Lostprophets

Lostprophets

Lostprophets (/lɒstˈprɒfɪts/) are a Welsh alternative metal band formed in 1997. They have produced several demos (none of which are still produced commercially), three studio albums and eleven singles. Their first album, Thefakesoundofprogress, was originally recorded in a week for £5,000 (GBP) and intended as a demo, but the band re-recorded and re-released the album on a much wider scale through Columbia Records in the USA, although they remain with Visible Noise in the UK. They released Start Something in 2004, and Liberation Transmission in 2006, both to mixed reviews and commercial success.

History

Early years (1997–2000)

The band formed in 1997 in the Welsh town of Pontypridd near Cardiff, the capital of Wales. Pontypridd was also the birthplace of Tom Jones. Lostprophets formed with two members of Public Disturbance, which featured drummer Ian Watkins and guitarist Mike Lewis. Neither member initially left Public Disturbance, although Watkins quit as soon as 1998. With Watkins taking over vocal duties and Lewis (who did not leave Public Disturbance until 2000) playing bass, the band also included guitarist Lee Gaze, Mike Chiplin on drums and DJ Stepzak on turntables. The band was named after a bootleg recording of a 1988 Duran Duran concert in Italy.

Lostprophets started out as part of the fledgling South Wales hardcore scene, under the original spelling of the name - Lozt Prophetz, playing gigs at venues across Wales including T.J.'s in Newport. From there, they went on to conduct tours on the UK's toilet circuit.

The band released several early demos, on which they experimented with their sound extensively. Their first known recording, Here Comes the Party, featured ska-like brass instrumentation on some tracks, as well as the novelty of frontman Ian Watkins rapping. As the band refined their sound, the rapping was quickly abandoned.

The band recorded two other demos during this time; Para Todas las Putas Celosas, which translates as "for all the jealous whores", and The Fake Sound of Progress. The first three tracks from their third demo were refined and re-recorded for the release of their debut album of the same name: the title track, MOAC Supreme (A Thousand Apologies) and Stopquote (Awkward). All the EPs are out of print, and are very rare.

The band caught the attention of Kerrang! magazine, and were offered a gig in London. Metal Hammer Magazine also gave them a perfect 10/10 rating in a review of Para Todas las Putas Celosas. Independent label Visible Noise, subsequently offered an opportunity to record a single. The band spent most of 1999 working on new material with Stuart Richardson, who had joined the band as a bass player. From this point, Mike Lewis played rhythm guitar for Lostprophets, the part he still played with Public Disturbance. The next year, he quit the other band to focus on Lostprophets.

thefakesoundofprogress (2000–2002)

In February 2000, Lostprophets signed with Visible Noise. The band's first album thefakesoundofprogress was then released through the label in July. Recorded in less than two weeks for a mere £5000 the record drew on a wide range of influences, arguably including Refused's final album The Shape of Punk to Come, released the year before Lostprophets began working on material for their debut album. Shortly after the completion of the album, DJ Stepzak decided he would not commit to the band and was replaced with Jamie Oliver, who was placed in the band simply because he got on so well with Ian Watkins and could not go on tour with them otherwise.

thefakesoundofprogress featured many references to 1980s pop-culture. In addition to the Duran Duran reference in the band's name, there was an image of Vengar from the Dungeons & Dragons TV series on the album liner notes, as well as song titles like "Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja" and "Kobrakai". The first song's title was a reference to the video games Shinobi and Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, while the second was an alternative spelling of Cobra Kai, the name of the karate dojo in the Karate Kid movies. Another reference is the use of the VF-1 Valkyrie in Battroid mode from the 1982 anime The Super Dimension Fortress Macross as part of the album illustration.

Q Prime management, who represent such acts as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica assisted the band in courting America's top major labels. In an interview, the band jokingly remarked that one American showcase gig was so crowded with major label bigwigs that should the venue have been targeted by terrorists, the entire American music industry would have collapsed overnight. Eventually, the band chose to sign with Columbia, a division of Sony Records, though in the UK their records continue to be released through Visible Noise.

The band worked with renowned producer Michael Barbiero to remaster the album, and this new version was released in October 2001. It was dedicated to Steve Cookson, a fan who died in a car crash en route to a Lostprophets gig. The album appears to have divided the band's existing fan base where the first accusations of selling out were leveled at the band from the underground music scene within which they achieved their first success.

