Everything Everything are an English
art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an ar ...
band from
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
that formed in late 2007. Noted for their eclectic sound and complex, avant-garde-inspired lyrics, the band has released seven albums to date ''
Man Alive (2010),'' ''
Arc (2013),'' ''
Get to Heaven (2015),'' ''
A Fever Dream (2017),'' ''
Re-Animator'' (2020), ''
Raw Data Feel'' (2022) and ''
Mountainhead'' (2024) and has been widely critically acclaimed.
[BBC - 'Man Alive' by Everything Everything - Album Review by Alix Buscovic](_blank)
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, Retrieved 7 September 2010.[Review of ''Man Alive'' in](_blank)
''New Musical Express
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a " rock inkie", the ''NME'' would become a maga ...
'' by Laura Snapes, 31 August 2010 Their work has twice been shortlisted for the
Mercury Music Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual Music award, music prize awarded for the best album released by a musical act from the Music of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom or Music of Ireland, Ireland. It was cre ...
and has received five nominations for
Ivor Novello Award
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Welsh entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and Musical composition, composing. They have been presented annually in London by the The Ivors Academy, Ivors Academy, formerly called the Britis ...
s.
Career
Origins and early singles
Three of the original band members are from
Northumberland
Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
-
Jonathan Higgs (lead vocals, keyboards, laptop and guitar) grew up in the border village of
Gilsland while Michael Spearman (drums, vocals) and
Alex Niven (guitars, vocals) are from
Newbrough. The three met at
Queen Elizabeth High School in
Hexham where they played music together.
[Everything Everything interview in ''The Collective Review''](_blank)
by Von Von Lamunu, 16 June 2010
While Spearman attended
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...
and
Leeds College of Music to study jazz drumming, Higgs went on to study for a degree in Popular Music and Recording at
Salford University, where he met
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...
-born bass player Jeremy Pritchard. Pritchard moved to
Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...
at a very young age and regularly played at the
Tunbridge Wells Forum in his teenage years. Higgs and Pritchard decided to form a band once their degree had finished.
Initially they collaborated in the Salford-based
math rock
Math rock is a style of Alternative rock, alternative and indie rock with roots in bands such as King Crimson and Rush (band), Rush. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), cou ...
trio Modern Bison (with Higgs on drums, Pritchard on guitar and Mike Carswell on guitar and vocals), which released one album, ''I Could Have Had a Rustic Pagoda'' on unlabel in 2006.
Towards the end of 2006, Higgs and Niven devised plans to start a band "with a sort of
Paul Morley-inspired,
poptimist aesthetic".
The band took the name Everything Everything from the first two words of the
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
song "
Everything in Its Right Place", the opening track to their album ''
Kid A'',
although Niven has also described the choice as follows: "The idea as I saw it was to try to take contemporary R&B pop music and fashion a vaguely Futurist project out of it, and between the two of us we chose the name Everything Everything, a
détournement
A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),'' Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) t ...
of sorts of an over-saturated media culture into something idealistic and expansive."
With the addition of Pritchard and Spearman, the band began performing in the autumn of 2007.
Pritchard recalls "we were initially more punky, with more guitars and no synths at all. It was easiest to play gigs like this and to get to grips with playing together. But the plan was always to expand the sound when we had the scope/could afford the gear!"
Quickly gaining attention from the music industry, the band began working with producer
David Kosten (
Bat for Lashes, Faultline). Everything Everything released their first single "Suffragette Suffragette" on 1 December 2008 through
XL Recordings offshoot Salvia as a limited 7"
vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...
release only. This was later followed by the release of single "
Photoshop Handsome", which saw the group incorporate synths in their sound for the first time, on 20 July 2009, available only as a limited 7" single.
In autumn 2009, the band then released "
My Kz, Ur Bf" as another vinyl-only release, this time with the record label Young & Lost Club. All three singles were released with accompanying music videos, with those for "Suffragette Suffragette" and "Photoshop Handsome" made entirely by the band themselves.
At this point, Niven left the band to pursue a career in academia
and was replaced by Guernsey-born guitarist Alex Robertshaw, whose former band
Operahouse had split up a few months previously.
Everything Everything made the longlist of the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
Sound of 2010 on 7 December 2009, a list created by Britain's tastemakers who vote for their favourite new artists.
Not long after the nomination for BBC Sound of 2010, Everything Everything signed to the UK arm of
Geffen Records
Geffen Records (formerly The David Geffen Company from 1980 to 1992 and Geffen Records Inc. from 1993 to 2004) is an American record label, founded in late 1980 by David Geffen. Originally a music subsidiary of the company known as Geffen Pi ...
before releasing the single "
Schoolin'" on 10 June 2010 as a
CD single
A CD single is a single (music), music single in the form of a compact disc (CD). Originally the ''CD single'' standard (as defined in the Rainbow Books, Red Book) was an 8 cm (3-inch) "mini CD" (''CD3''); later on the term referred to any si ...
