THEY'RE equally at home singing The Beatles or Britney Spears.

They're Darwen band If All Else Fails and they're rapidly becoming a name to be reckoned with -- both on the local music scene and in the eyes of London music agents.

The band, consisting of lead vocalist Rik Holden, 19, guitarist Ric Roberts, 20, Matt Dearden, 18, on drums and 17-year-old James McNeil on bass, are set to make an appearance at this year's Darwen Music Live event on May 25 and 26.

They will be playing on all five event stages and have decided to turn it into a charity event, collecting for MacMillan Cancer Relief. Copies of their three-track demo CD will also be available for fans.

Lead singer Rik, a student at Blackburn College, said: "We went down to London recently to record the demo CD for a management company. It included two of the songs we've written -- Life He Planned and Pick a Number."

In spite of the success of their self-penned numbers, Rik says it's the band's covers of old favourites that has helped stoke their popularity.

"We have to play round the pubs to make money and so we do silly covers of things like Hit Me Baby One More Time and The Proclaimers, as well as popular hits from The Beatles. People also like us because we jump about a lot on stage."

Certainly their fan base seems to be growing, as Rik observed: "A lot more people come to the gigs and we don't know who they are, but they say they've heard of us."

And with bookings from Aberdeen to Manchester, the band's mainstream, chart rock style has nationwide appeal.

It's a long way from Darwen Moorland High School, where the band started out.

Rik says no matter how popular they become, their Darwen roots will always be important -- hence his enthusiasm to play at Music Live.

"We played there last year, but we weren't really well-known at the time. This year we knew some of the organisers, so we were able to approach them with the idea of turning it into a charity event. Hopefully it should prove very successful."