Taken from the NME dated 8/2/97

"... Danny and Rick McNamara, and together they are the songwriting partnership behind EMBRACE, a band who you will shortly be falling in love with. They have the enormity of The Verve, and the aggressive single-mindedness of Oasis and, most importantly, they have a debut single called 'All You Good Good People' which makes the idea of sorting yourself out at the end of a relationship sound like the most noble attainment to which mankind can aspire. It is the first song on a　 five-track demo which is played hourly　 on the NME stereo, and it rocks, but　 with strings and trumpets. The band　 consider it a mere trifle, because what　 they're doing at the moment is already　 miles, miles better. "Music is　 everything to me," Danny begins, now　 leaning across the table in an Internet　 caf?. "There's only two things in my　 life that are important to me and that's me family and me band. Nothing else really matters."
　　　 Embrace is a family affair. From Brighouse, a Huddersfield suburb, Danny (who sings, is 26 and specialises　 in dark-eyed commitment to the cause) and Rick (who plays guitar, is 24 and a mild-mannered lad) left school at 16 and spent their evenings in the store room at the bottom of their garden beginning to write the songs that would make them famous. By day, with their dad, they built sheds. "And they're fucking gorgeous sheds," enthuses Rick. "He's built like a brick shithouse, our dad," Danny continues. "We had a bit of hassle with some　 hecklers at some of our showcase gigs, so he went up to this A&ampR guy and told him to shut up. The bloke goes, 'Oh, I always do this at gigs', and me dad points his finger at him and just goes, 'Not at my fucking sons' gigs, you don't!' The fella did a runner!"
　　 The songs started to come together at　 the beginning of last year, and the noise made by Danny, Rick, bassist Steve Firth and drummer Mike Heaton was horribly loud. So loud the owner of their practice room offered it to them at half-price if they turned down the volume. "I want it all," says Danny. "I wanna sound like The Beatles would　 have when they made 'Sgt Pepper...' if Brian Wilson had joined them. Richard's got that kick-ass thing The Beatles had then, and I want that tug that　 makes you go, 'Fucking hell!' "I don't wanna criticise anything that's happening at the moment, but it's just gonna be really obvious when we come out how woefully inadequate everything else is. Like we supported this band, and they were really nice, but I thought their music was shit, and when they asked me, I told them. But, y'know, if I was only friends with people whose music I liked I'd be going down the pub with half-a-dozen dead people, you know what I mean?""

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 John Robinson