SAINT HELICOPTER
Some People Fall. Some People Get Back Up.
There are rock ’n’ roll stories that begin with a guitar.

This one begins on the streets of London.

Michel Koning had already lived the rock ’n’ roll dream once.

Between 2005 and 2009, he fronted Donkey Punch, a hard-living rock ’n’ roll cover band based around Portobello Road. They played across London, chased the next gig and lived the kind of life that looks exciting from the outside.

Until it doesn't.

The nights got longer.

The drinking got harder.

The line between rock ’n’ roll and self-destruction became harder to see.

Eventually, Michel ended up homeless in central London.

There is no glamour in sleeping rough. No encore. No applause. Just cold concrete, uncertainty and the daily fight to get through another night.

For Michel, that should have been the end.

It wasn't.

He spent the next ten years in recovery.

Ten years of rebuilding.

Ten years of learning how to live again.

And somewhere along the way, he picked up the guitar.

Saint Helicopter was born.

Today, Michel fronts the band on vocals and guitar alongside Daryl Skidmore on lead guitar, Jason on bass, Lee Alliman on drums and Craig Todd on guitar.

Five musicians.

One band.

And a story you cannot fake.

Saint Helicopter isn't built around some carefully manufactured rock ’n’ roll image. Its roots are buried much deeper than that.

The band grew out of experience.

Out of mistakes.

Out of loss.

Out of the long, difficult road back.

Now promoter Tommy Kennedy IV has joined the project, helping bring Saint Helicopter back into the London music scene alongside friends including Pink Cigar and Steve Dior.

But something bigger lies behind the music.

Saint Helicopter currently makes itself available to homeless charities, with the song ‘Hold On’ at the centre of the project.

For Michel, those two words mean something.

He knows what it is to have nothing.

He knows what it is to lose your way.

And he knows that sometimes surviving means doing nothing more complicated than getting through today and hoping tomorrow gives you another chance.

‘Hold On’ is that message put to music.

Share it.

Play it.

Pass it on.

Because somewhere out there, somebody might need to hear it.

Saint Helicopter have recorded seven songs and plans to release them through YouTube.

Another forty original songs are waiting to be recorded.

Forty songs sitting there.

Forty more pieces of a life that refuses to stay quiet.

There is something brutally honest about that.

Michel could have walked away from music forever.

Instead, he picked up the guitar again.

That takes courage.

Not the kind of courage you see in a movie.

The real kind.

The kind nobody applauds.

The kind that gets you out of bed when you don't want to move.

The kind that keeps you going when nobody is watching.

Saint Helicopter isn't about pretending the past never happened.

It's about refusing to let the past write the ending.

The amps are ready.

The songs are written.

The scars are still there.

And the band is stepping back onto the stage.

Some people fall.

Some people stay down.

And some people get back up, plug in the guitar and play.

Saint Helicopter are back.

And they've got something to say.