There’s something about a band that calls West London home. First the Beatles from Liverpool and now White is in North Ealing. Each has its own place in the history of music, albeit in different musical eras.
White Lies was formed in 2005 by Charles Cave and Jack-Lawrence-Brown. Both good boys came from Pitshanger Village in North Ealing. They played together for the first time in a school talent show. That’s elementary school, not high school, so these two have been together for some time.
Two years later, Harry McVeigh joined in and they began playing local weekend gigs under the name Fear of Flying. This “weekend thing” kept the 3 friends very busy (they were all around 15 years old now) and also earned Fear of Flying a supporting position with three local headliners; The Maccabees, Laura Marlin and Jamie T.
In 2006, Fear of Flying released two double-sided singles on an independent label called Young and Lost Club. One was “Routemaster / Round 3” on August 7 and “Three’s a Crowd / Forget-Me-Nots” on December 6 of the same year.
On August 10, 2007, Fear of Flying appeared at the Juvenile Festival in England’s Victoria Park.
After that show, all the band members were scheduled to start college, so they took a year off during which they explored a new, darker, and more mature sound. Bassist Charles Cave says, “I felt like I couldn’t write about anything personal, so I would make up semi-comic stories that weren’t really important to anyone, not even me.”
That year, in October, Fear of Flying suddenly disbanded. The band’s MySpace page boldly announced that “Fear of flying is DEAD … White Lies is alive!” The name change was primarily to address the increased maturity of the members both as individuals and as musicians. The new sound and lyrics were of a much sharper and sharper clarity.
During a radio interview, Jack Brown said: “We thought we should interpret these songs as a different band. We had songs that we felt were not suitable for the band we were in and we thought that White Lies would be the perfect vehicle for the songs.” . I think this puts the name change in pretty good perspective.
His first live gig as White Lies turned out to be the most fruitful, in fact, with several A&R Records executives in attendance. The band was inundated with record deals and eventually signed with Fiction Records.
The next nearly two years were an utter confusion of live shows, television appearances, and marathon practice sessions. Numerous festivals were the order of the day, culminating in White Lies’ first headlining tour at 13 UK venues throughout 2008.
Their debut album, To Lose My Life, was released in the UK in January 2009 and made White Lies the first British band to land a number one album in 2009. In March 2009 the album was released in the US. . One single, Farewell to the Fairground, featured a “B” side cover of Kanye West’s Love Lockdown.
The band continues to actively tour and is said to have a style that is “quite indie danceable”. Among the many obvious influences are the Talking Heads, Editors, Tears for Fears, and The Killers. Another album, Death 2×7, is scheduled for a UK release in December 2009. The next US release is greatly anticipated.
