Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa sends message to Apollo Junction ahead of their new single ‘Light up the Sky’

After sending the Argentinian a package of band goodies, Bielsa responded by wishing them “many successes in the future”.

“It was bonkers to be honest,” said lead singer Jamie Williamson. “To get a letter from the God, the guy who has changed everything - definitely for the football club ,but also for the city in a way.

“To have him sending us a letter saying he liked the album was one of those moments where you go ‘what? How? What? What?!’”

It comes as the anthemic indie-rock band released their second single of the year, Light up the Sky.

Like their 2020 summer single, Forever, the band shot the video for the new single, out on April 9, all around Leeds, as well as at video studio The Mill in Bradford.

The band, made up of lead singer Jamie, guitarist Matt Wilson, Ben Hope on bass, drummer Jonathan Thorton and Sam Potter on keys, released their debut album Mystery in 2019.

Jamie spoke about the new single’s powerful bass line, drum stabs and fuzzy guitars, saying: “The idea was for it to be an instrumental album opener but I put it on in my kitchen and the moment I heard it I was like ‘this is ace’.

“We’re always trying to write huge anthems, we are also massive 80s music fans - you can hear that in the synth sounds - we love that sort of style we all grew up with.

“I think this is the most anthemic and the biggest chorus we’ve managed yet,” he added.

The track feels like a homecoming for listeners after a year without being able to attend live concerts, bringing a feeling of togetherness with arms around your mates, screaming at the top of your lungs vocals.

Jamie said: “We are very much about the positivity in things, we love what we do, we love writing songs and people need all sorts of art forms more than ever, this song came out of that, better times are coming.

“It’s been a dark time and everyone’s gone through it together and we’ll come out of it together and when we do it’s going to be good. The song is really about that emotion and that feeling.

“We’re all due some really nice times, we can’t wait to be playing live again but also just going to watch bands again.”

On Apollo Junction’s ever-growing momentum, he said: “We’ve kept as busy as we possibly can, we were supposed to tour the end of last year and into this year [but] we’ve managed to put a single out every two months and each one got bigger.”

The band have been riding a wave of popularity which has seen them get well over half-a-million streams under their belts, as well as having their tunes included in Spotify’s ‘It’s Alt Good’ and ‘New Noise’ playlists.

Jamie said: “A big turning point for us was realising that people want to be finding new music.

"People assume that there’s a cut-off point with bands - people get to a certain age and they don’t care about new music they only ever look back. But we found people are giving bands a chance to be heard”.

Their most streamed track on Spotify, Begin, has also featured in Ubisoft’s Watchdogs: Legion video game in October 2020.

And following a chance encounter with the film crew of The Syndicate, the popular TV program written by Leeds writer Kay Mellor, the band’s music will also feature in the first episode of the new series, starting on Tuesday, March, 30 on BBC One.

Jamie said: “This is the first time where we’ve gone 'this is a big, big show to get in'.”

The band have a hefty gig calendar across the summer and beyond with the stand out dates including Carfest North and South, Bingley Weekender, supporting the Kaiser Chiefs at Halifax Piece Hall, the Isle of Wight festival and Leeds Warehouse.

Jamie added: “It’s bizarre it has got busier and busier and busier, we can’t wait to keep releasing songs and keep adding new gigs and dates and keep growing.”

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