And So I Watch You From Afar

And So I Watch You From Afar are a three-piece rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. The band consists of Rory Friers on guitar, Johnny Adger on bass and Chris Wee on drums. They write largely instrumental music, Rory is the main songwriter but they arrange and contribute to these songs in the rehearsal room as a three peice to make them into finished ASIWYFA songs, it is an ever changing process. They are signed to Richter Collective and in October of 2011 the band announced a deal in North America with management and record label Sargent House who released Gangs on November 8th, 2011.

History

Beginnings

The band was formed in late 2005 after Johnny and Rory spent a night listening to music at Johnnys parents house, they had their first jam in July after returning from Oxegen music festival. They played their first show under the name And So I Watch You From Afar in 2006 at a friends birthday party in Portrush. They moved to Belfast in 2007, Chris Wee left his job in Newcastle upon Tyne and Rory Friers dropped out of second year Music Technology course of that year in Bangor to commit more time to the band. They self recorded and self released a single for Mount Kailash in Rorys home in White Park Bay on the north coast of Antrim in 2006 for their first Belfast headline show in The Black Box as part of that years BelFEST, it was mixed and mastered by Bo Sheppard and Rory Friers. They self recorded and self released their debut mini-album This Is Our Machine and Nothing Can Stop It in early 2007 on their homemade label Our Machine, this was distributed on [Forte Distribution] and they launched it in Auntie Annies in Belfast. This was followed by a collaboration EP entitled Tonight The City Burns, released in October 2007 on the same label, this featured vocals from Cahir O'Doherty of Fighting With Wire and Jetplane Landing and Johnny Black of LaFaro, Neil Hughes and Geoff Toppley, it was mixed and mastered by Bo Sheppard and Rory Friers and was launched in the Spring and Airbrake in Belfast. The following day the band embarked on their first ever tour with Leicester band Public Relations Exercise consisting of 5 dates round the UK. 2007 saw ASIWYFA form relationships with their piers in Ireland as a burgeoning scene began to appear they became close friends and played shows with the likes of LaFaro, Adebisi Shank, Fighting With Wire, Panama Kings, We Are Knives, Kowalski, Pocket Billiards, General Fiasco, Stand Up Guy, Two Door Cinema Club, Slomatics, Six Star Hotel, Mojo Fury and many more. In 2007 they made their first appearance at Glasgowbury Festival playing the afternoon slot in the Spurs of Rock tent.

2008 - 2009

The band revealed they would be playing 4 headline shows in Northern Ireland through out the year entitles "Parts 1 to 4", the first of these was with Fighting With Wire and Panama Kings in the Limelight in Belfast. The band had started to tour the UK with their two EPS as well as playing belfast support to bands like High On Fire, 65daysofstatic, Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes, Holy Fuck, Fuck Buttons and Yourcodenameis:milo. They formed a tight bond and friendship with Leicester band Maybeshewill after touring with them during 2008. They played their second appearance at that years Glasgowbury Festival, this time playing the main stage and getting a crowd to join them on stage to sing "Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate" with them. Other notable performances of the year were at AU Magazines 5th Birthday in Sandinos in Derry, their first headline show in The Stiff Kitten with later to be huge Two Door Cinema Club and they played on that years Rock Sound Magazine tour with Maybeshewill. That year the band met Rocky O'Reilly who would become their close friend and later record and produce with the band from then on. During that summer ASIWYFA started working on their debut self titled album. The album was recorded at Start Together studio with Rocky after the band had done a one of session recording the track "A Little Solidarity Goes A Long Way" as part of a compilation CD for Belfast's the Oh Yeah centre earlier that year. They mostly recorded live using large rooms, hallways and even toilets to track their sounds, they added a lot of extra instrumentation and layers afterwards including some strings, glockenspiel and percussion. They also invited a group of 40 friends down to sing on the track "Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate" and perform the marching at the beginning of "Set Guitars to Kill" In October that year the band organised A Little Solidarity festival which took place over three days, four shows and three venues, it saw the band playing to their first crowd in the Mandela Hall, this was "Part 3 of 4", the other two parts happened in Derry and in the bands home town Portrush that xmas in The Retro Bar.

2009 - 2010

This year would see ASIWYFA release their debut self titled album on Smalltown America Records, they launched the record on the April 4th in the Mandela Hall. They came out onto stage to "Start a War" by The National as i was a song Rory had heard at a show in Huddersfield where they played to the support band and the barkeeper. Support that night came from Adebisi Shank, Pocket Billiards and Lowely Knights.They then did their second tour with Belfast friends LaFaro for 4 weeks around the UK in February, a tour of UK to promote the album release, 6 weeks with they're new buddies Maybeshewill, a UK and European tour with US rockers Clutch, an Irish tour with fellow noise mongerers Adebisi Shank, a UK headline tour, a tour supporting Texan instrumentalists This Will Destroy You, a European tour with Maybeshewill and they would perform their first proper summer of music festivals including Truck Festival, The Great Escape Festival, Nova Rock Festival, Oxegen Festival, Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium opening the festival in front of 4500 people and they would go on to headline that years Glasgowbury festival. They played over 170 shows in 2009 and would end the year with their biggest headline show to date in their Christmas homecoming gig in the Ulster Hall. Their self-titled debut album was named the 6th best album of 2009 by Rock Sound.^[1] The album also came out in Japan on Xtal Records

