Thousands of bands dream of making the big time every day, playing music in their bedroom, posting it on MySpace and shooting a video in their garden.

But for Crawley band The Critical the dream has just come that little bit closer.

After 18 months together they have won a whopping £15,000 to make an
album after beating off stiff competition from over 1,000 unsigned acts on www.slicethepie.com.

The album is due for release online in January next year and they have already been in talks with the producer who worked Radiohead's The
Bends album.

When I sat down to speak to the four members, Chris Couchie (guitar),
Paul Girling (bassist), Gavin O'Driscoll (drummer) and Ollie Benn (singer) they all seemed down to earth, incredibly humble, but most importantly they all had a real belief in the band.

Bassist Paul said: "We've always known we've been good, it's just showing everyone else that we are.

"I think once people realise how good we are, there's no stopping us really. It's as simple as that.

"We have total belief in the band, we've just got to get people on side."

Lead singer Ollie added: "I entered us on Slice the Pie and didn't
really think anything of it.

"A little bit later I was told we were down to the final 15 out of a 1,000 bands internationally, then we won it. Now we are making an album.

"We are a totally self managed band because we haven't got a manager
we do everything to promote it ourselves."

The £15,000 they received goes towards promotion, marketing and finding
a producer.

And the band are all singing off the same hymn sheet when it comes to
making a mark on the music industry.

Chris said: "I think we are very determined and pro-active in making this work. It's not just a case of us releasing an album and seeing what happens."

And drummer Gavin reckons they don't want to release the album and
then have just 'people we know' buy it.

Their aim is to appeal to a wider audience locally and with several months to plan their album release.

Paul added that the general public will be 'hearing a lot more'
from them.

He revealed: "We are realistic and we know we are not going to make a fortune from this, but the idea is to get us to that next level and push on from there."

The band's next gig is at the Honey Bar in Brighton on July 3. For more information on them visit their website at www.thecritical.co.uk or visit their Myspace or www.myspace.com/thecriticalband.