BANDS from across the country come to St Helens every week to record music at Catalyst Studios on Charles Street.

Artists and groups, signed and unsigned, have worked with music production duo Sugar House in the last 10 years to maximise the potential of their sound.

Ady Hall, 40, and Lee McCarthy, 38, have worked with hometown band Stillia and Warrington group Viola Beach, who tragically died after a crash in Sweden in 2016.

This year alone, they have teamed up with 15 bands that have had their songs played on national radio and a few groups that have got signed up. Links with industry contacts in London that they have passed on to bands have enabled more to secure record deals.

Ady, 40, said: “I am completely shocked we have won the award because we knew who we were up against.

“It is really nice to get the award. We are proud of everything we are doing at the studio and long may it continue.

“We also hope more people will now rehearse at Catalyst.”

The main goal for Ady and Lee is to help a band make it into the charts.

Owner of the studios, Andy Bowes, 51, from St Helens, said: “I certainly did not expect to win the award.

“It is great what Sugar House have managed to do.

"They have managed to expand and bands from around the country from down south up to Newcastle now come here.”

Eight-year-old Jude Riordan, who has appeared in hit TV show Brassic, was highly commended.

Jude, from Lea Green, first appeared on TV in 2017 in The Secret Life of Five Year Old’s on Channel 4. Since then the St John Vianney pupil went on to appear in CBBC programmes and several adverts.

And last year he landed the role as Tyler in the first season of Brassic, in which he plays the son of on-screen mum Michelle Keegan.

Sofia Wilkinson-Hill, 12, who made her debut playing the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical School of Rock was shortlisted too.

She learnt her trade at Elizabeth Hill School of Dance and Drama on Dentons Green aged four. Sofia got her first break in 2016 in the title role of Annie with Pilkingtons Musical Theatre Company.

She went on to star in national tours of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Nativity.

Annie also appeared as Young Eva in Anne Dalton’s 25th anniversary production of Her Benny.