Biography

Introduction

The Futureheads are a four-piece English post-punk revival band from Sunderland. Their name comes from the title of the The Flaming Lips album, Hit to Death in the Future Head.

Career

Early days

The band met at City of Sunderland College as a trio of Barry Hyde (vocals and guitar), David "Jaff" Craig (bass), and Peter Brewis (drums). Ross Millard (vocals and guitar) joined soon after having been in a band with Craig. They used the Sunderland City Detached Youth Project building (where Brewis and Hyde worked) as a free practice space, fitting since the project was intended to get young people off the streets by using music. They first performed in 2000, and through word-of-mouth their reputation in the local area grew. Hyde's younger brother Dave replaced Brewis (who went on to join Field Music).

In an interview with Channel 4's 4Music, Barry Hyde revealed that Dave Hyde was given a gold guitar by his parents when he was young. But Barry had taken it off him to learn to strum his first chords. Dave was left with nothing, forcing him to take up the drums.

2003-2005; self titled first album

The Futureheads played their first ever gig at Ashbrooke Cricket and Rugby Club in December 2000. They debuted with their "Nul Book Standard" EP and then their "123 Nul EP" on 10 March 2003 and later that year released their first single, "First Day" on 4 August.

The Futureheads released their self-titled debut album in September 2004 on 679 recordings. Five tracks on this record were produced by Andy Gill of Gang of Four. The song "Decent Days And Nights" from the album was featured in the video game soundtrack to Burnout 3 on PlayStation 2 and Xbox as well as EA's Rugby 2005.

On 21 February 2005, "Hounds of Love", a cover of a Kate Bush song, was released as a single. It reached number eight in the UK Singles Chart in its first week, and was named 'best single of 2005' by NME. The band toured the United States and later supported the Pixies, Foo Fighters and Snow Patrol.

They performed at BBC Radio One's One Big Weekend, held in their home town of Sunderland over the weekend of 7 May-8 May 2005. On 8 May 2005 Sunderland A.F.C. picked up the Coca-Cola Championship trophy. In tribute, the Futureheads performed a set live at the Stadium of Light as pre-match entertainment.

2005-2006; News and Tributes

A stand-alone EP Area was released in November 2005 while the band were working on their second album News and Tributes (name inspired by the Munich air disaster in 1958), which, according to NME in February 2006, took only five weeks to produce. The first single from the album was "Skip to the End" released on 15 May. The album News and Tributes was first released on 29 May 2006.

The Futureheads were dropped by their label (679 Recordings) in November 2006. The Futureheads single "Hounds of Love" became a cult festival chant throughout 2006.^{[citation needed]}

2006-2008; This Is Not the World

Throughout the rest of 2006, The Futureheads started their own independent record label, Nul Records, and started working on songs for their next album.

In June 2007, they reportedly completed work on their third album, This Is Not the World, which was released in May 2008. Millard said that he expected the new album to be punkier than the last album. He also revealed that the band were close to splitting during the time after the second album was released.

The band made a free download called "Broke Up The Time" available from their website on 9 November 2007. They also announced three gigs in the UK followed by a full UK tour and now have their own label Nul Records, set up exclusively to distribute Futureheads material. In December 2007 the band released a video of them walking around Carnaby Street, London to the single "The Beginning of the Twist". It was also accompanied by a free download of a song called "Crash".

The second single from their album, "Radio Heart" was released on 19 May 2008 from their album This Is Not The World followed by the release of the music video for the single on the 16 April. Then a third single from the album, Walking Backwards was released on 4 August 2008.