Everything Everything – The Band
22” BD, 12” RT, 16” FT, 18” FT and Chrome Over Brass 14” SD), Zildjian cymbals and Roland drum pads.
Since October 2012 the band have been joined by a keyboard player, Peter Sené, for live performances. Pete plays two Akai MPK 261 controllers, MacBooks running Ableton Live and 3rd-party plug-ins. Alex plays an Akai MPK 241 controller.
History of Everything Everything
Hailing from Northumberland and Kent and formed in 2007, the original Everything Everything line-up of Jonathan Higgs, Jeremy Pritchard, Alex Niven and Michael Spearman released their first single, Suffragette Suffragette, in December 2008. Niven then left the band and was replaced by Guernsey-born Alex Robertshaw, and it was at this point their music began receiving more widespread attention. They made the longlist of the BBC Sound of 2010, before being signed to Geffen Records and releasing Schoolin’ as a single. Highly-anticipated and critically acclaimed debut album Man Alive, produced by David Kosten, followed in August 2010 and earned them a 2011 Mercury nomination. The album also earned them a win at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards for Best Breakthrough.
After touring Man Alive throughout much of 2010, the band’s European tour of spring 2011 saw them debuting new material, in the form of an early Kemosabe, which would feature on sophomore album Arc, once again produced by David Kosten. When the album pre-order was announced in October 2012, those who purchased it received a teaser montage of tracks entitled ‘Archetype’ and it was the first time fans got a real taste of its overall sound. With Arc’s release in January 2013 came the bigger shows, and Pete Sené was brought in to play keys, allowing Jon to move around the stage more. After touring nationally and internationally, including two show-stopping, sold out home shows at the Manchester Ritz, the band played their final shows of the Arc era in December of that year before retreating to work on album three.
The band’s only show of 2014 was in November as part of the finale show for Chaos To Order, a week of arts-based events they curated to celebrate the re-opening of the newly-refurbished Manchester Central Library. They performed a 25 minute-long original piece which had been written throughout their week of residence in a glass-walled room, alongside Arc favourites Cough Cough and Kemosabe.
On 5th February 2015 the band began posting what appeared to be lyrics from new material on their social media accounts, before announcing the new album, entitled Get to Heaven and produced by Grammy-winning producer Stuart Price, would be released on 15th June (later amended to 22nd). Zane Lowe had the exclusive first play of lead single Distant Past as his Hottest Record in the World on Radio 1 on February 17th and this was followed by the announcement of a short string of April shows, giving eager fans their first chance to hear the Get to Heaven material. Upon its release, the album went straight to number 2 in the mid-week charts (number 7 at the end of that week), the same weekend the band played two emotional and massively well-received sets at Glastonbury Festival.
Everything Everything finished 2015 with their biggest tour of the UK and Europe to date, including sold-out shows at Brixton Academy in London and Manchester Apollo. The tour set included all 11 tracks from Get To Heaven!
2016 kept the momentum going with the band supporting Foals on their UK and Ireland arena tour in February. The band continued with a hectic gig schedule during the spring and summer months. Highlights included two visits across the Atlantic, first to support The Joy Formidable for a month at dates all over the US in March/April and then a brief return in August for a handful of headline shows on the East Coast. This trip also included their first ever performance in Canada (Toronto). They also played high up the bill at a number of smaller UK festivals, including Blissfields, Truck Festival and the inaugural Bluedot Festival.
The band spent the remainder of 2016 and first few months of 2017 working on their fourth album, ‘A Fever Dream’ with producer James Ford. The first single from the new album, ‘Can’t Do’, was premiered on Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show on 13th June. Fans were able to hear a selection of the new songs in June 2017 at intimate preview gigs in Hebden Bridge, Nottingham, Manchester and London. ‘A Fever Dream’ was released on 18th August 2017 and entered the UK charts at number 5. Singles ‘Desire’ and ‘Night of the Long Knives’ followed, along with a few festival and US headline shows.
The ‘A Fever Dream’ UK and Ireland tour had a difficult start in February 2018 with the first three dates being postponed due to bad weather. However, the band managed to reschedule the dates for later in the year and completed the remaining five shows, culminating in their biggest ever headline show to date at London’s Alexandra Palace. A few days before the tour was due to begin, the band released a surprise EP called ‘A Deeper Sea’ which featured a brand new song (The Mariana), a song from the AFD recording sessions (Breadwinner), a remix of ‘Ivory Tower’ and a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’.
By Emma Richardson (@_EmmaKate_ on Twitter) & Emma Le P