Features

Favourite Sons - Favourite Sons Podcast

Bill Cummings 26/10/2006

Introducing Favourite Sons who release their debut album 'Down Beside Your Beauty' on October 30th through Atlantic Records/ Vice Recordings. The album was recorded in Brooklyn in January, with acclaimed studio wiz Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, The Fall, The Pogues) handling mixing duties.



"This band exists to talk about the things you go through when you confront the big stuff: love, regret, fear," says Ken Griffin, the singer and principle songwriter of Favourite Sons. "We've all been right to that edge, pushed through it and now we're back to show people the other side, as brutal as it might be." As the creative force behind the influential (and criminally overlooked) '90s art rock band, Rollerskate Skinny (Beggars UK/Sire US), Griffin certainly speaks from experience.



The same can be said for the four other Sons, who cut their teeth with the Philly-based psych-pop group Aspera (Jagjaguwar Records) before relocating to New York in 2004 after parting ways with their singer. Singer-less, but eager to start anew, bassist Matthew Werth and guitarist Justin Tripp tracked down Griffin in the summer of 2004, only to learn that he had spent the last four years crafting a new repertoire of songs.



Following a dark spell and thoughts of quitting music forever, Griffin demoed 14 of these songs in a two-day session in an attempt to capture “a brutal, unsentimental type of songwriting" inspired by the likes of Lou Reed, David Bowie and Nina Simone. At their first practice Griffin was shocked to find the band had already taken his songs and shaped them into the type of "thunderous, plain beauty" he had dreamt of.



Based on the intensity of their earliest performances LA's Gold Standard Laboratories offered to put out a 7” single in early 2005. Shortly thereafter, the Sons were approached by James Oldham head of the UK indie Loog Records to release a four-song single in Europe entitled the Treason EP. With less than ten official shows under their belts, the Sons headed off to Europe to tour in support of Treason. Upon their return, Vice Recordings, who had expressed interest from the earliest demos, stepped forward and offered the band a long-term deal.

Watch an exclusive podcast where the band talk about their new album "Down Beside Your Beauty" here.


Favourite Sons fly into the UK in October to support The Dears on the following dates:
October

Thurs 19 NOTTINGHAM Stealth *

Fri 20 GLASGOW Oran Mor

Sat 21 NEWCASTLE University of Northumbria

Mon 23 MANCHESTER Academy 2

Tues 24 LEEDS Cockpit

Wed 25 BRISTOL Bierkeller

Thurs 26 LONDON Koko

* Favourite Sons Headline Show