,
digital download and also as a 7" vinyl. The single became the first to make an impact on the charts, debuting at number 152.
2010–2012: ''Man Alive''
The band's debut album ''
Man Alive'' (produced by David Kosten) was released on 27 August 2010 and was preceded by a
reissue of the single "
My Kz, Ur Bf" on 23 August 2010, debuting on the
UK Singles Chart at number 121. The album was then released a week later, debuting on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
at number 17.
''Man Alive'' received high critical praise from some reviewers, though others were critical. ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' dubbed the band as "pop's new Picassos" and commented "there are three dirty words in indie right now: ambition, intellect and effort. Everything Everything don't just fit those terms, they pole-vault over them."
''BBC Music'' hailed the band's "brilliance" and noted "this Manchester quartet flee from any identikit indie clique, throwing ever-changing, protean sonic shapes... EE are wilfully eccentric, and endlessly entertaining, but they know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an album. They know how to give it depth, light and dark, and they – crucially – know when to stop."
''
Drowned in Sound'' praised the band's "sheer, rampant confidence" and described the album as containing "some pretty spiffy stuff...this is a band going places – they know it, and we know it."
Writing in ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applie ...
'', Ian Cohen commented that the album was "proof that enthusiastic experimentation can't save your end product when the underlying elements are so incompatible and unappetizing" and criticized Higgs's "irritating voice".
On 19 July 2011 ''Man Alive'' was shortlisted for the 2011
Mercury Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual Music award, music prize awarded for the best album released by a musical act from the Music of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom or Music of Ireland, Ireland. It was cre ...
, although it lost out to
PJ Harvey's ''
Let England Shake''.
In May 2011, Everything Everything performed at
Radio 1's Big Weekend in
Carlisle
Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England.
Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...
. This was a gig close to home for Jonathan Higgs, who grew up in
Gilsland only a few miles away. On 28 November 2011 (along with local Manchester musicians
Badly Drawn Boy and
I Am Kloot) Everything Everything performed as part of the Billie Butterfly charity concert, raising funds for American medical treatment for Billie Bainbridge, a local young girl diagnosed with a rare brain tumour.
The band went on to support
Snow Patrol in February 2012, and
Muse
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...
in November and December.
2012–2014: ''Arc''
In 2012, Everything Everything resumed work with David Kosten on sessions for their second album. The first single from the sessions was "
Cough Cough", released on 28 August 2012: following which the band announced that their second album ''
Arc'' would be released in early 2013. New material from this album was performed in a UK tour spanning 13 September to 26 October 2012.
''Arc'' was released on 14 January 2013, and debuted at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. Higgs noted that in comparison to the complexity of the songs on ''Man Alive'', the songwriting on ''Arc'' was intended to be a simpler distillation of his ideas and a more direct expression of his emotion. In an interview with the ''
New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
'', he explained that the new album was "far more open. It's far less cluttered and far less difficult to work out what's going on or what I'm saying. I think we tried to straighten it out and make it less distracting and more solid and strong. There are fewer places to hide I think, so that's the main thing. It's clear now who's doing what. It took us a long time to be confident enough to do that."
["The riots were kind of inevitable… if you've grown up to 16 with absolutely no opportunities"](_blank)
- interview with Jonathan Higgs in ''The New Statesman'' by Rob Pollard, 7 February 2013
The album was hailed as "another tour de force"
[Review of ''Arc'' in ''The Observer''](_blank)
by Phil Mongredien, 13 January 2013 by ''The Observer'', although ''The Guardian'' was more sparing with praise - "Jerky opener Cough Cough may showcase them at their most self-consciously wacky, but The Peaks is at the opposite end of the spectrum, attempting the kind of stadium melancholia beloved of
Elbow
The elbow is the region between the upper arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and t ...
or
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer and percussionist Will Champion, and manager Phil Harvey (band m ...
. Inevitably, ''Arc'' lacks coherence; it's the sound of a band working out who they want to be. Hopefully that'll be the band that combines both modes seamlessly, as they do on Kemosabe and Armourland, a sleek piece of robo-pop that links social breakdown with the emotional barriers we all put up.".