Mike Lewis & Jamie Oliver, playing in The Full Ponty Festival, Pontypridd, Wales, 26 May 2007

During this period, Lostprophets built up a strong live following with support slots to popular acts such as Linkin Park, Deftones and Taproot, as well as several headlining stints of their own. They also took part in the successful Nu-Titans tour with Defenestration among other new UK Metal acts of the time. Co-headlining the 2002 Deconstruction Tour in London alongside Lagwagon, Lostprophets featured on a bill consisting of more traditionally punk oriented acts. This provoked hostility from certain members of the audience, who were upset at Lostprophets inclusion on such a bill. The band received a traditional 'bottle shower' from the crowd and finished their set early.

The band subsequently toured with Ozzfest, played at Glastonbury and the Reading and Leeds Festival. They also appeared on a number of British TV shows, including Top of the Pops, CD:UK and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. They also performed as part of the 2002 NME Awards tour.

Start Something (2003–2004)

After the extensive touring cycle for Thefakesoundofprogress finally ended, the band took a brief break before beginning the process of writing new material at Frontline Studios in Caerphilly, Wales. They then entered LA's Bigfoot Studio for a recording process that lasted from March until September 2003, with producer Eric Valentine. Valentine had previously produced albums for Queens of the Stone Age and Good Charlotte. The first most fans heard from the album was the song "Burn Burn", the music video for which began receiving heavy rotation on satellite channels like MTV2, Kerrang! TV and Scuzz in the UK. The song attracted some criticism, however, as the opening bore a striking resemblance to "Mother Mary", a song from the band Far's Water and Solutions album. The band themselves even conceded in interviews that the singing pattern bore an undeniable similarity to the Adamski song "Killer".

The single was released on November 3, 2003, and was originally scheduled to be closely followed by the release of the album. The release of the album was delayed several times and a headlining tour of the UK, was also postponed during this time. The band rescheduled the canceled UK shows, with the exception of their scheduled appearance at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, stating in magazine interviews that honouring those commitments would have meant leaving the recording studio while the album was only half completed.

The album was released in the UK on February 2, 2004, and was commercially successful, achieving number four in the UK Albums Chart. The critical response from mainstream magazines was mostly positive, though the response from rock publications such as Kerrang!, Metal Hammer and Rock Sound was sometimes tepid.

To promote the album, they toured North America, Europe and, as part of the Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand.

The second single to be released was "Last Train Home". It was a number-one song on US Modern Rock Tracks radio play chart for one week, and reached number eight in the UK charts. The song also appeared in EA Games video game NFL Street.

The tour for this record culminated in a sold out show on November 21, 2004, at Cardiff International Arena

In addition, "To Hell We Ride" appeared in the EA Games video game Need For Speed: Underground - although it was displayed simply as 'Ride'

The title track song "Start Something" was featured for ads for the 2006 film Annapolis.

Liberation Transmission (2006—2007)

On June 19, 2005, founding member Mike Chiplin left the group to pursue other musical opportunities. Since then, Mike Chiplin has joined another band called The Unsung. He has also opened up his own practice studio for young people to start bands.

The remaining members began working on material for the next album. Due to the lengthy gap between Thefakesoundofprogress and Start Something, and the backlash that grew against the band because of it, the remaining band members stated in various interviews that they wanted to release their third album as quickly as possible. However, in the end the album took a very similar amount of time to Start Something.

As with Start Something, the band wrote and recorded demo tracks for the album (with Ian Watkins playing the drums) in a UK recording studio before completing the album in America.

Liberation Transmission was recorded in Hawaii, and saw the band work with Bob Rock. Drummer Josh Freese (of The Vandals and A Perfect Circle) recorded ten out of the twelve drum tracks for this album (Ilan Rubin recorded Everybody's Screaming and For All These Times Son, For All These Times).

The band returned to their roots, playing a series of small venues across South Wales. They also played Give it a Name, a two-day event. These shows featured the first live appearance of then-17 year-old Ilan Rubin on drums and the live premiere of songs Rooftops, A Town Called Hypocrisy and The New Transmission.

