UK Band - The Chevin - to play The Academy (2), Wednesday 16th May

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THE CHEVIN
Live at The Academy 2 – May 16
** Tickets on sale now **

Check out their NEW single 'Drive'
http://thechevin.bandcamp.com/track/drive-radio-edit

A big band from a small town, The Chevin have announced their Dublin headline show at The Academy 2, May 16th. Tickets are €11.50 incl. booking fee and are on sale from Ticketmaster outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.ie

The Chevin are a band who grew up relishing the magnificent swathes of moorland
stretching from York to Leeds visible from atop the hill overlooking their hometown of Otley – the geological marvel after which they’re named – and instinctively destined to recreate the wonder of it in music.

As a teenager, roaming the tiny market town of Otley in The Chevin’s shadow with a head full of Nirvana, Oasis and The Beatles, singer and songwriter Coyle Girelli,
had a soundtrack to his life spooling constantly through his head. Surprisingly, Otley proved to be a hotbed for 90s--‐inspired rock hopefuls, and Coyle and his guitarist schoolmate Mat Steele began writing and playing in avariety of musical incarnations from the age of 12, eventually graduating to the lively live scene of Leeds, playing in local bands.

It wasn’t until the start of 2010, though, that Coyle, Mat and their regular bassist Jon Langford chanced upon fellow Otley drummer Mal Taylor and Coyle felt the band was right to record the album’s worth of songs he’d been hoarding for his big push. Enormous rock songs with the clout and sizzle of early U2, The Killers and the voice of Roy Orbison, but also with the cultish edge of Band Of Horses and Arcade Fire. Uplifting desert air punchers like ‘Champion’ and ‘Blue Eyes’, piano--‐led paeans to nature’s wonders like ‘Beautiful World’, rousing rock wreckages like ‘Drive’ (in which a mourning Coyle fantasises about crashes, both physical and emotional), synth disco stomps like ‘Colours’ and tangled relationship elegies such as ‘Dirty Little Secret’ and ‘Love Is Just A Game’ that hinted at messy affairs and youthful promiscuity. Songs that retained their style and stature while swerving between the defiant and the devastated, a reflection of Coyle’s mindset at the time, after suffering from a time of break-ups and loss.

Demoing the entire album on Coyle’s home studio (recordings The Chevin wereso pleased with that they kept many of the original keyboard tracks for the finished album) and using them to lure in a manager, the band concentrated on perfecting their songs in rehearsal rather than playing live and opted for the increasingly fashionable approach of self-financing their debut album and approached LA producer Noah Shain early in 2011 to find them a studio as dramatic and dislocated as their music and origins required.

In the desert of El Paso, South Texas, the old ranch building turned studio was the perfect place to offer The Chevin a place to lose themselves, widen their sound and record thirteen songs. Working relentlessly on getting the perfect Peter Gabriel drum sound for ‘Dirty Little Secret’ and luring in local members of the El Paso Philharmonic Orchestra to add strings to the ever-expanding pop monster that was ‘Champion’, the song that would become the lead track on their debut EP that October.

The album certainly turned ears. Fierce Panda heard it and offered them a record
contract, starting with the ravenously received ‘Champion EP’; US contacts heard
it at Stateside showcase gigs and built an American team around them; The
Airborne Toxic Event heard it and took them on the road around the UK for
a month; The Pigeon Detectives heard it and offered them a 16--‐date tour of Europe
at the start of 2012, sharing their tourbus. And White Lies heard it, came down to
catch them on their UK headline club tour towards the end of 2011 and invited The
Chevin to support them on their winter arena tour, culminating at Wembley Arena.

So even before their show--‐stopping performances at SXSW 2012, The Chevin were
being given glimpses of the big time. All that remained was to put the finishing touches to their immense debut album – the shimmering, propulsive, organ-drenched centrepiece and title track ‘Borderland’, an Arcade Fire--‐esque epic recorded at Shain’s LA studio early in 2012 but inspired by the El Paso recording stint
that brought out Coyle’s inner Springsteen/Morricone. And with next single ‘Drive’
hitting the gas on May 14 and 'Borderland’ causing its deep impact in August, The
Chevin are about to break another border; the one between local heroes and global
superstars.
The Chevin: mountainous.