FAQs

What's that? You say I can have a top 40 Hit? How?

You sign up to our campaign with your email address and name, and thence become a fully fledged People's Band Band Member. You can then contribute to the People's Band single either by recording a sound file/writing some lyrics and emailing these to us - or by suggestiing ideas on the message board.

As we receive sound files and ideas, we will begin to post rough drafts of the song on our blog. You can listen to these and then post comments and feedback to further shape the final output.

Once we have 15,000 people signed up we will produce a final version for release as a single, which we will then make available for download on a number of online music stores. Then we'll send the People's Band Alert - a group email to all band members instructing them to buy the single (it will only be 70p). If all band members buy the single in the same week it will fly into the top forty gifting all of us the joy of a bona fide musical hit.

But I thought you needed an actual CD release to be eligible for the charts?

The chart rules changed in Jan 07 meaning that downloads alone now count.

So if I want to contribute a sound, what kind of thing should I send?

Absolutely anything. But please keep it under 1MB, and in MP3 format.

I have no musical talent what so ever, can I still submit a sound?

Yes. If you have musical ability all the better, but it's no problem if you don't - we'll still try to use your noise in the single. It hasn't stopped Westlife, so why should it stop you?

Will you use all the sound files band members send you?

We're going to try to use as many possible. Unfortunately, it's unlikely we can use all of them, especially if we get 15,000. We will definitely try to read all ideas posted on the message board, though.

But if everyone just submits a random sound and you combine them to make a single, it's not going to sound very good, is it?

We hope the finished single will sound vaguely musical as we have a music producer waiting in the wings to piece the sounds together, but the point of this exercise isn't to create great music - it's an exercise in people power to get a single by the people in the top 40. And anyway, it'll probably still sound better than James Blunt.

What if I simply sign-up, and then don't contribute in any way whatsoever?

Then you are like the two out of East 17 who weren't Tony Mortimer or Brian Harvey. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Do I have to pay anything to join?

No, it's free. However when we send out the Email Alert we would like you to buy your single - so that it gets into the chart. It'll only cost 70p, though.

Will I actually be a band member?

Yes. Everyone who signs up becomes a member of People's Band. Your name will be listed on the 'Band Members page', and your place in the Musical Hall of Fame will be assured.

In that case do I get any money from record sales?

No. Any profits we make will go to charity. As this is a people's effort, we will let the people (Band Members) decide which charity it goes to.

Will this scheme work?

We did a similar thing last year to get a David Hasselhoff song into the charts, and he ended up at number 3 on October 8th.

Ahh, so you were the people behind that idea?

Yes we were. Sorry.