Purple Mafia mania breaks out at private girls schools

Purple Mafia pictured signing autographs for girl fans at Tudor Hall School, Banbury near Oxford on Saturday, November 14.

Girls’ schools around the country are succumbing to ‘Mafia Mania’ as acclaimed local band Purple Mafia rock continue to grow their fan-base and popularity with each gig.

Made up of singer Dan Reynard, guitarists Josh Stockdale and Harry Yates, bassist Joe Morley and drummer Alex Boulton, the band are getting an amazing reaction whereever they go.

The latest pupils to fall under this charismatic young band’s spell are the pupils of at Tudor Hall School at Banbury near Oxford.

A show by Purple Mafia last week saw hundreds of hundred teenage girls scream and dance the night away.

Teacher Julie Gunning who organised the event, said: “The band were amazing and the girls had a fantastic time. I first saw and heard them several years ago - they were good then and its great to see how they have progressed and developed into a really great live act with a collection of original songs.

“The whole school was buzzing in anticipation of the show and Purple Mafia certainly didn’t disappoint.”

Tudor Hall is just the latest venue on a UK-wide tour which has help drive the band’s popularity and bring them to the attention of record labels and producers.

Other schools to have succumbed to Mafia Mania in recent months include:

Roedean School, Brighton.

Wyckham Abbey School, High Wycombe.

Queen Margaret’s Girls School, York.

Queen Mary, near York.

Queen Ethelburga’s.

Harrogate Ladies College.

Purple Mafia was formed after three of the members met in their first year at Ripon Grammar School.

They first shot to fame when they won Yorkshire’s top schools battle of the bands contest, the AMP Awards. at Harrogate’ s Royal Hall in 2012 as already highly professional 17-year-olds.

Since then the band has played scores of dates across the UK as well as recording in Los Angeles and appearing at the world famous Whisky A Go Go nightclub in Hollywood.

They also played to a crowd of 25,000 at the Official Fan Park on The Stray at Le Grande Depart of the Tour de France last year.

After the show at Tudor Hall at the weekend, Dan said:

“We always get a fantastic reception on these gigs at girls’ schools - they seem to have a competition between them as to who can scream the loudest and longest and Tudor Hall was absolutely deafening!”