Five years of Bombay Bicycle Club

Bombay Bicycle Club recently took to their Twitter to announce it had been five years since the release of their debut album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose. Where has the time gone!?

Here at Janes we are massive fans of BBC and after watching their fantastic performance at this years Glastonbury Festival, we decided to look back to where it all began…

Jack Steadman (lead vocals, guitar, piano) Jamie MacColl (guitar) and Suren de Saram (drums) met at the age of 15, and regularly played together in school assemblies under the name The Canals. It wasn’t until 2006 when Ed Nash (bass) joined the band and the boys decided to ditch all other band names and become Bombay Bicycle Club.

Their big break came in 2006 when they won “The Road to V” competition hosted by Channel 4 and were subsequently given the opportunity to play the opening slot at V Festival. The band began to receive attention not only from fans, but from the music industry too. In 2007 NME published an article stating BBC were “the hottest band to come from North London in quite some time” and within the same year they released two EP’s: The Boy I Used To Be and How We Are.

Following the success of the EP’s, BBC released their debut album: I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose on 3rd July 2009, with memorable singles such as Evening/Morning and the fan favourite Always Like This. A year later, their second album Flaws was released, debuting on the UK albums chart at number 8. The title track Flaws featured backing vocals from the wonderful Lucy Rose, who also went onto provide vocals for a few singles on BBC’s more recent albums.

Bombay Bicycle Club’s third album, A Different Kind Of Fix saw the band return to their electric guitars following the acoustic recordings that dominated Flaws. Around this time, they also won Best New Band at the 2010 NME Awards against nominees such as: La Roux, The xx and Mumford and Sons.

After a short break, Bombay Bicycle Club returned to the music scene in November 2013 when they aired the first single, Carry Me, off their latest album So Long, See You Tomorrow on BBC Radio 1. The sound was a lot different to what we had experienced before from the band, Jack Steadman said the alternative musical style was influenced by his recent travels to Holland, Turkey and India. Since the album launch, BBC have released three more singles: It’s Alright Now, Luna featuring beautiful female vocals from Rae Morris and most recently Come To.

Five years, two EP’s, four albums and a whole host of ridiculously catchy songs, we cannot wait to see what the next Bombay Bicycle Club album has to offer. But, for now, why not check out the video for their latest single, Come To:

Are you a Bombay Bicycle Club fan? Let us know! @tweetjanes