From Broken Family to happy families, Singing Adams will be one to watch in 2011. Catch them on tour this April Sunday 17th in Manchester @ The Deaf Institute
Singing Adams: Bird On The Wing
Single released 28th March 2011
“he’s written his best set of songs for years” The Guardian
Everybody Friends Now is the debut album from Singing Adams, the band formed in East London by Steven Adams, former singer of cult group The Broken Family Band, with bassist Michael Wood (Michaelmas), drummer Melinda Bronstein (Absentee, Wet Paint) and guitar player Matthew Ashton (The Leaf Library, Saloon).
With Adams at the helm, you can expect – and you will get – a sound that touches on indie, folk and sharp rock ‘n roll, with lashings of the rapier wit that has earned him a reputation as one of the finest lyricists and songwriters of the last decade. After eight years in the BFB, this is Steven Adams how he wants you to hear him.
“I’ve been writing songs and singing them since I was a kid and I thought it was about time I took some responsibility for how it all turns out, so I could say, I wrote these songs, I got this band together, I produced this album,” he says. “And I want people to come away from Everybody Friends Now feeling happy and sad at the same time.”
Singing Adams formed after singer/songwriter/guitarist Adams had experimented with some bedroom recordings following the dissolution of BFB (not “musical differences,” merely “it had run its course”). “I realised I needed a proper band to bash out these songs, and I wanted people who could all sing” says Steven. “so I just asked people who I really liked, who I thought would be fun to play and sing with, and they said yes.”
These songs, written in a flurry of activity, form the majority of Everybody Friends Now; songs that are some of Adams’ most accomplished to date. Adams says the album’s main theme is one of making a break with the past. “I found myself moving further away from songs about boy-girl stuff and singing more about relationships in general, looking at how people relate to each other.”
The songs were written in a different way too: in the BFB Adams would write the germ of an idea and flesh it out with the band. Here, he wrote, edited and refined each song before taking it to the new group. It’s resulted in an album with no spare moments, just great tunes, varied textures, great harmonies and brilliant lyrics, from Giving It All Away’s tongue-in-cheek appeal to women to stop throwing themselves at the singer to Injured Party’s joyful, confused rant. Then there’s The Old Days, a song that started out about a friend Steven imagined would end up dressed completely in denim, hanging round bars trying to pick up young women until, says Steven, “I realised it’s about me.”
“I wanted each of these songs to sound like a celebration of their own subject matter, and I wanted to cover a lot of ground,” says the singer. “But I didn’t want there to be any spite or anything mean-spirited in there. I don’t think there is…”
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