Oscar Hartland's 'Wild Bull' targets a new Welsh sound — SkimNews
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- Oscar Hartland played Neil the Baby in Gavin and Stacey's 2024 finale, serenading Smithy's wedding with a rendition of Blackbird; the episode drew about 12.3m viewers on Christmas Day and 19.11m after seven days of catch-up, beating the show's 2019 record of 17.92m.
- Wild Bull, Hartland's single released on Friday, is rooted in growing up in the south Wales valleys, which he calls 'a bit crazy', and he says the song is about 'letting go and saying, this is me I'm a wild bull'.
- Stereophonics are the act Hartland says he wants to emulate, with his band — Cayden Hughes on bass, Aiden Williams on drums and Deacon Ball on electric guitar — on a 'mission to create a new modern sound for Wales'.
- The Voice Kids was Hartland's route in at 14, where his cover of Foo Fighters' My Hero impressed the judges and caught the attention of Gavin and Stacey writers James Cordon and Ruth Jones, who asked him to appear in the finale.
- Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, where Hartland has been recording, has hosted Oasis, Iggy Pop and Queen, and he says he wants that lineage behind his music.
- Hartland describes himself as a 'black sheep' who played piano while everyone else watched rugby, and says the past few months with the band have been about 'figuring out the earth behind the sound' after his first tour in 2025.
- Stephen Fretwell's 'Run', the Gavin and Stacey theme song, is still on Hartland's wish list: he says he would love to cover it but has not yet had the chance, and has not ruled out more acting.
Why it matters: The finale's 19.11m seven-day audience, against 12.3m on Christmas Day and the show's previous 17.92m record, is the audience Hartland now carries into Wild Bull. His four-piece band and Rockfield Studios sessions are the mechanism for turning television visibility into a modern Welsh rock audience, with his sights explicitly on Stereophonics.
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