[Review of ''Arc'' in ''The Guardian''](_blank)
by Tim Jonze, 10 January 2013
''NME'' regarded the album as "a leaner, more relatable beast than its predecessor... The self-conscious straining to be regarded as innovators and iconoclasts that occasionally muddled their debut is absent here: this is a record less bothered about surface than it is about feeling... Slowly but surely, they are progressing towards something extraordinary." The review also called attention to the album's themes of technology and human response: "Pop's young futurists have written an album about how terrifying the future is. The intertwined themes of technology and disconnection are prevalent through ''Arc''."
A third single from ''Arc'' – "Duet" – was released on 25 March 2013 on 7" vinyl.
"
Kemosabe" went on to be nominated as Best Contemporary Song at the 2014
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Welsh entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and Musical composition, composing. They have been presented annually in London by the The Ivors Academy, Ivors Academy, formerly called the Britis ...
, and to win UK Single of the Year at the
Music Producers Guild Awards.
2015–2016: ''Get to Heaven''
On 17 February 2015, the band released the single "
Distant Past" with
Zane Lowe
Alexander Zane Reed Lowe (born 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter. After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence through pr ...
on
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...
naming it the 'Hottest Record in the World'. The band's third studio album, ''
Get to Heaven'', was released on 22 June 2015. BBC Entertainment reporter Mark Savage said: "Ebola, missing airplanes, beheadings, the rise of UKIP. They're not the usual topics for a top 40 chart act, but that's exactly what alt-pop band Everything Everything have been writing about over the past year
..The lyrics were inspired when the Manchester band took a year off from touring, and Higgs started watching rolling news on a loop". Higgs told Savage, "After we'd finished the record, I read the lyrics back and I realised I'd written a horror bible".
The video for the band's single 'Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread' was shared on 31 July 2015. The video sees the band's frontman Jonathan Higgs take over production. He said via a press release, "The song talks about seasons passing and getting older, so we wanted to concentrate on the Sun and make it into a kind of oppressive force – positive and life-giving but also burning and destructive. We used Ultra-Violet and Infra-Red cameras to get a look at the sun damage on our skin, and give everything an alien look. We shot in a quarry so we could have a clear horizon and a dry, hot, desert scene. Most of the sun effects were completed afterwards because we picked a rainy day to shoot, though we did spray everything silver in order to get some good light reflections and add to the heatproof/astronaut feel."
On 2 September 2016, Everything Everything released the single "I Believe It Now" for
BT Sport to use for
Premier League
The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...
shows. They also announced they were working on a fourth album, with Higgs commenting that its lyrics would "inevitably" be affected by
Brexit
Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU).
Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...
.
2017–2019: ''A Fever Dream'' and ''A Deeper Sea''
On 13 June 2017, Everything Everything announced their fourth album ''
A Fever Dream'' by releasing the single "Can't Do". The album was later released on 18 August 2017 to strong reviews, with ''The Guardian'' declaring "if pop culture continues on its dorky course, it will be only a matter of time before these nerds rule." Marcy Donelson of AllMusic wrote: "A Fever Dream is confrontational, warped, emotionally and aurally high-contrast, and full of turmoil, but reliable in its infectiousness." The album also received commercial success, peaking at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. Following the success of the album, the band went on tour in spring 2018. Speaking to ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', Higgs says "The lyrics are definitely more personal here,
..You can't always be talking about the bigger things, you sometimes need to talk about what's close to you."
This album saw the band's second Mercury Prize nomination, this time in 2018. They later won Album of the Year (2019) at the Music Producers Guild Awards.
Then, on 27 February 2018, Everything Everything released the
EP ''A Deeper Sea'' in advance of their upcoming tour. The EP received positive reviews, with ''The Edge'' saying "
heir
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...
latest four-track EP shows them to be, as ever, finely attuned to the untidy rhythms of modern society." and rating it 4/5 stars. The EP was prompted by Higgs reading "some shocking statistics on male suicide" and going on to write the first track, "The Mariana". The remainder of the EP consists of an unreleased track from ''A Fever Dream'': "Breadwinner", a remix of "Ivory Tower" (from ''A Fever Dream'') by
Tom Vek, and a cover of "
Don't Let It Bring You Down" by
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
that had been recorded in 2017 for
Annie Mac's Radio 1 show.
''A Deeper Sea'' was Everything Everything's last release for RCA. Subsequent releases would appear on their own Infinity Industries label via distributors AWAL (Artists Without a Label).
