Henry and The House of Lords are Brothers. Oliver met Henry in Technology and Control GCSE lessons at Ashby School. All three boys liked to "show off". They started to play in a band in the attic of Oliver's house. The band was named "Simple Pastoral Existence", this was not a good name.
Their first recorded gig was at The Bull's Head on Ashby de la zouch high street. The date is not known. Their second gig was Loughborough Battle of the bands in South Park, Loughborough, August 3rd 1997: SPE came third and Henry and House's mum made Spagetti Bolognaise for everyone.
A gap. Then at the end of 1999 The band reformed on the outskirts of Oxford. They were then called "Ponyclub". They bought a vocal PA and some Microphones and practiced upstairs in the local village hall. Downstairs there would often be other organistations meeting: Tuesday was the Morris Men (The same morris men as seen in TYK's "Hollow line" video), Friday was Bowls, Monday would be Amateur dramatics and Wednesday would sometimes be The wildlife organisation who would have slide shows about Herons and St John's wort.
The first gig was in Oxford in 2000 at the Jericho Tavern, supporting a band called "Mattress". There were 21 paying punters. Arguably Ponyclub's best song was called "Picky Sticky", The chorus went "She left food on the table" - it was about a girl with an eating disorder.
In 2001 Ponyclub were offered a small record deal (ie, no money at all but some recording time) with Oxford's indie label Shifty Disco. At this point Ponyclub were forced to change their name and became "The Young Knives" because there was a man with a proper record deal and album calling himself "Pony club" (with a space).
In April 2001 they recorded a 7 track mini album called "The Young Knives ...Are dead". NME gave it 6/10 and nothing more was said. Shifty Disco ran out of Money and TYK were left to fend for themselves.
They started playing Gigs wherever anyone would have them. Their favorite places were "The Grapes" in Sheffield; "Royal Park Cellars" in Leeds; "Moles club" in Bath and "The Bull and Gate" in Kentish Town.
Then in 2004 they released their own demoed album "Nolens Volens" as it looked like no record label would ever had them. Then in 2005 they were got a manager and he tricked Transgressive recirds into signing them. Then it became now and there was rejoicing.
WIN A CHANCE TO SEE THE YOUNG KNIVES, AT QUART FESTIVAL, IN NORWAY IN JULY!
Two lucky winners will win a roundtrip to this years Quart Festival, in Kristiansand, Norway. (Including festival passes, and passes for the Quart Camp. July 2-5)
To enter the sweepstakes, all you got to do is this: Go to http://www. myspace. com/quartfestival - Add yourself as a friend, and post a comment on the wall, stating which artist you want to see.
Something about... swimming with the fishes being a very good song, and not noticing it has the same bassline as she's attracted to until about the 10th listen, she's attracted to Pt2. But a really good song. I like "so I made a little purchase and I spent all of my money on it, and I had none left for the bus home"
hey thanks for the add! Either being wrapped up in my own world or living on a different planet for the last few years-it was on the other evening that i first heared one of your songs! Your set on radio6music was quality quality! Best band ive heard in a long while. The spooky thing is that our guitarist rob was born in ashby!!!!
"Rue The Days" on my radio show, The British Breakfast on WRIR 97.3FM Richmond, Virginia USA (www. wrir. org) this Saturday between 9-11amest which is about 4-5 hours behind UK time.
