| Morning Parade | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Origin | Harlow, Essex, England. |
| Genres | Alternative rock, Indie Rock |
| Years active | 2007- present |
| Labels | Parlophone |
| Associated acts | Coldplay, Blur, Anotherstory, Wing Commander |
| Website | Official website |
| Members | |
| Steve Sparrow Chad Thomas Phil Titus Ben Giddings Andy Hayes |
|
Morning Parade are a five piece band from Harlow, Essex. It comprises Steve Sparrow, lead vocals and guitar, Phill Titus, bass, Chad Thomas, guitar, Ben Giddings, piano/synths and Andrew Hayes, drums. They make rock tracks with a distinct 90s dance anthem influence.
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The band have been together since 2007. Steve and Phil met whilst at school and even worked together as labourers. They met Chad at college and were three of the members in another band called Anotherstory.[1] The members all met at college between 2000 and 2004. Steve was the lead vocalist and also played the piano and guitar, Phil was the bassist and backing vocalist and Chad played the guitar and piano. The other two members were Mike Pope, who played guitar, and Charlie Gadson the drummer. They played experimental/ alternative rock, inspired by artists such as Elbow, Radiohead and The Stills. Their first single was 'Traffic'. The band split in 2007.
Steve (in between Anotherstory and Morning Parade) toured the local scene of Harlow and Bishop's Stortford, with footage of him playing acoustic versions of some of his songs still available on You Tube. During this time he became aware of Andy and Ben, who were to become the final two members of Morning Parade.[2] They had all previously been in other bands so to begin with they spent their time away from the public eye, writing songs. When they did eventually start playing gigs, it took less than 20 before they were approached by a record label. Not feeling that they were ready yet, the band ignored these early approaches. They were eventually persuaded and in May 2010 signed to Parlophone, a major British label, which includes artists such as Coldplay and Kylie Minogue[3]. They signed their deal on the roof of an EMI building.
The name came about from the days when Phil was working as a plasterer and Steve his labourer. It used to require early mornings and travelling to get to their various jobs. They referred to this as doing the 'morning parade'. They also say the name refers to the transition period between night and day.
Morning Parade's debut album is due for release in early 2012 and have so far released three singles, two of which will feature on this record. First single was "Under the Stars" which was played on Zane Lowe's show on BBC Radio One,[4][5] and released on November 29, 2010. It was also featured on The Vampire Diaries. Steve wrote the first verse of the song on 31 December 2009. The band released the video for Under the Stars on December 2 2010 on You Tube, which was first shown exclusively on The Sun's website on November 30.[6] The song has been played on Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, XFM, Absolute Radio and Q Radio.[7]
The b-side to "Under The Stars" was "Monday Morning", played live for the first time at The Square, Harlow,at the band's homecoming gigs.
Morning Parade have released two further singles, "A&E" and 'Us And Ourselves. "A&E" with "Marble Attic" as a b-side and two remixes was released in February 2011 and the latter in November 2011.
They have also received praise from MTV [8] and Vogue.[9]
Their eponymous debut album will be released on 5 March 2012 following previous singles 'Under the Stars' and 'Us And Ourselves'. Whilst 'Monday Morning' features, both 'Youth' and 'Your Majesty' are not. They have been recording the album at the '13 Studios' owned by Damon Albarn and been working with longtime Blur collaborator Jason Cox.[7]
On November 29, 2010 they announced their 2011 UK tour.[10] They played a number of shows throughout the UK. They then progressed to tour Europe, including Holland, Germany and Spain and have been touring Europe with The Wombats. They confirmed a few European festivals they will be playing in the summer and have played one of the biggest festivals in the UK, The V Festival in Chelmsford, just only a few miles away from the bands hometown (Harlow). They sadly had to pull put of the Pukklepop Festival [11] due to safety concerns, a stage collapsed while they were travelling down there to play and several people were killed. [12]
On 8 December 2011, Morning Parade played their debut album due in 2012 in full at the Camden Barfly to a small group of fans. The tracklisting is likely to be:
The album will be release on 5th March 2012.
On 12 May 2011 the event for the Scala show was re-scheduled, speculation was thrown around for a few hours to why this happened. Later on that day the band sent out an email telling all, it was moved from 9 June 2011, to 26 September 2011, this was so that people would be able to hear the album before it came out. The album was due to be released mid-September 2011. As an apology the band released 'On Your Shoulders' upon the masses in the same email. This song will not appear on the up-coming album. Speculation has been thrown upon them as to who they are recording the album with, Paul Epworth was the fans favourite as he lives near the band, but this was overturned when Epworth announced he is recording the new Florence & The Machine album. On the 18th of July 2011 the band gave away a free song 'Close To Your Heart', it is still unclear to whether this will be on the album. It has received praise from various blogs and websites. [13]
The first official announcement of any track came on the 22nd of August 2011 at 11:00 BST, 'Monday Morning' was streamed for the first time as the full album version. Dave Kosten has changed it all around with broken beats and more layers. 'Blue Winter' is the second track to be streamed, this sounds all racey and really upbeat. The third track to be streamed was 'Carousel'. Lead singer Steve Sparrow said they wanted the song to be 'haunting, disorientating and euphoric all at the same time whilst making sure we didn't go overboard and find ourselves unable to re-create it live'.[14] Videos on online show that Steve originally played the song with an acoustic guitar but for the album recording they confirmed that they had gone electric. The last date the 26th of September is their headline show at The Scala, London. [14]
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK | |||
| 2010 | "Under The Stars" | – | Non-Album Track |
| "In The Name" (Vinyl release) | – | ||
| "Your Majesty" (Vinyl release) | – | ||
| 2011 | "A&E" | – | |
| "On Your Shoulders (Limited to 300 copies) " | – | ||
| "Us & Ourselves" | – | Us & Ourselves (Album) |