Neil hoping to make waves with new radio station

Last month Neil Anderson (18) set up Sikradio and the online station has already caught the imagination of bands from across the province who dream of following in the footsteps of chart sensations such as Snow Patrol and Ash.

The station is broadcast from his bedroom at his Nursery Avenue home and has been building up a loyal following to date.

“I’m currently running a local radio station which promotes bands around Northern Ireland,” Neil told the Times.

“The station is aimed directly at promoting Northern Ireland bands by playing their music on our station and providing live interviews for bands to see what they’ve been up to, new music releases, plans for future, and so on.

“We also have a band database on our website, which is a huge list of bands providing a link to their website. This is great to find your own genre of music when booking bands for events.”

Neil is currently studying Performing Arts at the Northern Regional College and plans to go onto to become a sound engineer in the future.

“I play in a band myself from Ballymoney called Sikottic,” he said.

“There isn’t enough stuff going about for bands in my opinion, it’s hard to get your band out there so I thought it was about time to do something.

“I just want to help promote bands really.

“The response has been good so far. I’m getting people on the page every day and emails coming through from listeners so it’s good.

“Best of all Sikradio is a free service for bands.”

To visit the website go to http://www.sikradio.info and you can listen in.