Westside Cowboy, a band that formed after a chance conversation in a Manchester music shop, have released their debut album, played Glastonbury, and are receiving regular airplay on national radio. The four members—Reuben Haycocks, Paddy Murphy, Aoife Anson-O’Connell, and Jimmy Bradbury—came together when Jimmy, then working at Johnny Roadhouse on Oxford Road, asked the others if they fancied starting a band called Westside Cowboy.
From chance meeting to record deal
At the time, Reuben (guitar, vocals), Paddy (drums), and Aoife (bass, vocals) were studying music at the Royal Northern College of Music, while Jimmy (guitar, vocals) was working at the shop after graduating from a similar course. Jimmy recalls: "I was working at Johnny Roadhouse for five years, and Paddy would come in to the shop pretty much every day and say 'oh meet this person, meet that person'. He came in with Reuben one day and the first thing he said to be was 'hi I'm Reuben from Wem," and I was like 'you're from Wem?" It turns out we grew up like ten minutes away from each other in this tiny place in Shropshire. We did similar things growing up, yet we didn't meet until we both ended up in Manchester."
He adds: "I just asked them one day at work when they came in and I said 'do you guys want to start a band called Westside Cowboy?' And they said, yeah sure why not." The band have since signed to Island Records imprint Adventure Recordings.
A Manchester band at heart
While the band grew up in different parts of the country, they consider themselves a Manchester band. Paddy, from Preston, says: "We met here in Manchester and Manchester was always for me this beacon, this is where life is actually happening, where music is, whenever I was a younger boy I'd get the train to gigs and thought one day I'll get a reason to move here. And everyone feels the same."
He adds: "We came here to study, but then we became more and more sucked in to everything, every part of the place. We've lived here for 6 - 8 years and we're not going anywhere in no uncertain terms, we owe so much to this place. Giving back to it in any way possible is the least we can do. We truly love it, and we consider ourselves a Manchester band, from Manchester, but we don't want people to think we're co-opting a community for some kind of points, but that is the sincere crux of it all."
Jimmy left his job at Johnny Roadhouse two days before the band played Glastonbury, having won the festival's emerging talent competition in 2025. He says: "That was weirdly two days before we played Glastonbury. In the space of 3 days me and Aoife got our flat together which happened really quickly, I left Johnny Roadhouse the same day, and then the next day we had to leave to play Glastonbury. It was three major life changes in three days."
Supportive scene and collective action
Paddy describes Manchester's music scene as hugely supportive: "There's no interest in any beef, or any macho 'our band is better than your band'. Maybe that was cool at one point, but we'd argue that just being friends with everyone is probably nicer." The band helped form No Band Is An Island alongside fellow indie bands Holly Head, Pushbike and Martial Arts, an initiative that places political action back into the heart of the indie scene, raising funds for good causes and building an ecosystem of artists who can organise and work collectively.
They approve of Manchester's Andy Burnham now taking up the reins of power, bringing No 10 to the North. Jimmy says: "With the Burnham, Manchesterism thing, it all feels very exciting. We are excited that there are more eyes on Manchester, I feel like politically there's far more going on."
Debut album and what's next
Their debut album, It Goes On, came out a week ago. Jimmy laughs: "I keep getting texts from my dad saying 'my mates keep messaging me saying they heard you on Radio Six', and 'that's crazy why are you on that?'" Paddy adds: "My dad, a lot of his school friends are like 'you didn't tell us your son did this, how did he manage that? How does that make sense?' I mean it is weird." Jimmy adds: "Today we held the vinyl and it felt like wow this is exciting this is really happening."
The band's musical style is semi-seriously called 'Britainicana', blending classic British songwriting and widescreen American alternative rock. Their name is inspired by the men dubbed the West Side cowboys who rode out on the railroads in New York City in the early 20th century to prevent accidents between trains, cars and pedestrians. Their first gig was at Hatch (RIP) on Oxford Road, just two weeks after becoming Westside Cowboy, sharing the bill with Dove Ellis, who has since been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
Looking ahead, Paddy says: "We want to make music for everyone and we don't want it to feel like you can only like our band if you live in a cool city with a good record store, around the corner from a cool venue. Like, music that actual people can enjoy: our parents, our grandparents, young people too – we were all kids once, getting into music for the first time, and we wanna have something for everyone to enjoy. There's no barrier to entry."
The band finish their November and December tour at Manchester's Albert Hall on December 5. Jimmy says: "I'm really excited to go on our tour in November and December, especially as we finish at Albert Hall which is nuts because Aoife used to work at the pizza restaurant [Rudy's] attached to it. And sometimes through the pizza restaurant she'd get tickets to sneak in to the gigs that were on. So we're really happy that that's the last night of the tour. Our friends and family will all be coming, it will probably be the world's biggest parents' gig - like a school play," he laughs.
