Athlete

Joel Pott - vocals, guitar
Carey Willetts - bass, vocals
Tim Wanstall - keyboards, vocals
Steve Roberts - drums, vocals

In 1999 Joel, Carey, Steve and Tim stopped playing around in other bands and got serious about Athlete. Four friends since the age of fourteen, these ex-skate shop owners (Joel), actuaries (Tim) and local gardeners (Carey and Steve) took a wealth of fantastic, disparate influences and started shaping them into something of their very own in a rehearsal room on Deptford High Street. The rehearsal room became Athlete’s own recording studio and the earliest songs committed to tape in this cramped basement started beguiling record company-types earlier this year. They settled with Regal Recordings, who released their first single in February '02.

Even with hardly a public outing under their belts, and certainly without any self-proclamation, Athlete move into 2002 seemingly as one of the new names to drop. Their compelling, open-ended songs made up of the biggest choruses, killer deployment of the minor chord, heart-warming cheap synth sounds and magical harmonies should stop detractors in their tracks. Maybe Athlete are, simply put, odd-ones-out for our times, yet everything about them is strangely familiar. Whatever, Athlete are poised and the promise of their supple, ingenious, earworm songs will probably not be ignored for long.

The signed to Parlophone after Regal released "Westside EP", finally issuing their full length debut, Vehicles And Animals in April '03.