Billy & His Imaginary Wigan Mates “Keep The Faith” On New Album

Snuff‘s Duncan Redmond is celebrating four decades in the music industry, the singing drummer, founder and driving force behind Snuff has resurrected his occasional solo side hustle Billy No Mates and added some Imaginary Wigan Mates and a whole album of Northern Soul delights. What always kept Snuff above and beyond the one-dimensional nature of many of their peers is their divergent unpredictability and Duncan is at it again here with a cracking collection of Northern Soul classics and lesser known favourites. Fuelled by a love of fast beating 60s soul that dates back to his days working in a vinyl warehouse and further inspired by the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners and Soft Cell‘s love of Northern Soul covers, Keep The Faith is a collection of some of the genre’s most loved classics and lesser known gems, all given the inimitable Redmond treatment. Keep The Faith is available through streaming platforms with vinyl following shortly through via 10 Past 12 Records and SBÄM Records.

“It was fun. It is something I have been thinking about for a long time. I developed a love for uptempo soul and Motown while working at the warehouse and it just grew from there. I would hear the Motown and the harder faster stuff and they just blew me away to be honest. It just connected straight away. Not all of it by a long shot but the ones that hit, they just exploded, like ‘wow’. Some of it I can thank Dexys Midnight Runners for, because their B-sides always had Northern Soul songs on, and also Mark Almond and Soft Cell doing ‘What’ and ‘Tainted Love’, it kind of grew from there.” (Duncan Redmond)