Scouting For Girls biography
Scouting for Girls are a three piece English pop group. Their name is a play on the title of the 1908 Scouting handbook Scouting for Boys. The trio consists of childhood friends from London, Roy Stride on keyboards and lead guitar/vocals, Greg Churchouse on bass guitar and Peter Ellard on percussion. Having formed in 2005, they were signed to their first record label in 2007. They released their self titled debut album that September, which reached Number 1 on the UK Album Chart and went Platinum in terms of total sales. A second album Everybody Wants To Be On TV was released in April 2010 and peaked at number 2 in the charts.
History
Formation
The founding members had known each other since childhood. Stride and Ellard met in the Cub Scouts and Churchouse met Stride on their first day at school at Queensmead School in South Ruislip, West London. They attended the school until year 13 then moved on towards a music career. At the age of 15 Roy and Greg were playing together at small gigs in west London.
It has been noted that the band was looking for a spirited way of removing themselves from the drudgery of their everyday lives, looking to the whimsy of childhood fantasy through playing a moog organ. Churchouse has observed on several occasions that playing bass is something he wanted to pursue as the bass has "two less strings".
Unsigned and early music: pre-2007
Whilst in University Stride and Churchouse were in a band called Cape. With Stride swapping from guitar to piano, Scouting for Girls began to do concerts in a room above a pub in Harrow. By the time they were signed they had built up a fanbase - on MySpace and Pulse Rated, a website for unsigned bands. They had also already written a demo of "Heartbeat" and produced a video for "The Aeroplane Song".
Debut album and early singles: 2007-2008
At the beginning of 2007 Epic Records A&R Nick Raphael received the band's demo CD. So enthusiastic was his response that he immediately phoned up colleague Jo Charrington and said: "These are hits, let's go see the band in rehearsals!" According to Charrington every other record label had passed on them.
On 14 February 2007, Scouting for Girls were signed to Epic UK (a division of Sony BMG). The album was released in September 2007, and has sold in excess of 900,000 copies in the UK alone. It spawned a host of hit singles; "She's So Lovely", "Heartbeat", and "Elvis Ain't Dead".
Scouting for Girls' self-titled album went to #1 in the UK on 20 January 2008, where it remained for two weeks.
The band toured the UK heavily throughout 2007 and 2008, upgrading and selling-out venues in every city they performed. During their first tour of 2008, Roy Stride lost his voice en route to a gig in Birmingham and was diagnosed with laryngitis, forcing the band to reschedule a series of dates on the tour. The rescheduled dates included an extra night in London, with the band-selling out a record four consecutive nights at the Shepherds Bush Empire. The band's final tour of the year concluded with two sold-out nights at London's Hammersmith Apollo, and one at London's Brixton Academy.
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