Talented Leeds youngsters hope to top charts with climate change song inspired by Greta Thunberg

The record is part of an album which a group of students aged between 10 and 15 have made to highlight the "number one issue of our time".

The title track, Up In Flames, was inspired a speech made by climate activist Greta Thunberg to the World Economic Forum in which she warned: "Our house is on fire".

It's a collaboration between the six-bands who make up the LS18 Rocks project in Horsforth, which aims to bring issues about the environment to the fore.

Inspiration for the project partly came from the hit Jack Black musical and film School of Rock, in which a substitute teacher forms a band made up of students.

The bands have already come up with eight songs and hope to get another four before releasing an album later in the year and performing a concert in Leeds.

All profits from the track, which can be found on YouTube and Spotify, will be donated to a charity dedicated to fighting climate change.

LS18 Rocks musical director Jonnie Khan, 49, said: “It’s great playing classic tracks by famous artists from across the decades but we wanted to challenge everyone to see if they could write their own music.

“We asked them for their thoughts and unsurprisingly climate change came back as something they were incredibly passionate about.

“We were not quite sure what to expect to be honest, but we have been stunned by the quality of songs they have produced.

"It is so exciting to see and hear everything coming together.

“Greta Thunberg is a huge inspiration to the vast majority of young people and so it is perhaps apt that our title track is based around her most famous rallying call – our house is on fire.

"There are lots of ways to protest but we believe the best way is as our song says, to keep on singing.”

Up In Flames has been released on all major streaming sites and an accompanying video is in the works.

Lead vocalist Theo Cordingley, 13, said: “I loved being part of the single because it felt awesome to be part of the team and work together on something so fantastic.

“It was very exciting and there was a massive rush when my mum told me that the new single was out and that it was a song that I helped record.

"It is awesome that I am on Spotify at the age of 13."

"I think that it is brilliant that such a climate change awareness song is on such well-recognised platforms like Spotify, Amazon and Apple.

"I think that it is amazing because climate change is such a big thing now."

Dr Rob Wilsmore, Head of School of Performance and Media Production at York St John University, recorded the single in January.

He said: “It was heart-warming to see how the children and adults of LS18 Rocks took to writing songs about climate change when we first proposed this project.

"They are part of a growing movement that is both passionate and informed about climate change, and although writing songs may seem like it won’t change anything, that’s not true, the music of a movement like this changes attitudes and that changes how people choose to act."

LS18 Rocks was launched in Leeds in 2017 and now boasts five children’s bands and one adult group.