As a Bradfordian from birth, I have long been proud of the city’s rich cultural history, particularly in music and the arts. As a youngster I attended the Saturday morning drama classes in Little Germany, run by Bradford Playhouse. Our end-ofterm shows were mostly in a dark, atmospheric, Dickensian building at the end of Cater Street. The performances were always well-attended and even featured local drama legends such as Peter Firth and Martin Sadofski. Sadly, the building has seen much neglect over the last forty years, so it was with some excitement that I discovered it is now being given a new lease of life in 2016 with the opening of a music complex. SORM (School of Rock and Media) have taken the bold step of expanding their operations from their humble premises in Edward Street, working as a social enterprise alongside various organisations to make a significant contribution to Bradford’s growing music scene. John Bolton, Michelle Bolton and Tony Saunders took a few minutes out from their busy building schedule to show me around and answer a few questions about the move..
Tell me about the history of SORM. Where did you start and what was the initial philosophy of the organisation? Tony: Me and John met by fate, I think. I read an article in the Telegraph & Argus when John was working at Fagley Youth Club and there’d been a break in and they’d had all their equipment stolen. At the time I was the general manager of a car business but I wanted to help out to give kids some knowledge of music, so I rang him and said – it’s Tony from the Negatives, can I donate some guitars and cabs and come volunteer with you? He thought I was joking but I took some guitars down and it turned out his wife Michelle knew my wife but me and John had never met.
Then we started working with six or seven kids and formed a band called Scorpion Tears. It went well at first but the Youth Club were hard to work for.
So was SORM running from Fagley Youth Club? Tony: Well the idea evolved from there, but then we got talking to Pete Tate who John had worked with in the past through his community development and he was saying he had a garage unit at MAPA with a studio in it. So we cleaned it out and put rehearsal rooms in and a recording room to use for youth work for two days a week and that’s how it started really. Then we came up with the name School of Rock and Media and we stayed at MAPA for about a year. Then we outgrew MAPA as we just couldn’t get the kids in. We were charging them a pound each and getting a bit of funding, so we saved the money and started to look at bigger premises.
So when did it become a social enterprise? Tony: 2012 at MAPA. We set it up as a limited company at first but realised it was the wrong way to do it. Then Andy Peers from The Red Cross came in to help us set up as a social enterprise so that helped with the funding. Then Bradford Trident came in - they have equity in buildings all over Bradford so they offered us Edward Street at a favourable rent for the first three years.
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