Idlewild
It was through the mutual appreciation of such artists as Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, The Stooges and REM that Idlewild’s musical-existence was spawned. The name, however, came from the quiet meeting place specified within the book, \'Anne Of Green Gables\'.
The four Scottish guys involved with such a formation – Roddy Woomble acting as frontman, Bob Fairfoull on bass, Rod Jones on guitar and Colin Newton as drummer – met at an Edinburgh-based party. It didn’t take the group long to discover their similar passion for such music-groups as the above, soon discussing their joint urge to perform in a fiery and loud manner. They luckily succeeded in this goal.
Their debut show occurred in the early part of 1996, and the following year was spent honing the live-set and writing material. A cunning usage of student-loans went towards financing a 7” single, ‘Queen of the Troubled Teens’, released in March ’97 on a local label, Human Condition. The track enabled the group to garner support-sets with the likes of The Fall and Gold Blade, plus not to mention their first ever airplay on the UK’s primary station, Radio One. Aside from this, one Simon Williams, writer and owner of Fierce Panda – the imprint responsible for early singles from Mansun, Placebo, Coldplay, Embrace and The Bluetones – asked the group to record \'Chandelier/I Want To Be A Writer’ for the label, resulting in a further surge of notoriety for the band in the UK indie-rock scene – plus the dropping of some of the members’ college-courses.
Come the end of 1997, the band had released their debut mini-release, ‘Captain’, on Deceptive Records: a six-track riot of raw-rock panache and extreme energy, with such numbers as the self-titled tune and ‘You Just Have To Be Who You Are’ prompting great excitement from the music-press and guitar-music obsessives alike. Their debut single proper, ‘Satan Polaroid’ became ‘Kerrang!’s ‘Single of the Week’, preceding the band’s signing to Food Records on EMI – itself, a strong pre-cursor to their first major set of live-gigs – aboard the bus of ‘NME’s annual new-acts tour. The response was fanatical from both audiences and the media, prompting further shows for the band with Travis, Catatonia and Blur in the coming months.
1998 saw the release of cracking singles – ‘A Film For The Future’, ‘Everyone Says You’re So Fragile’, and ‘I Am A Message’ – and their debut full-length album, ‘Hope Is Important’, produced by Paul Tipler. It was twelve tracks of uncompromising angst, occasional melodic beauty and otherwise consistently thrilling listening. In fact, this set the band up perfectly for an even more successful following year – which contained European tour-dates with Manic Street Preachers, gigs with Placebo and their debut in the top-20 singles-chart, with ‘When I Argue I See Shapes’.
Their next LP, ‘100 Broken Windows’, was recorded at various intervals over seven months with two producers – Dave Eringa (of past Manics work) and Bob Weston (member and producer of Shellac, who’s also worked on releases from Sebadoh). Far more melodic and varied than their debut, it also marked an advancement in their musical-ability, let alone scope for song-writing, prompting four top-40 singles – including highlights, ‘Little Discourage’ and ‘Actually, It’s Darkness’. Appearances on main-stages at worldwide-based festivals, tours in the States and performances on key shows such as ‘Top Of The Pops’ were the inevitable and well-deserved rewards to a creative load possessed by an act unrivalled by any other emerging band of such reckless power and introverted intelligence.
This brings us to date. Idlewild are now about to release their third LP, ‘’The Remote Part’, in July, with the awesome grower-of-a-single ‘You Held The World In Your Arms’ due to precede the album. Sources that have heard the main body of new work already have declared it the band’s finest material to date... It’s hardly a surprise, judging by the way their career’s progressed already. Expect more sold-out tours this year, huge amounts of airplay, and an increase in the fan-base for a Scottish band that’s always been unafraid to rock. And rock hard.
Photo Credit: Copyright Tom Sheehan
OFFICIAL SITE: What with accolade after being voted the \'Best Band Website\' from Radio One, expect a very up-to-date and snazzy site.
COMMON MISTAKE: French-based, with a cute design and loads of band-details that\'ll keep you interested for some time.
YOU\'RE DISTURBED: Don\'t be put off by its name; this is big, packed with group-knowledge, and enthusiastically run.