Skip To The Start - The Futureheads

I’m stood in an opera house, of all places. It is 2003 and I’m watching four suave young punks thrash themselves around the stage with abundant, almost manic energy. This, in itself would not be enough but when accompanied by the buzz saw guitars, the explosive and compact pop songs, the pitch perfect harmonies, the forceful chants of “Bullshit, Bullshit”, the yodelling and the general frazzled brilliance, it has pretty much become a personal revelation. These guys are from Sunderland? It totally changed my perspective on how good bands from the North East could be and fired me through the punk rock looking glass of possibilities from which I have never looked back.  

The band are, of course The Futureheads. The song I will later discover is called ‘He Knows’ begins with around 15 seconds of pure white noise and when the infectious riff emerges, it is the sonic equivalent of someone being pulled out of burning building. The Kate Bush cover that will later show its eccentric face in the UK top ten is already a fully formed anthem. I leave the show filled with the impetus to create, destroy and play some kind of role in encouraging more people to see this brilliant, brilliant band. If you’re looking for an unbiased portrayal then forget it right now. It would be like asking you to write an objective journalistic account of your favourite football team or your family.   

So, how did all of this begin?

Guitarist and Vocalist Ross Millard sheds some light on the origins of the band: “We put the band together through having a few conceptual ideas that we wanted to try out. At the time, there was no burning ambition in Sunderland, it was a free for all, everybody knew each other and it was a kind of party scene with people being in different bands every five minutes. Bands that we looked up to were bands such as Red Monkey, who would come through from Newcastle to play these ferocious punk rock gigs.

We wanted this fanciful, ridiculous alter ego for us all but slowly and surely, it became a harder working thing for us. There were some rules: No FX pedals, no talking between the songs, no sections would be repeated. Late 70’s art-punk such as Talking Heads and Wire had the same sort of rules”

We all know what happened next- It began with a couple of limited edition releases by the all round good guys at Fantastic Plastic. The ‘1-2-3 Nul!’ vinyl EP in particular cemented my admiration for the band, I literally spent hours playing ‘Carnival Kids’ over and over at home and out when I DJed, I was thrilled by the storytelling and uncompromising regional accents, the nods to timeless rock n roll in the harmonies and the sense of playful abandon. Then, a massively successful eponymous first album on Warner affiliated major label 679 Recordings materialised (launched at a massive, packed out Labour Club in Newcastle, a show I promoted in which we had to switch venues two days before the sold-out date as the original club didn’t have an entertainment license. Hence no sleep for 48 hours and fearless fly poster missions at 4am but it was an immensely satisfying and triumphant  night) and a relentless touring schedule with the likes of Franz Ferdinand in the U.S and The Zutons over here alongside some incredible headline shows in which they carved out a reputation as a fearsome and thrilling live prospect.

Ross says: “Glastonbury 2005 was a watershed moment for The Futureheads, you realise that you have a larger fan base than a Wednesday night in Northampton would suggest. We had got to the top of the mountain and planted our little flag”

I was at that show, in which they enthralled an audience of around 20,000 and have since seen them blow away audiences everywhere from Chicago to Sheffield. I feel like our musical journeys run parallel somewhat. The shows are always inclusive and the records never lack character. They are the reason that I got into Independent live music promotion and therefore why I’m now working full time in music and running a small label. Around the time of the first album, I had just discovered bands like Q and Not U, Fugazi and Sonic Youth and suddenly I was in the middle of a punk rock explosion on my doorstep that Michael Azerrad would be proud of (notable mentions should also go to bands like Paper Cut Out and This Aint Vegas).