2010 - 2011

2010 would see the band make they're first trips to the USA, into Canada and playing a lot more shows in Europe. They appeared, in February, at Eurosonic muss conference in Gronigen in Holland which would lead to the band being booked for festivals. After a UK tour with Oceansize they came home to a short Irish tour and then attended that years Choice Music Prize in Dublin for which they had been nominated, they band played a secret after party in The Mercantile Hotel in Dublin. They also picked up a nomination for XFM album of the year. They then headed off to New York to play some shows there and then to SXSW Music Conference in Austin,TX where they played 4 shows and to Toronto to play Canadian Music Week. The band did a live session for BBC Radio 1 at Maida Vale studios. Through out March April and May ASIWYFA went out on their Letters EP tour around Ireland, Uk (with LaFaro) and Europe, their biggest headlining tour to date and their first solo headline tour of Europe. They traveled the length and breadth of the continent finishing off in Brighton for that years The Great Escape Festival. Within hours of arriving home they were told Dave Grohl had personally invited the band out to do main support to super group Them Crooked Vultures. They headed back to Europe to play them and would be asked back to play with the group again for a special one off show in Londons Brixton Academy. Another summer of festival appearances saw them playing main stage at Latvias Posativus Festival, Pukkelpop, Electric Picnic and Sonisphere and between these weekends away the band were recording their follow up second album which would be called Gangs and come out the following year. They recorded again with Rocky O'Reilly at Start Together Studios in Belfast. The band had scrapped an albums worth of material weeks prior to this, opting to re-write what would later become their second record. After a summer of travel and studio the boys left Ireland to embark on a 6 week tour of the USA with Japans Envy, Trash Talk, Touche Amore and La Dispute. They travelled in a converted school bus, it would be a tour that would take its toll on the band. The band arrived home at the end of October and one week later left for another 7 weeks on the road, firstly with Jape and Fionn Regan around Ireland, then onto the UK with support from Tubelord, selling out Dingwalls in London and King Tuts in Glasgow, and then onto a final trip around Europe. During this tour they flew to Dingle in Ireland to perform on the TV show Other Voices with The National, Ellie Goulding, Everything Everything and more. They arrived home on the 17th December in Belfast and played 3 secret shows in one day, one in an arts space, one on a boat on the river lagan and the final one in Auntie Annies in Belfast. After a couple more Irish Xmas shows the band saw in the New Year playing in Whelans in Dublin.

2011 - 2012

In 2011 the band won Best EP at the Digital Socket Awards in Dublin.^[2]After a charity show in The Button Factory in Dublin ASIWYFA headed off to play their first tour of Russia, they were told it was the longest tour a western band had done in Russia and that they were the first western band to play in some of the cities they visited. Johnny had to have his leg in a cast for a few days after a fall on the ice there, he later cut his cast off in a hotel so the tour could continue. The guys stay in touch with many of the friend they met out there. On the lead up to the release of their second album Gangs they headed to London for a few days to perform with Tim Wheeler of Ash on Channel 4's JD Sessions where they covered songs by The Pixies. Shortly after their return home they launched their new album Gangs, again in Belfasts, Mandela Hall with support from Not Squares, Axis Of and Lantern For A Gale. Through out April and May they toured Gangs in UK and Ireland with support from Mojo Fury. Another summer of festivals followed, seeing ASIWYFA headline 2000 Trees Festival on the Cave Stage, play 3rd from top on The Festival Republic stage at Reading and Leeds Festival, perform at Benicassim, Herk-de-Stad Festival, Eurockeennes Festival amongst others. At the end of the summer Tony left the band playing his last show at Electric Picnic, he now performs under the moniker Verse Chorus Verse. ASIWYFA then went on to play their longest ever tour through out the UK and Europe over 10 weeks. Playing guitar on this tour was their life long friend and house mate Niall Kennedy, who had previously written and recorded with Panama Kings. It saw the guys sell out many shows through out the tour with support from Antlered Man, Axis Of, LaFaro and the legendary Mike Watt and the Missingmen. They play as far as Poland, Scandanavia, Slonakia, Italy and everywhere in between. The guys returned home and will play 4 Irish shows this xmas, including New Years Eve in Galway. They are currently writing music.

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

Extended Plays

Band Members

• Rory Friers - Guitar
• Jonathan Adger - Bass
• Chris Wee - Drums, Percussion

Former

• Tony Wright - Guitar

References

External links

• Facebook
• MySpace