South Yorkshire firefighters have joined forces with one of Sheffield’s best loved bands in a musical match up set to take the Christmas charts by storm.
Firefighters and 999 operators at South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s Central fire station have teamed up with The Everly Pregnant Brothers to release one of the group’s most popular hits- ‘Chip Pan’.
Bookmakers William Hill think the audacious tilt at the festive charts is more than just a flash in the pan- with odds of 50-1 better than those offered on multi-million selling artists Adele, Rihanna and Coldplay.
Good causes will also benefit from the assault on the yuletide top spot, with cash raised from sales of the single going to charities Shelter and Age UK.
Fire officers hope the tongue-in-cheek reworking of a popular chart hit will raise public awareness of one of their biggest house fire headaches- chip pan blazes caused by a night on the tiles drinking.
But they also want the track to remind people of the tens of thousands of firefighters who will be on duty this Christmas, whilst the rest of us our tucking into our turkeys.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Martin Blunden, said: “This record is clearly a bit of festive fun, but with chip pans still responsible for large numbers of house fires every year, we think there’s a safety message in there somewhere.
“We also want to remind people that tens of thousands of firefighters and 999 operators- not to mention many more of their colleagues in the emergency services- will be on duty this Christmas keeping people safe.
“It’s all for a good cause, with every penny the band makes going to support older and homeless people, which is very much part of the fire service’s ethos of helping the most vulnerable people in our communities.”
Pete McKee, said: “It was an absolute honour to get the involvement of the fire brigade and red watch. We always thought it would be great to get the fire service involved with Chip Pan. It’s our public information advertisement for the late night reveller with a yearning for some end of night snap!”
Fellow band member Shaun Doane, said: “Like most things with the Everly Pregnant Brothers, this started as something small, a tweet in fact, and it’s grown and mutated into something pretty cool. Hopefully we can help raise a few quid for two great causes.”
The Everly Pregnant Brothers kick off their number one campaign with a gig at Sheffield’s O2 Academy this weekend- where they will be joined on stage by Central red watch firefighters, who starred in the video.
The band was formed in 2009 by renowned artist Pete McKee and ukulele player Richard Bailey. Their songs are soaked in Sheffield humour and mix the unmistakable sounds of ukuleles and beer barrels.
The ‘Chip Pan’ track is available to pre-order on iTunes, Google Play Music, Amazon, Spotify and Deezer. But to give the song the best chance of reaching number one when the official Christmas chart is released, the public are asked to only download the song after 16 December.
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