The album itself was released on June 26, 2006 (June 27 in the USA), and became the first Lostprophets album to reach number one in the UK album chart. The album has seen the band adopt a more contemporary sound with far less emphasis on screaming than previous releases (with one exception being opening track "Everyday Combat", which features ex-When Reason Sleeps and current The Blackout vocalist Sean Smith). The band's comments in relation to the new album being similar to Thefakesoundofprogress are something that have garnered them criticism from long-term fans, with the general consensus being that Liberation Transmission is a far greater departure from the bands origins as a hard rock band than previous offering Start Something. The band have listed The Cure and We Are Scientists as major inspirations for the sound on this album. While some point to this as evidence of the band changing their sound to maximise record sales, others say that the band have never made a secret of their love of popular music, with covers of bands such as Duran Duran and INXS being included as B-sides to some of their earliest singles, and also the fact that the band is named after a bootleg Duran Duran album. Watkins had previously stated that any band can create avant garde music, but it takes real talent to make good pop music that people will actually want to listen to while also staying true to yourself. The band's MySpace page reflects this change in direction, listing the band's genre as Rock/Alternative/New Wave.

Lostprophets began a full-fledged UK tour on July 3, 2006. As with their warm-up gigs prior to the album's release, the band selected South Wales-based support bands for this tour, such as The Guns, The Blackout, Covergirl, Dopamine and Kids in Glass Houses, most of who found themselves playing to the largest crowds of their careers.

The band followed this with another UK tour in November. The main support for this was Bring Me the Horizon and The New 1920 as second support. They followed their UK dates with a European tour in France, Germany, and several other countries. The main support for this was The Blackout. They returned to the UK for an Arena tour in April 2007, from April 18 to 22nd. The scheduled venues were: Glasgow (SECC); Manchester (MEN Arena); Birmingham (NIA) & London (Wembley Arena). Lostprophets also played at the Full Ponty festival in Wales on 26 May 2007. The support acts included Taking Back Sunday and Aiden.

Also on August 23, Lostprophets won the 'Best British Band' award in the Kerrang awards for the second year in a row, beating Muse, Biffy Clyro, Funeral for a Friend and Enter Shikari.

The Future (2007—Present)

Guitarist Mike Lewis has stated that the band is hoping to record their fourth studio album in a much shorter space of time than Start Something and Liberation Transmission. He claims that the band would like to write the album in February and March, record it in May and June and release it before the end of 2007. On Kerrang! radio during the week of November 13, Ian Watkins stated he wanted the new album to be "nastier" and "darker" than previous efforts, with more energy and vibe than before. As for the drummer on the next album, the band has remained reluctant to name Ilan Rubin as a permanent band member, saying they would want to see how writing songs with him goes. More recently, a blog post from Mike Lewis has suggested that Ilan is very much a large part of the writing/recording process, making it more likely that he will remain in the band permanently.

On February 17, Lostprophets posted a blog on their MySpace stating that the band was flying out to Los Angeles to start writing new songs for the album. The blog quotes "Now we have gotten a lot of our pop vibes out of our system, we are fixing for some more old school vibes." With this blog they also removed the newer Liberation Transmission songs that were up and replaced them with their much older songs. Since then, another blog from Jamie Oliver has stated that the band have finished the demo process of the album, recording several tracks in Ilan Rubin's garage in San Diego. Oliver claims that the sound they are currently making "feels and sounds way more like how we want to be seen and heard".

On the bands '07 Arena Tour they have been performing a track from their upcoming album. It is a much heavier track than most of the other tracks in their set and shares similarities to tracks from The Fake Sound of Progress. The song was named "Atrocity" on the setlist for the show, but this appears to be an abbreviation as Ian Watkins mentioned the titles "Next Stop Atro City" and "For He's a Jolly Good Felon" in an interview with Punktastic. At their show at the Scala on April 26, the band premiered two more new songs: "Dead" and "Weapon". "Dead" was also played at the Full Ponty festival and at Pinkpop. In a blog entry, Ian Watkins stated that the band has started recording their fourth album and that it will hopefully be finished by around September 2007. Before then, they are scheduled to play at T in the Park (July 7), the London Astoria (August 22) and the Leeds and Reading Festivals (August 24 and 26 respectively). They have also covered the Machine Head song Davidian (which was played live at the Scala) for the "Higher Voltage" CD for Kerrang! magazine.

