Don Broco

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Don Broco are a British rock band formed in Bedford, England in 2008. The band consists of Rob Damiani (lead vocals and electronics), Simon Delaney (guitar), Tom Doyle (bass) and Matt Donnelly (drums and vocals). The band's debut album Priorities was released on 13 August 2012, followed up by Automatic on 7 August 2015.

History

Formation and touring (2008–2010)

The band's origins go back to before their university years during high school, attending Bedford Modern School, where they played their first gigs, but it wasn't until after University where they decided to become a band. Damiani, Delaney, Donnelly and Rayner all attended the same High School.^[1]

The band initially took on many different names, including "Club Sex".^[2] One of the group's ideas was "Don Loco", which was changed to Don Broco following guitarist Simon Delaney breaking his wrist in a football accident.^[3]

They first toured the country in November 2008, playing gigs in places such as Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester and Watford, amongst others.^[4]

They appeared at Camden Crawl and Download Festival in 2009, as well as supporting Enter Shikari on a short run of shows in May 2009.^[5]

Don Broco also played Underage Festival, at Victoria Park in London, UK, in both 2009 and 2010. They played Sonisphere festival 2010 on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage.^[6] The band then went on to support Enter Shikari at both their Christmas parties at Hatfield Forum in December 2010. In September 2010 Don Broco also played in a local festival called Amersham Summer Festival.

Big Fat Smile (2011)

'Big Fat Smile' was Produced and Engineered by Matt O'Grady and Mixed by John Mitchell.

In January 2011, they released the video to "Beautiful Morning", directed by Lawrence Hardy. The following month they released Beautiful Morning as a single.^[7] They released their EP 'Big Fat Smile' on 14 February 2011.^[4]

Don Broco, alongside Lower than Atlantis and Veara, supported We Are The Ocean on tour in April/May 2011. The band completed a third UK headline tour in May 2011 with support from Burn The Fleet. This run of shows included a show at the Alternative Escape Festival in Brighton, with Deaf Havana and at Hub Festival in Liverpool, as well as performances at Slam Dunk North and South.

Over the summer 2011, Don Broco played a number of UK Festivals including Download Festival, Sonisphere Festival,^[8] Hevy Festival, Liverpool Sound City, Slam Dunk Festival, The Great Escape Festival. and at the Reading and Leeds festivals on the BBC Introducing stage which they were put forward for by the BBC Introducing programme which covers the Bedford area where the band is originally from.^[9]

An accompanying video to the band's B-Side "We Are On Holiday" off their 'Dreamboy' single was released in August 2011.^[10] The single was made available to download on iTunes on 22 August 2011.

Priorities and Rayner's departure (2012–2013)

Don Broco supported Four Year Strong on their UK tour in January and February 2012.^[11] During this time, before the release of the debut album, Luke Rayner left the band due to commitment issues and different interests, however they are still on good terms.^[12] The band played Hit the Deck festival in Bristol and Nottingham,^[13] the Great Escape Festival in Brighton,^[14] Slam Dunk festivals in Leeds, Hertfordshire and Cardiff,^[15] and Redfest 2012. Don Broco were going to support Futures in April 2012, but their tour was postponed to July 2012.

On 23 March 2012, the band announced that they had signed a deal with Search and Destroy Records, a new venture between Raw Power Management and Sony Music. The band's first single "Priorities" from their debut album of the same name was released on 20 May, with the album released on 13 August. The band replaced original bassist with new bassist Tom Doyle. In April, the band supported You Me At Six in Dublin and Belfast on their Irish leg of their UK tour. The band replaced the support bill originally consisting of Kids In Glass Houses, The Skints and Mayday Parade, however the Irish leg was rescheduled after Josh Francheschi contracted tonsillitis. The band supported The Used on their April/May UK tour, alongside Marmozets.

The band released the second single from Priorities, titled "Actors" it was released on the same day as Don Broco's debut album, 13 August 2012. The video sees the boys performing and a storyline where the boys don't get on and putting all the chemistry between them on for the cameras.

On 20 September, Hold On was revealed to be the third single from the album and shortly after they supported Lower Than Atlantis along with The Dangerous Summer and Gnarwolves in Autumn 2012, followed by their first European tour, supporting Young Guns accompanied with Your Demise on their European leg in October 2012. It was announced that Don Broco will be the final support on the Rock Sound Riot Tour 2012 in November 2012 along with Billy Talent and Awolnation.

In February 2013, they embarked on their first headline tour of the United Kingdom with dates spanning from February to April. For the February to March dates they brought Mallory Knox and Hey Vanity along as support. On 3 February it was announced that all dates for the February leg of the tour had sold out. For the April dates Pure Love and Decade were the supporting acts.

On 30 March 2013 Don Broco performed a headlining set at the Radstock Festival, Liverpool, at the O2 Academy Liverpool.^[16] On the weekend of 23–25 August 2013, Don Broco performed on the main stage at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The band concluded 2013 by releasing their new song "You Wanna Know" as a standalone single which also came as a bundled EP featuring various remixed versions of the song.

Automatic (2014–present)

Don Broco stated that the majority of 2014 would be focused around writing material for a new album and that they will headline a tour after its release.^[17] It was announced that the band will be supporting British band You Me at Six during their UK headline tour during March and April 2014, along with support act Young Kato.^[18]

In late August 2014 Don Broco were announced to headline 2015's Kerrang! tour in February, when they will tour the UK with support from pop rock band We Are the In Crowd and metalcore bands Bury Tomorrow and Beartooth.^[19]

On 23 November 2014, the first single from the new album, titled "Money Power Fame", premiered on BBC Radio 1's "Rock Show" programme.^[20] A second single, "Fire", was streamed online on 26 January 2015.^[21] On 7 April 2015, the band released the third song off the new album titled "What You Do to Me", followed by music videos for the tracks "Automatic" and "Superlove" respectively.

Automatic was released on 7 August 2015.^[22] It is available in standard and deluxe versions; the deluxe version includes the standard ten tracks as well as four bonus tracks, two of these being previously released songs "Money Power Fame" and "You Wanna Know".

Musical style

Their style has often been related to genres such as alternative rock, pop rock and post-hardcore by reviewers; AltSounds reviewed their début album Priorities to have elements of all three genres. The review continues to say that various songs have some sort of groove to them, in particular "Hold On" stating that it had a "...Sexy Groove aided by the lead singer’s charisma and frank lyrics about a close encounter of the female kind...".^[23] AlreadyHeard expressed that the album was mostly alternative rock, yet praised the album's range of different moods, going from energetic to "cheeky" songs.^[24] A live review from Virtual Festivals reviewed the band's performance at the Leeds Festival in 2013 and proclaimed that the changes in the band's musical style compared to their earlier music from the likes of the Living The Dream and Thug Workout EPs were substantial. They claimed that due to this some members of their audience were unsatisfied and that the new material was dulled by a slower tempo and a "love-letter" lyrical style.^[25]

RocksFreaks.Net expressed the Thug Workout EP to be a half mixture of nu metal and post-hardcore due to the mixture of half-rap verses and screams and related their sound to that of A Day to Remember.^[26] The reviews for the third EP Big Fat Smile primarily called it a general rock album with elements of rock pop. Rocksound called the album "...good mix of Brit-rock riffs, sarcastic lyrical content and jovial pop sensibilities."^[27] with Alter the Press! also backing this statement up, placing them with the likes of many other "...British rock hopefuls for 2011".^[28]

Members

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

Singles

Music videos

References

External links

• Official website
• Don Broco on iTunes
• Don Broco's BBC Page
• Don Broco on Twitter
• Don Broco on Facebook
• Don Broco on YouTube