2020–2021: ''Re-Animator'' and ''Supernormal''
On 23 April 2020, the band released the single "In Birdsong" with a music video directed by Higgs. Their fifth album ''
Re-Animator'' was announced on 13 May 2020 alongside the single "Arch Enemy",
with a music video directed by Higgs later released on 27 May 2020. On 18 June 2020, the band released a third single "Planets", with a music video directed again by Higgs. On 28 July 2020, the band released the fourth single "Violent Sun", again with a music video by Higgs. The music video saw use of the band's damaged instruments from a recent fire that occurred in their studio lockup, with the description reading "We decided to use our destroyed instruments one last time before we threw them out, filming ourselves and each other. Violent Sun is about desperately holding on to the moment before it passes forever." ''Re-Animator'' was released on 11 September 2020, alongside the music video for "Big Climb". The album received commercial success by peaking at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. On 15 December 2020, a music video directed by Kit Monteith and Jonathan Higgs for the track "Black Hyena" was released.
On 10 March 2021, the band released the single "Supernormal". The music video, released on the same day, was directed by Jonathan Higgs, with the song's lyrics being inspired by
supernormal stimuli
A supernormal stimulus or superstimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulation, stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved.
For exam ...
. On 12 June 2021, Everything Everything released the ''Supernormal'' EP exclusively on 10" vinyl for
Record Store Day 2021. The EP consisted of the previously released single "Supernormal", an unreleased track from ''Re-Animator,'' "Mercury & Me", and remixes of ''Re-Animator'' tracks "Big Climb" and "Black Hyena" by Jack Bevan of
Foals and IOE AIE respectively. A digital release and music video directed by Higgs for the track "Mercury & Me" were later released on 17 June 2021.
2022–present: ''Raw Data Feel'' and ''Mountainhead''
On 7 February 2022, Everything Everything announced their sixth album, ''
Raw Data Feel'', later released on 20 May 2022.
Alongside the announcement they released the single "Bad Friday" with a music video directed by Kit Monteith and Jonathan Higgs. The band incorporated text and imagery generated by
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
for the album's song titles, lyrics and artwork.
The band also announced the book ''Caps Lock On'', containing the lyrics to every Everything Everything song to date, due for release the same day. On 9 March 2022, the band released a second single, "Teletype", the album's opener. It was released alongside a music video created by Higgs, consisting of human faces generated by AI singing along to the song. On 28 March 2022, the band released the third single "I Want a Love Like This" alongside a music video directed by Kit Monteith. A fourth single, "Pizza Boy", was released on 4 May 2022 with a video filmed during the band's UK Spring 2022 tour. A music video directed by Krishna Muthurangu for the track "Jennifer" was released on the same day as the album.
The album reached a peak of number 4 in the UK Album Charts, making it their highest-charting release to date. It was also released to critical praise, with ''The Line of Best Fit'' writing "Through a dizzying blend of experimentation, innovation and stylistic idiosyncrasy Everything Everything have created another peerless record with ''Raw Data Feel'', one which proves once more that the horizons the band chases are theirs and theirs alone" and giving the album a 9/10.
On 13 July 2023, Everything Everything announced that in celebration of 13 years since the release of their debut album, ''Man Alive'', a reissue of the original vinyl alongside a new deluxe edition featuring unreleased material, rarities, demos and outtakes would be released on 25 August 2023. "Riot On The Ward", a track from the deluxe edition that was recorded in 2007 was released for streaming on the same day as the announcement.
On 27 October 2023, Everything Everything announced their seventh album, ''
Mountainhead'', which was released on 1 March 2024. They also announced a UK tour in March and April 2024, with support from
Divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...
. The band toured the UK again in November and December 2024, with support from Prima Queen.
In an interview with NME, Higgs says that the album was written and produced quickly and was intended to feature no plug-ins or effects, in reaction to ''Raw Data Feel.'' The album features an underlying concept which imagines a world in which a society has created a mountain by digging a big hole. A Mountainhead is a person that believes that the mountain must grow and the pit must get deeper.
Musical style
Everything Everything are noted for an extremely eclectic and dynamic style, with complex song construction and dense, detailed lyrics sung in a rapid-fire,
falsetto
Falsetto ( , ; Italian language, Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.
It is produced by the vibration of the ...
delivery by Jonathan Higgs. While nominally an alternative rock band with outright pop stylings, the band uses production and rhythmic approaches closer to those of
contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music Music genre, genre, originating from African Americans, African-American musicians in the 1980s that combines rhythm and blues with elements of Pop music, pop, Soul music, soul, funk, Hip-hop, ...
,
glitch pop and
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
(including heavy use of laptop programming and processing) and songwriting approaches similar to those of
progressive or
psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
.
