiddle player Bryony Griffith said: “It has not sunk in yet. It is a massive deal. It was massive that we were even nominated, we were amazed. But we never thought we would win.”

The Demon Barbers are fronted by singer and guitarist Damien Barber, who is from Keighley.

Bryony and melodeon player Will Hampson both live at Skelmanthorpe. Bryony’s brother, drummer Ben Griffith, hails from Clayton West.

Bassist Lee Sykes completes the musical line-up, but the band are also accompanied by six highly-skilled traditional dancers, including David Hall from Kirkheaton.

Will and Bryony went to King James’s High School and Kirklees Music School together. After graduating from their degrees they moved back to Huddersfield, where Bryony is a professional singer and teachers piano and violin. She also started the Shepley Singers community choir in 2007.

Her mother Angela is a local music teacher and passed on her talents to both Bryony and Ben.

Ben went to Shelley High School and then lived in Barnsley, before joining his sister in The Demon Barbers.

The band, who formed eight years ago, were the highlight of last years Shepley Spring Festival.