About Westcut
Westcut is comprised of guitarist, Glenn Shepherd and bassist, David Reader. They both sing lead and harmony vocals. The duo was formerly a quartet, including David’s elder brothers, Mark and John.
The band played semi-professionally for about a year, starting in 1991. However, the band found that they were all heading in different directions and were no longer really progressing as a unit. Thus an amicable agreement was made for Glenn and David to continue with Westcut as a duo.
The new arrangement gave Glenn and David much more room to develop their musical relationship even further and to improve the overall Westcut sound. So since autumn 1992 Westcut has comprised of Glenn and David.
Although they are a duo, they sometimes make use of computer technology and backing tracks when playing live to fill out their sound. They have constantly been song writing and have accumulated many songs throughout their years of playing and writing together.
David and Glenn are both originally from Manchester, UK, however David now lives in Warrington, UK with his wife, Rachel.
The focus of Westcut’s music has always been melodic, harmony-based songs that have meaning. They are heavily influenced by bands from the 60’s and 70’s, such as Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Moody Blues, the Electric Light Orchestra and David and Glenn’s favourite band, the Hollies.
It was through the Hollies that they became acquainted with vocalist Carl Wayne, a respected name in his own right as a founding member of the Move and also successor to Hollies lead vocalist, Allan Clarke.
After learning that David and Glenn were songwriters after meeting them after a Hollies show in Blackpool in 2001, Carl asked them to submit some songs to the band, as they were looking for new material. This they did, along with giving Carl a copy of their debut album, “Looking Ahead”, when it was released in 2003. Carl spoke very highly of their achievement with this album and gave glowing praise of many of the songs, including describing Glenn’s song, “The World Keeps Going Round” as having “hit written all over it”.
The single releases from “Looking Ahead” featured prominently in their respective genre charts on the release site, mp3.com (not the same as the mp3.com that is live at the time of writing this), with “She’s The One” and “Stay With Me Tonight” hitting the top and staying there for some time. “Stay With Me Tonight” even knocked Tom Jones off the number one spot!
Although things have been quiet in the world of Westcut for some years, David and Glenn have continued to write and record and are currently working on demos to be considered for their (extremely!) long-awaited second album.
