Four Day Hombre

Biography

Simon Wainwright � Vocals and guitar
Rich Huxley � Guitar and vocals
Ed Waring � Keyboards
Jason Miller � Bass
Ash � Drums

"...like Elbow with bigger beards and better dreams" NME

Four Day Hombre was formed in the minds of a couple of Lancaster University students. They recruited some band members, wrote some songs, moved to Leeds, rented a house and over 3 months converted their own cellar into a rehearsal room. All before they actually played a note.

The only way to make a live band great is to play live. A lot. So they hit the road, paying their dues, playing in any grubby venue nationally that would have them. Their first demo was played by Lamacq, their second was playlisted on Radio One. A fleet of offers followed, but that 'perfect' deal never materialised. Does it ever? Well, yes...

Like other Yorkshire bands currently blossoming, Four Day Hombre are resolutely independent. Turning their backs on the London-centric record industry, FDH chose instead to release music on their own terms through their own label, Alamo Music. The unique twist is the label is fan-funded: fans came forward raising the same amount of money as an Indie deal would have given the band but without the usual dreadful, exploitative terms that come with it. Instead, FDH are in the enviable position of owning their own label with a comparable or better release budget to many other indies. A perfect deal, in fact.

Keyboardist Ed picks up the story "For 2 years we tried to play the 'indie band trying to sign to major label game' and it just became harder and harder to do that. We weren't making records, we weren't doing decent sized tours, we weren't doing any promotion, we were just putting all our efforts into trying to please faceless record company bods that we didn't care about down in London in order that we might 'progress to the next level'. We didn't realise at the time but it was actually killing us as a band, I'm not sure that we even wrote a song for the last year of that.

"About a year ago we suffered a final setback, fell out with our manager and decided 'f*ck it, either we somehow make an album this year or we split up'. We put a mail out to our mailing list and said that we wanted to start a label and needed investors and the offers of money that came in absolutely amazed us. We raised the equivalent of an indie-deal advance. 3 months later we were Directors of Alamo Music Ltd and recording our album in our ideal studio in France (Black Box) with our ideal producer (Dave Odlum). It was absolutely incredible...2 years of inert apathy just blown out of the water in about 10 weeks because we made one simple decision".

"It's been one of the most life affirming experiences of my life," beams singer Simon Wainwright. "To see people literally signing away their life savings because they believe in us. The day we signed all the agreements and we realised we were going to go to France to record the album, it was amazing. We know them as friends now, but they've been coming to gigs for years."

Christened Experiments in Living and partly inspired by the book 'Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939' by Virginia Nicholson, the album is exactly what it is: an exercise in freedom and the right to create something in order to prove that it deserves to exist.

The album contains 10 tracks and represents a range of material written over a three year period. To make it, the band stole themselves away to Black Box Studios in France in early 2005. The studio is on a farm hidden away in the Loire Valley and a secret treasure used by bands like 'The Frames', 'dEUS' and 'The Kills'. Even 'Radiohead' were expressing interest in working there. The recording was a dream-come-true for the band: fantastic food, no distractions, enough Ros� wine to drown a battalion and some of the most beautiful guitars and amps ever seen.

They recorded 14 tracks, of which 10 were chosen - not because they were best, just because they worked together as a whole - as a piece of work. The only stipulation for the content: like all great albums, it MUST fit on one side of a C90 tape. You've got to get your priorities right.

Experiments in Living was produced by the band's first choice, Dave Odlum. Dave has produced albums for The Frames, Gemma Hayes, Mark Geary, Josh Ritter and has also worked with dEUS. He also co-produced the last Gemma Hayes album with Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Wheat, Sparklehorse etc) that made the short list for the Mercury Music Prize in the UK. It was then mastered at Marcussen Mastering in Hollywood California by Louis Teran (Dave Matthews Band, The Futureheads, Pink, Snow Patrol, etc.). The result is set to be a classic.

Four Day Hombre's gorgeous debut single from the album, 1000 Bulbs, was released in November and garnered praise from far and wide. Marsha at XFM made it her record of the week twice over. NME described it as "like Elbow with bigger beards and better dreams". Drowned in Sound said of the band "Four Day Hombre have always been in the hearts of many a DiS reviewer...Lead singer Simon Wainwright has a voice to die for...". It was also the London Evening Standard's online record of the week. Manchester Music beautifully summed it up:

"1000 Bulbs pushes all the right contemporary buttons, but more importantly it's got soul. And that soul is driven by the desire to make good music rather than make money via a collection of simpering anthems. It could well be, that Four Day Hombre are very much, the real deal..."

The song's inspired one-take video was equally well received. It's unique character and warmth has led to nearly 15,000 online views just from the band's website alone. It was playlisted on MTV2, The Amp, E4's Freshly Squeezed and was prominently featured on the T4 website in their "Star's" section. It was also heavily featured on a number of instore TV stations including Topshop, Toni and Guy and Burberry.

Not bad for a tiny independent label's first ever release and living proof that you don't need large label backing to achieve success. And this success is largely because of the guerilla tactics used and the huge support network the band's 5000+ mailing list gives them.

Four Day Hombre are most at home on the road. Their live show is simply breathtaking, taking the audience from intimate quietness to overwhelming, stadium-filling wall of sound. Through autumn 2005, the Leeds 5-piece toured relentlessly nationwide for two and a half months, gathering more and more fans as they went. The tour culminated in a sell-out show at the 500-capacity Leeds City Varieties, a beautiful old theatre recently played by Supergrass, Kathryn Williams and Sigur Ros. Leeds Music Scene described the night - "selling enough tickets to fill the Cockpit four times over... tonight they are in a venue that suits them down to the ground". BBC Online were there to review it: "They are without doubt the best thing to come out of the Leeds music scene for years. Kaiser who?"

Being in a band and helping to run the label has driven some truths home. Keyboardist Ed again:

"I think we've really learnt to have the confidence and belief to just be ourselves as much as possible. People can tell if you're pretending to be something you're not... Similarly, you also have to have the self awareness to realise what you're not doing as well as you could and being able to filter information about that from some of the ridiculous advice you get given.

"As a band, if people are continually criticising your image for instance and telling you that you really need to change it that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to dress like Franz Ferdinand to be successful. However, it might mean that you actually do look rubbish and if you just changed your t-shirt and got a decent hair cut you would probably get a load more casual sex."

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