When indie five-piece Cherry Stone stepped on to the stage at Metronome for the 2026 edition of the Ultimate Battle Of The Bands contest, they were hoping to do well – but winning following a unanimous judges’ decision proved to be a euphoric and surreal moment. We caught up with the band as they prepared for their next episode(s)...
LL: Congratulations again on the Ultimate Battle Of The Bands win! How are you?
Cherry Stone: Thank you, we’re good. I don't think it's fully sunk in yet. You know, like it's real ... it’s not a dream!
LL: Could you introduce yourselves - there are a lot of you!
Cherry Stone: We are lead singer Cody Marie, guitarists Cody Taylor and Oliver, drummer Kian, and bassist Sam.
LL: How did Cherry Stone come into being?
Cody Marie: The band started in 2022 when we began in college, at Confetti. It was me, Cody and Ollie that originally were in a random college band where we just did whatever covers we could think of. I think at one point we covered Bruno Mars…
I was acting on the side, and I did a play at the Nottingham Playhouse, and I was drumming for some reason, and that's where I met Kian and was like, “Oh, you're good at drums. Can you teach me?” And he said, “I think you're beyond teaching at this point. However, I can try!”
When we left college, we wanted to take this seriously because we had a taste of what music could be. So we're like, okay, we'll do this for real… It was me, Cody, Ollie and Kian for ages and then at the start of the second year of Uni we made good friends with Sam. There was one thing missing and that was the lower end of the bass. We didn't want to add any random bassist because it's quite a tight-knit group, so we had to get someone we knew we'd get along with. [Sam was] the perfect match because we were all really good friends.
So now we have Sam and it's better than ever – it sounds a lot better than it did before.
LL: And what about the name?
Cody Marie: In 2023, when we were in college, our tutor Will came in and was like, "Lads, you need a name for the band – it can’t just be Cody and Cody. You must have a name.” So we went on to a random word generator and put in fruits, and cherry was the first fruit that came up. We wanted it to be a bad-ass name rather than ‘Cherry Band’, so we were trying to think of something cool to go second.
Cody Taylor: Will said to us, “Band names are always stupid and they make no sense, so it doesn't matter… Cherries have stones, there you go.” So we became the Cherry Stone band.
Cody Marie: It’s nothing exciting! We made up a story saying that somebody choked on a cherry stone, or somebody slipped on a cherry, but the real story is we couldn’t think of a name.
LL: But you were thinking on the fruit end of the name spectrum…
Cody Marie: To be fair, I was listening to Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles, and I thought, “Fruits are actually really cool.”
LL: And in Nottingham we've got Luna and the Lime Slices, too. I’m not sure if there are any fruit-based bands but you could do a whole gig where the lineup is all fruit bands…
Codie Marie: A fruit salad! That would be amazing. We'll have to hunt them down.
LL: You’re still a young band, but what have some of the highlights been so far?
Cody Marie: The first year we got together, somehow we managed to get a really good support gig in Sheffield. We played a sold-out show supporting a band called River Drive Band. That was the most fun we had prior to Sam joining.
We’ve played in Derby, Lincoln and Mansfield, and we’ve played at Billy Bootlegger’s a number of times, and at Saltbox when we first got together, in 2025.
LL: Looking to the future, are you just seeing how things work out and taking it as it comes, or do you have plans?
Cherry Stone: I think subconsciously we have goals. Nothing set in stone. However, we're releasing quite a few singles this year and we've got multiple gigs each month in different cities…So it's a combination of live stuff and recording.
We've got a three single campaign going, and the last one is going to be released by the start of June.
LL: What’s your approach to songwriting?
Cody Taylor: We never sit down with the intent of writing, but say one of us has come with a guitar idea, or Kian has some cool drums that he wants to do, we'll just kind of start playing it and jam and see what comes together. And normally by the end of that session something has come together and then it just needs refining.
A lot of the time the lyrics tend to come after. As we’re writing, we’ll be speaking to Cody about what kind of vibe we’re going for.
Cody Marie: It depends sometimes. Dana is quite a meaningful song, about my nan that passed. Those lyrics came first but it was more like a diary entry that I wrote down when she passed away. They started playing music and I though, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got lyrics that could work amazingly for this song.” That’s the only time it’s been lyrics first.
LL: It’s cool to hear how those kinds of things come together – different people, different ideas and then it comes together into a song.
Cody Marie: What I love the most about this band is how different all of us are, even upbringing or genre, it works perfectly. That's why the name is really special, because in my head ‘cherry’ is my side of things, quite pop girly, quite Olivia Rodrigo and Hannah Montana-esque vibed lyrics. And then ‘stone’ comes from the depth and the grit and the more metal side that the boys have.
LL: How about the subject matter or themes of your songs? Do you have a vision as a band of the kind of things you want to explore?
Cody Marie: I think the lyrics from my perspective are as raw and as honest as I can make them. Because every song we’ve released is a real story, whether it's ours or somebody we know that we've just taken and made into something lovely.
Ollie: It’s stuff that everybody in their life can relate to.
Cody Marie: But don’t want to talk about.
LL: What kind of feedback have you had from people on what you're doing?
Cody Marie: As a female artist, I get a lot of, “Oh my gosh, you sound like Hayley Williams. Oh my gosh, you guys are like Paramore…” And I assume that’s because it's a female-fronted band and they just put two and two together.
Mostly we get told, “Thank you.” I've had a lot of young girls talk to me and say, “Thank you for putting how I feel into words,” which is quite special.
Ollie: Mostly I get people asking me why my guitar sounds like that, and that's like the biggest compliment. I've always set out with the goal of trying to make the guitar sound like it's plugged into a toaster that's under water. So the fact that people are saying that I've nearly achieved that really makes me happy.
LL: How have you found the Nottingham music scene?
Kian: Especially, with the music side of things I feel like a lot of people in the Nottingham music scene are just genuinely quite friendly and open.
Ollie: Well, it's a nice lived-in environment for musical elements because the majority of people that you meet on the street are either in a band, or they're doing something around with a band, or their cousin’s in a band, or they go to gigs…They all have something to do with music because it's such a musical place… It's great because everyone supports each other. And then you grow to know everyone you tend to see in a pub. It's a community, right?
Cody Taylor: Well, I'm not from here. I lived in a little village near Lincoln, but I came here for college and now for university. I guess it's the same thing for me. You walk down the street and you will see somebody that you know from a band or from a gig that you played. It’s just a really tight-knit, nice place for music.
Sam: I've not had too much experience in the Nottingham scene, but what I've had while being in Cherry Stone is that same sort of thing. Going to gigs with these guys and then speaking to people that I have no idea who they are, but they're like, “Oh, that's just some guy that I met at a gig we did.”
Cody Marie: You can talk to anybody and find something music-related to talk about.
For me, personally, I've lived here 20 years of my life. And I think Nottingham is the place I call home now and I think it's the place I'll call home forever. Even if I move away, Nottingham is going to be my safe place. As a little girl I played football and still then, music was a massive thing because I supported Forest and going to football games with my dad, music is always the thing that brings you together. And then coming away from football and finding my own sound and going to college, music's always been a thing that hasn't only tied me to my dad, like listening to Evanescence and Bon Jovi, but it's also given me the strength and motivation to go out there. I wouldn't have met these guys if I didn't feel as big as a connection to music that I did.
People sometimes look past Nottingham. London has their music scene, and Manchester has a massive scene… But if people come to Nottingham for one weekend, they’ll see how many bands like us are actually trying and getting out there.
Cherry Stone's latest single Dana is out now.
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