Athlete biography
Athlete are a British alternative rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott (lead vocals and guitar), Carey Willetts (bass and backing vocals), Stephen Roberts (drums and backing vocals) and Tim Wanstall (keyboards and backing vocals). Recently, the quartet have recruited Jonny Pilcher of Weevil as a live guitarist.
The band had a brief period of high-profile domestic success in which their debut album Vehicles & Animals (2003) was a platinum seller in 2005 and Mercury Music Prize nomination. It was followed up by Tourist (2005) which reached #1 and sold over 500,000 copies allowing this album to also go platinum. Since then the band has continued to release records on regular basis. Their last two albums Beyond the Neighbourhood (2007) and Black Swan (2009) sees the band exploring different styles, influenced by the works of The Beach Boys and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
History
Formation and debut single (2000-2002)
Friends since the age of fourteen, Athlete took their wide ranging influences such as Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips and started jamming and practicing in the basement of The Bear, a pub which was converted into a church and sandwich bar, on Deptford High Street in 1999. They began recording there, before sending demos out.
Signing with Regal Recordings, the band released their first single "Westside" in February 2002 released, which was a hit, garnering airplay on BBC Radio 1 and paving the way for another single, "You Got the Style" which cracked the Top 40 in June. Parlophone took notice and promptly signed the musicians, who entered the studio with producer Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Beth Orton) in late 2002 to record their first studio LP.
Critical and commercial success (2003-2006)
The band came to prominence in 2003 with their debut album,
Vehicles and Animals, producing popular singles such as "You Got the Style" and "El Salvador". The album earned a Mercury Music Prize nomination and went on to sell over 250,000 copies. They played their first live session on UK radio on the
Dermot O'Leary Show on BBC Radio 2. Following the release of the album in April 2003, the summer of that year was a particularly fruitful time. Shortly after Glastonbury and T in The Park festivals, the band were nominated for the Mercury Award. After nomination, the album went from silver (60,000 sales) to gold (100,000) in the space of two weeks. "I think there's an underdog waiting to be discovered by the Mercury every year," said Steve. "And that year it was us." "By the time we played V at the end of the summer it seemed like everybody there knew the record,' said Joel Pott. 'There was 20,000 people, all singing along.'
Their second album, Tourist, reached Number One in the UK Album Charts in its first week, following the huge success of single "Wires". The song was brought around when the lead singer's newborn baby was rushed to intensive care after a premature birth, and in 2006 it won them the Ivor Novello Award for "Best Contemporary Song". In the UK charts, the band has frequently been frustrated by singles just missing out on top 40 placings, due to inconsistent support by music television channels and radio stations. For instance, certain songs, such as "Wires" and "Half Light", were played up to 10 times a day on larger UK radio stations, yet other singles such as "Westside" and "Tourist" received little to no radio play whatsoever.
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