Critic Paul Lester has compared Everything Everything's sound to "a riot in a melody factory"
[BBC Music review of 'Arc'](_blank)
by Paul Lester, 4 January 2013 and compared them to "
Timbaland
Timothy Zachery Mosley (born March 10, 1972), known professionally as Timbaland, is an American record producer and rapper. Born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, he is widely acclaimed for his distinctive production work and "stuttering" rhythm ...
if he cocked an oblique ear to
Yes".
In the Guardian, Mark Beaumont described the band as "the most intricate, streamlined merging yet of
math rock
Math rock is a style of Alternative rock, alternative and indie rock with roots in bands such as King Crimson and Rush (band), Rush. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), cou ...
's arch complexities, electronica's 80s obsession and hooks made from mobile phone interference."
[Live review of Everything Everything at Village Underground, London](_blank)
by Mark Beaumont in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', 24 October 2012 Whilst Higgs' lyrics often address sociopolitical themes and the impact of
late capitalism and technology on modern society, he has stated that he does not want to be defined as a "political" songwriter. He did however note that his lyrical themes tend to be a mixture of "cold technology, modern toxicity, ancient myths and an element of prophecy".
Tim Smith of
Cardiacs
Cardiacs are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Kingston upon Thames by Tim Smith (Cardiacs), Tim Smith (guitar and lead vocals) and his brother Jim Smith (bassist), Jim (bass, backing vocals) in 1977 under the name Cardiac Arrest. One ...
was an early champion of the band.
When asked about their sound in an interview with UK music blog ''There Goes the Fear'' in Leeds in October 2010, singer Jonathan Higgs replied, "We think of it as rock primarily. We try not to make it sound like a lot of things you've heard before, not on purpose, but it tends to come out a bit like that. We're not really interested in copying certain genres or anything, so I guess you'd say it's unpredictable and sort of surprising."
Higgs has counted
Nirvana,
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
,
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
,
Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child was an American girl group whose final lineup comprised Beyoncé, Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams (singer), Michelle Williams. The group began their musical career as Girl's Tyme, formed in 1990 in Hou ...
, and
Craig David
Craig Ashley David (born 5 May 1981) is an English singer. He rose to fame in 1999, featuring on the single " Re-Rewind" by Artful Dodger. David's debut studio album, '' Born to Do It'', was released in 2000, to great commercial success. In to ...
as some of the band's very eclectic stock of influences.
Bassist Jeremy Pritchard has said the band's intention is "to avoid cliche, or the cliches expected of white men with guitars from Manchester" and sums up their sound as "highly stylised and deracinated – we're influenced by everything except 12-bar blues."
He's also commented "There are no genres I can think of that we haven’t learnt something from. We all share a huge number of basic passions like Radiohead, but we all come from different areas of popular music:
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
and
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...
; modern US R'n'B, prog and
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
,
post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of experimental rock that emphasizes Texture (music), texture, atmosphere, and non-traditional song structures over conventional rock techniques. Post-rock artists often combine rock instrumentation and rock stylings wit ...
/
punk/
hardcore. And we all love good honest pop. We’re a rock band as far as we're concerned."
He's noted that the band's lyrics are "almost always layered with several meanings, and play with puns, quotes or alliteration a fair amount, but never just for the sake of it."
In an interview with the ''Irish Times'', drummer Michael Spearman said "It sounds quite cheesy, but stuff like Destiny’s Child has proven just as important as The Beatles and Radiohead. I suppose that love of R'n'B comes through in a way. We don't normally say 'we want this song to sound like this or that', we try to be as organic as possible. It's like with The Beatles – they were trying to play the black music of the day, and by doing so, they sort of changed it, it became a different thing. We thought about... trying to get Timbaland in, or something. But we decided against it, because it's a fine line between filtering that music, or just trying to ape it by going to the source of it... We all love
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...
and stuff like that; dance music in general, or just that sort of syncopated music. That's something that connects all of us."
Members
Current members
*
Jonathan Higgs – lead vocals, keyboards,
rhythm guitar
In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...
(2007–present)
* Jeremy Pritchard – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (2007–present)
* Michael Spearman – drums, backing vocals, occasional keyboards (2007–present)
* Alex Robertshaw – lead guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (2009–present)
Former members
*
Alex Niven – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–2009)
Touring musicians
* Peter Sené – keyboards & percussion (2012–present)
Discography
Studio albums
Extended plays
Singles
Notes
Music videos
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Interview with Everything Everythingat God Is in the TV Zine
Interview (2013)at ''
The Quietus
''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics.
Content
''The Quietu ...
''
musosguide.combbc.co.uk*
{{Authority control
2007 establishments in the United Kingdom
English indie rock groups
Rock music groups from Manchester
Geffen Records artists
RCA Victor artists
Musical groups established in 2007
English musical quartets
Cult Records artists