Ian Watkins

Jamie Oliver stated in a blog post that the band had written "a whole new album" at the beginning of the recording process, leaving them with 25 potential songs for the album. In addition to this, on June 28 Lostprophets confirmed on Idobi radio that John Feldmann had been chosen as the producer for the new album and that the album could be expected around February or March 2008.

On the July 6 the band performed another new song, the previously mentioned "For He's a Jolly Good Felon", at the Glasgow Garage. Ian mentioned that "it's about growing up where we grew up Pontypridd". He also reiterated that the performed songs may not make it onto the new album, a statement he had previously made on a MySpace post.

On August 21, a studio demo of the track "Weapon" was played on Radio 1's Rock Show. A MySpace blog post then confirmed that the track would not be re-recorded, and would not be on the new album.

On the August 23 issue of Kerrang! Magazine another new title track was revealed. "It's Not the End of the World But I Can See It From Here" was said by the reporter to be a shoe-in for the album.

The band have been video blogging their progress in and out of studio on their buzznet account.

In a MySpace bulletin, Ian reported that the band has recorded 14 songs and is taking a break for the Christmas Holidays and New Year. He explained that they still have some work to do before the album is completely finished, but that we can expect a 4th Lostprophets album this summer. The band has also stated that a few more tracks may be added in the mix for the album before it is finished. Still, no name has been released at this time for the album. In the December 21 2007 edition of Kerrang!, Ian stated that the album should come out by about March.

Their song "Rooftops" is currently being used as the main song in Calgary Flames Hockey Club Intro Video version 2007-2008. It is also being used in a highlight film for professional wrestler, Jeff Hardy.

In the January 5th 2008 edition of Kerrang! Ian Watkins announced the following tracks for the fourth album: "It's Not The End Of The World But I Can See It From Here", "Credible vs. Incredible", "Next Stop Atro City", "The Mourning Reign", "What Seems To Be The Problem Officer?", "She's With The Banned", "Save Yourself", "If It Wasn't For Hate We'd Be Dead By Now" and "For He's A Jolly Good Felon." The album is set to be released around summer. Singer Ian Watkins notes in a new blog posting that the group has 14 songs recorded, but that there are more ideas still flowing and the band wants to fully explore those possibilities to see if they can add even better tracks to the final product. Watkins admits that means the album will likely not surface until summer.

On February 5, 2008 it was announced that the Lostprophets would be playing at the Download Festival, with Radio 1 confirming them to be a headliner for Sunday 15th June.

Members

Current Lineup

• Ian Watkins — Vocals (1997-present)
• Lee Gaze — Lead Guitar (1997-present)
• Mike Lewis — Rhythm Guitar (1999-present, Bass 1997-1999)
• Stuart Richardson — Bass Guitar (1999-present)
• Jamie Oliver — Keyboards, Back-up vocals, Turntables (2000-present)
• Ilan Rubin — Drums (2006-Present)

Former Members

• Mike Chiplin — Drums (1997-2005)
• DJ Stepzak — Turntables (1997-2000)

Discography

Main article: Lostprophets discography

Albums

Date of release	Title	Label	UK Album Chart	US Billboard peak	RIANZ Top 40 (New Zealand)
October 8 2001	The Fake Sound of Progress	Columbia Records / Visible Noise	44 (Gold)
February 2 2004	Start Something	Columbia Records / Visible Noise	4 (Platinum)	33 (RIAA Gold: 500,000+)	47
June 26 2006	Liberation Transmission	Columbia Records / Visible Noise	1 (Gold 220,000+)	33	14
Summer2008	lostprophets 4th studio album	Columbia Records / Visible Noise	NA	NA	NA

References

• Band biography located at DragonNinja.com [1]
• Maximum Lostprophets audio biography (ASIN: B0001QNO2E)
• "Decks + Drums + Rock & Roll". Kerrang! magazine. February 10, 2001.
• Doreian, Robyn. "A Band Down Under". Rock Sound magazine. May 2004.
• Hibbard, Jamie. "Boys on Film". Metal Hammer magazine. December 2003.
• Lawson, Dom. "Didn't We Do Well?". Kerrang! magazine. October 5, 2002.
• Winwood, Ian. "The Second Coming". Kerrang! magazine. October 25, 2003.
• Winwood, Ian. "Lost in America". Kerrang! magazine. May 5, 2004.

External links

• Official Site