Terrorbird

Late Of The Pier, all just into their twenties and comprising Sam Eastgate (vocals, guitar), Ross Dawson (drums, percussion), Andrew Faley (bass) and Sam Potter (synths, sampler), formed somewhere in the mists of 2005, inspired by underage trips to Nottingham's Liars Club where all four band members would often be found on the dancefloor, It was here that they witnessed early performances form the likes of Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Cut Copy, Art Brut and The Scissor Sisters while absorbing the wide spectrum of sounds provided by DJs such as Erol Alkan and DJ Hell.
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The band had always loved the likes of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Magazine but it was the Liars Club that taught Late Of The Pier to dance. And it's in this place, where the past meets the future and analogue meets digital that Late Of The Pier found their sound.
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Over the next twelve months however, it was another club ' this time some 120 miles down the M1 ' that Late Of The Pier really began to make a name for themselves. They made their debut appearance at West London's all ages Way Out West night ' since dubbed 'the UK's most exciting new club night' by NME ' in March 2006, and an instant rapport was struck up between the band, the promoter and the punters. Following a series of riotous gigs in the capital, Late Of The Pier prepared to release their debut single on Way Out West Records.
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The self-produced 'Space And The Woods' came out in the UK in March 2007Â and was the first of two wildly-inventive UK singles that would light up the year and gleefully dance all over the boundaries between genres. It sold out of a limited run of 500 7"Â vinyl copies within days, receiving acclaim of critics and fans alike. It also caught the ear of one Erol Alkan, who quickly agreed to produce the band's next single.

Following show-stealing performances at a host of UK festivals, the Erol Alkan-produced 'Bathroom Gurgle'
took Late Of The Pier's sound to another level, showcasing these dark and chaotic hedonists' brand of confrontational pop music. Erol showered the band with praise ' 'they're just the most exciting new band out there at the moment, they are THE most exciting band around, of any age' ' while Radio 1 played the single everywhere from their specialist to daytime shows, NME named 'Bathroom Gurgle' 'Single Of The Week' and the band received plaudits from the dance, indie and rock worlds.

Working again with Alkan, the band recorded their album Fantasy Black Channel at their Nottingham home studio and London's Miloko Studios. The album features the aforementioned UK singles 'Space And The Woods', 'Bathroom Gurgle', the future-classic 'Heartbeat', plus two US-only bonus tracks: 'Very WAV' and 'The Bears Are Coming' (Emperor Machine Remix)'. "Erol's experience as a DJ helped narrow us down a little," explains Sam Eastgate, "when you're DJ'ing you're constantly tailoring and manipulating the crowd's emotions, their response, and you're looking for that universal sentiment. The one song that everyone, regardless of taste, will dance to. We wanted to try and get that same sort of sentiment across with the record. Erol brought us down to earth."

Met with universal acclaim in the UK, Fantasy Black Channel is huge in both scope and ambition, an exuberant rush of glam, psychedelia, nu-wave, dancepunk, metal and madcap sci-fi experimentation that pushes stylistic boundaries to the edge of no control. "We are just trying to take risks,' explains Eastgate, 'to go to those places where it might work, to stretch ourselves to the boundaries of our taste." Indeed, not every band can throw shards of Zappa, Queen, Eno-era Roxy Music, Prince, Gary Numan, DAF, DFA and The Klaxons into a blender and come out with something as defiantly unique and grandly anthemic. "I think we made a pop record almost inadvertently," muses Eastgate "and that aspect of the record is submerged and mixed within a lot of other influences. I've always considered a lot of genres to be essentially the same anyway."

With recent cover stories in NME, The Fly and Art Rocker, Late Of The Pier continues to tour extensively throughout the world (including high profile gigs at CMJ in NYC), growing a rabid fanbase via their incendiary live shows and genre-busting music. 2009 ' year of The Pier.