TWO musicians, who were best friends with Viola Beach's Kris Leonard at Lymm High School, have formed a new band.

Duo Olly Thornton and Luke Smetham have combined their love of acoustic and electronic music and now write and record tracks under the name Sunday Morning.

They hope that their chilled out, slow tempo tracks will appeal to indie, hip hop and dance fans alike and have plans to release their debut EP within the next few months.

Olly, of Rosebank, said: "My side is more guitar orientated and Luke's side is synths and certain kinds of beats and when we mix it all together it becomes its own little thing."

The pair, who bonded over their shared love of Tenacious D, have been friends since they met at Lymm High 10 years ago but they only got the idea to form a band when they met up at last year's Leeds Festival.

"Luke was making beats for rappers in Manchester and I was just doing my own acoustic music before that," added Olly, 21.

The music might be more stripped back with just two people behind it but being a duo does not necessarily make it easier.

Olly plays guitar, bass and even ukulele on the songs while Luke specialises in the computerised parts.

The former Ravenbank Primary pupil said: "We can mess around with a song for eight hours. Sometimes we’ll be working on something and only be finished at 4am.

"Luke is very much used to throwing things in and being creative on the spot whereas I can write a song and it can take me two minutes or two years.

"If it doesn’t have the right words, the right verse or the right chorus it stays in development until I think of something new."

But Olly, an air conditioning engineer, and Luke, a freelance web designer, admit they find it tricky to make time for their music around work commitments.

Olly added: "We work full time so it’s hard work to find the time but over Christmas when we were both off we got quite a lot done.

"We’ve got five songs for an EP that will come out in the next few months."

Olly and Luke were in the same year group as Viola Beach's Kris Leonard at Lymm High.

Even then Kris was obsessed with music and named his first band Outside In as a reference to his favourite band The Kooks when he was 15.

Olly was a member of Kris's first three bands including Outside In, The Masterplan and The Vox.

Kris was also in a band called Attic with Dan Coleman and Jordan Lythgoe, from Warrington psychedelic rockers Psyblings before he formed Viola Beach.

"He was a nice bloke," said Olly.

"We were best mates for years. He’d always be there if I was in a hard place and I’d always try and be there if he was in a hard place.

"We were both stupid teenagers who bonded over music. We used to clash as we always thought we were better than one another.

"We did have a few big arguments thinking we were never going to be friends again and then a week later we’d be back to being best mates."

Kris along with his Viola Beach bandmates Jack Dakin, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe and manager Craig Tarry died when their car plunged more than 82ft from a highway bridge into a canal near Stockholm in February 2016.

Olly added: "I’m never going to get used to it. In a way I still can’t comprehend it. It’s like Kris has gone on holiday forever.

"I’m coming to terms with it but sometimes it hits me like a tonne of bricks. It just comes to me at the weirdest times and then I’ll get through it and I'll be ok again.

"I’ve been speaking to Kris’s mum Lisa over the past year and she’s said when we speak it reminds her of the old times when we used to all chill out together at her house."

To listen to Sunday Morning go to soundcloud.com/sundaymorning1